Abstract: Effective knowledge transfer within organization is an important concern in multiunit and multinational firms. In what ways does the structure of a subunit vary to facilitate effective knowledge transfer? Based on information possessing theory, we propose in this paper that subunit structure is partly a response to information possessing requirement for specific knowledge role. A new framework is developed to explain the alignment between subunit structure and knowledge role. We test this framework with a case study of eight subunits of a Chinese multiunit firm. Results reveal that subunits adopt different structures to fulfil their specific knowledge role requirements. We also attempt to explain some unexpected findings by specifying the situations when knowledge role is less important as a structural contingency. Finally, we discuss how this study contributes to research on knowledge transfer, organizational design, and Chinese management.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the typical Japanese international management approaches towards their subsidiaries in China, based on a sample of 102 Japanese subsidiaries in the non-manufacturing industries. The major findings are as follows. First, from the headquarters’ standpoint, expatriating more Japanese managers to the subsidiaries, more career-related incentive towards them and closer personal-based communications with them are positively related to the subsidiaries’ performance achievements. Second, trust relationship with Chinese managers/employees has been confirmed to be a very significant factor to subsidiaries performance achievements in China.

Abstract: This research advances absorptive capacity studies by examining how firms manage organization forms to improve corporate absorptive capacity. I investigated 40 Chinese household appliance companies in the last two decades and interviewed 50 field experts. Results show that successful companies temporally project feedback-looped resources into its contexts to get access to various knowledge along time; they made the temporally projected contextual feedback-looped resources crossly enriched to root themselves into their contexts over time; and they set contextual and temporal embeddedness as the goal of corporate development to guide their organizations’ transformation. Ceteris paribus, these three interdependent forces jointly determine a firm’s absorptive capacity.