| The recent internationalization of R&D in Japanese MNCs induces an ethnocentricity breakdown process during which what has been taken for granted in an ethnocentric MNC is no longer shared among heterogeneous parties. Such a crisis of taken-for-grantedness is reinforced by the changing nature of the headquarters-subsidiary relationship in which local R&D labs go beyond merely carrying out instructions to become true contributors in knowledge creation: this entails a reversal in knowledge flow from the center-out direction to the periphery-in direction. Tension arises between the headquarters and subsidiary, especially in issues of information-sharing, i.e. the failure to provide insights about each other's organizational context. Sources of such tension in knowledge sharing--inertia, defensiveness, and knowledge conversion loss--will be analyzed in the context of this ethnocentricity breakdown. Various types of linkage mechanisms--output versus process linkage, broker linkage versus socialization linkage--will be analyzed and contrasted, to show how these can be used as managerial means to overcome such barriers to the transfer of contextual knowledge between the headquarters and subsidiary. Criteria for selecting them according to various contingencies are developed. A more systematic managerial theory of international knowledge linkage will be called for. |
