The Negotiated Subsidiary Culture Of A MNC

The study describes how a Chinese Subsidiary of a US-based MNC initiated attemptsto shape the company from its start-up culture to a more international organization bylaunching a corporate English campaign, and how this process shapes the formationof the dynamic subsidiary culture. This thesis seeks to explore:(1) how is theemerging corporate culture of a Chinese subsidiary of a Multinational Corporationnegotiated between the local employees and the corporate leadership?(2) What effectdoes the evolving subsidiary culture have on the organizational English environmentprogram and vice versa?Methodology of this thesis is an ethnographic participant observation lasting sixmonths from Nov.9th,2010to May9th,2011, combined with a series of qualitativemethods, such as semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, textual analysis ofcompany’s policies and documents. Data of30personal interviews and77questionnaires have been conducted and analyzed.The main findings are the attributes of the subsidiary culture of U-Tech Shanghai is anemergent, ongoing, socially constructed and negotiated process that cannot bedetermined a prior, or strictly follow the will of the expatriate GM who believesorganizational culture is of his own making. The ongoing English environmentprogram helps form artifacts, rituals, beliefs, tacit assumptions and values which arean essential part of the emerging subsidiary culture, but is incompatible with theorganizational English environment program, thus suffered passively resistance fromthe subsidiary employees. From an intercultural perspective, the emergent culture ofU-Tech Shanghai is the product of the interplay between the transplanted culturalelements from HQs interpreted by the GM and the deep seated national values of thelocal employees from the host country.