Influence of organizational culture on acquisition and use of social capital and importance of social capital for MNEs
https://ilokabenneth.blogspot.com/2014/10/influence-of-organizational-culture-on.html
Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 15-October-2014
Introduction
Over
the past decades, there have been an increased and rapid development in the
field of international human resource management (IHRM) and such development
has been fuelled by the growing importance and scope of the activities of multinational
enterprises MNEs (Keating and Thompson, 2004).
Due to such development, adopting structural solution has become less effective
as a result of increased dynamism in the global environment as well as
dispersion of vital assets (which includes human) across the globe. Thus, IHRM
is presently viewed as a vital tool for successful implementation of MNEs
strategies (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Sparrow et al.,
1994; Taylor et al., 1996; De Cieri and Dowling, 1999).
The importance of social capital for
MNEs
Social
capital has been defined as the summation of actual and potential resources
that are inherent within, made available through, or obtained from the network
of relations that an individual or social unit does possess (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998: 243), and it is the
outcome of a developed social network.
Social
capital is important for MNEs because it is correlated with the creation and
sharing of knowledge within and across the company. Kogut
and Zander (1993) supported this statement by arguing that the ability
of firms to access knowledge through its global network gives them competitive
advantage over local firms. This is because the ability of firms to leverage
their internal knowledge and innovation enables them to take advantage of its worldwide
access to information, learning and creativity as a means of enhancing their
products and overall competitive advantage.
Additionally,
social capital has the ability to support coordination and as such ensures
cooperation of its systems across geographic and cultural boundaries. Research
has made known that the creation and transfer of knowledge across and within
systems does require the ability and willingness of employees to go through
complex organizational task of the whole coordination process as well as
necessary communication needed to ensure efficient use of the knowledge (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Storey
and Quintas, 2001) and social capital makes this easy as people are
willing to share knowledge within their networks in order to engage in
beneficial discussion with their friends.
Consumers and labor are becoming
globalized
From
the above discussion, it becomes clear that the possibility of market (be it
labor or consumer) convergence is possible in the form of globalized or
localized taste and choice. For instance, products like Apple has become a
global taste for innovative and cutting edge technologies -which is why they
end up being sold out even before the products are introduced into the market.
In order to reduce cost of production, Apple also has factories in China, which
are made up of innovative staffs from all over the world and their production
units across the world re controlled by their main unit in the USA.
Communications are maintained through social networks like Facebook, Skye,
Google talk, Twitter, etc. Thus, there is an increased level of globalization
of the Apple workforce. Although their global productions are controlled in the
USA, its Chinese subsidiaries can effect changes in the production systems in
China (such as increasing or decreasing production with subsequent movement of
the market orders). Thus, while the system is globalize in terms of common
goals and principles, it is also localized in terms of market demand and
production process.
Influence of organizational culture on acquisition and use of social capital
When
it comes to MNEs, culture in the organization can basically be grouped into two
as: having a global view point (caring for all markets across the world and
desire to expand with same idea) and having a local view point (focusing on
local markets and not binging in foreign ideas in order to avoid drifting off
from the local culture). A number of studies (Gomez and
Sanchez, 2005a, b; Lengnick-Hall and Lengnick-Hall, 2006) have come out
in strong support that having global view point will influence acquisition and
use of social capital positively. This is because as such companies
internationalize, they want to refer back to areas they did well and enhance on
their in the new market, while avoiding their faults in order to evade the
associated past negative outcome. Thus, such companies are more likely to
acquire high social networks to establishing huge social capital within its
realms as well as make use of such social capital for their increased
advantaged outcomes.
Conclusion
In
conclusion, it is stated that social capital is very important for MNEs because
it helps to establish a network of knowledge as well as enhance sharing of such
knowledge in order to the company to become more susceptible to positive
outcomes. The overall outcome is an increased level of competitive advantage.
In any case, it is important to understand that the development of social
capital is not easy as it requires huge financial and non-financial investment.
Thus, it is recommended mostly for big multinationals that a can afford the
cost.
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