Intra-organizational collaboration between Minnesota corporations and their subsidiaries in Mexico

This project was designed to measure the value of intra-organizational trust and knowledge sharing to corporations with headquarters in Minnesota and subsidiaries in Mexico. The purpose of the project was to determine if trust and knowledge sharing have an impact on productive collaboration in a multinational firm and what role intra-organizational collaboration plays in the firm's strategy of comparative advantage.Based on information that emerged from the international business and management literature, a survey was developed that asked Minnesota firms with subsidiaries in Mexico to respond to two issues: (1) Do transnational corporations employ strategies to encourage trust and knowledge sharing from their subsidiaries? and (2) Have those strategies resulted in productive intra-organizational collaboration? Results from this project cannot be generalized due to the low response, but executives from firms who did respond offered a number of instructive comments in their answers. They offered their opinions regarding preferences for intra-organizational communication channels, suggested specific advantages to working with the Mexican labor force and emphasized the importance of developing a reliable and time-tested approach to global investment.