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Introduction
Inward investment, or foreign directinvestment (FDI), may be defined as theprocess by which companies based outside aparticular geographic area invest in economicactivities within that area (Christodoulou,1996). The 代写留学生作业expansion of FDI has led todebates surrounding issues such as the degreeof external control and decision making,particularly in terms of the type of controlexerted by parent companies. If control isselective, subsidiaries may appear to havemore independence than they actuallypossess. However, selective controls clearlydelineate the extent of local autonomy. It istherefore important to identify the types ofcontrol mechanisms imposed on subsidiariesby multinational corporations (MNCs).Baliga and Jaeger (1984) argue thatgeographical dispersal should result in thedevolution of power to the managers ofsubsidiaries. The key factor in such a policy isthat of local knowledge which means that thesubsidiary's managers and directors are betterinformed than those situated in a differentgeographical location. However, they alsohighlight the main problem associated withsuch delegation, namely that subsidiaries maybe run for the benefit of the local economyrather than for the benefit of the parent'sshareholders. The types and extent ofdecision making devolved to subsidiaries aretherefore of interest because they willdetermine the impact of the inwardinvestment on the local economy. This isparticularly true given that operationaldecisions are likely to be taken by thesubsidiary, while strategic decisions are likelyto be imposed by the parent company.This paper analyses decision making withinMNC subsidiaries operating in Scotland. Itinvestigates how far Scottish subsidiaries haveautonomy in decisions relating to finance,production, employment and research anddevelopment. It will therefore assess theextent to which selective controls are beingused to reduce the freedom of subsidiaries tomake strategic decisions while, at the sametime, allowing greater operational autonomy.The paper is structured as follows. Next, theliterature relating to the key decisions involvingfinance, production, employment and research
and development will be discussed. Then theresults of a survey will be presented. Finallysome conclusions willbe drawn.
The authorsSally Bowman is a Researcher, James Duncan is aSenior Lecturer in European studies and Charlie Weir is aReader in Economics, all at the Aberdeen Business School,
Aberdeen, UK.
Keywords
Decision making, Multinationals, Subsidiaries
Abstract
The increasing globalisation of markets has generatednew debates about the decision-making role of MNCsubsidiaries. Globalisation may be expected to result ingreater centralisation of the decision-making process. Thisstudy analyses the extent to which subsidiaries are beinggiven control over a range of decisions. A sample of MNCsubsidiaries operating in Scotland was sentquestionnaires which dealt https://www.51lunwen.org/liuxuezuoyedx/with financial, production,
employment and research and development decisionmaking. It was found that considerable authority wasdevolved to subsidiaries in terms of operational decisions.However, strategic decision making remained very muchunder the control of the parent. This indicates that thecontrol systems being imposed on subsidiaries areselective a本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。