The Multinational Corporation In China - Controlling Interests

The Multinational Corporation in China: Controlling Interests addresses the question of how multinational corporations control and coordinate their worldwide affiliates, with a fascinating inside story on contemporary China.

• Focuses on dynamic management control processes by four large US multinational corporations of their China operations.
  
• Based on the author’s own research, including personal interviews with senior managers, and discussions with consultants, lawyers, and government officials.
  
• Reviews internal as well as publicly available company documents, and books, newspapers and periodicals dealing with relevant industries and with China.
  
• Enables readers to understand how multinational corporations are managed.
  
• Facilitates the development of a coherent theory of management control.

Before becoming an academic, Stephen Rudman spent 20 years in business, as Vice President of a publicly-quoted manufacturer, general counsel for the motor carrier subsidiary of a major US railroad, international tax attorney for a major multinational bank, and senior counsel for a major international container shipping company. He has lectured at the Haas School of Business, the University of California at Berkeley and is currently Assistant Professor in the International Business Department at San Francisco State University.

Acknowledgments.

INTRODUCTION.

Part I: Theory and Context.

1 Control and Coordination within Multinational Corporations: The undeveloped state of theory.

2 Multinational Corporations in China: The institutional context.

Part II: The Cases.

3 “According to Plan”: Control and coordination through the discipline of planning in an American multinational corporation in China.

4 “Control and Coordination through Goals”: The role of a paramount corporate goal in managing an American multinational corporation in China.

5 “Global Replication”: Coordination through the discipline of replication of organizational processes in an American multinational corporation in China.

6 “The Genetics of an Operating System”: Control and coordination through the transmission of shared management processes in an American multinational corporation in China.

Part III: Comparison and Analysis across the Cases.

7 Cross-Case Comparison Summary.

8 Setting Goals, Selecting Strategies, and Adopting Organizational Forms.

9 Controlling and Coordinating People: Human resources management policies and practices.

10 Control and Coordination of Money and Factories: Finance and manufacturing.

11 Control and Coordination of Responses to China’s Institutional Environments.

Conclusion: Informing the Theory and Practice of Control and Coordination in the Multinational Corporation.

Notes.

References.

Index.