Context, competencies, and local managerial capacity development: a longitudinal study of HRM implementation at Volvo Ca
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Context, competencies, and local managerial capacity development: a longitudinal study of HRM implementation at Volvo Car China Ramsin Yakob1 Received: 22 August 2018 / Revised: 26 June 2019 / Accepted: 2 July 2019 © Springer Nature Limited 2019
Abstract This study investigates and analyzes qualitatively the effects of HRM implementation on managerial capacity development. Empirically, the study draws on a 4-year longitudinal in-depth qualitative case study of Volvo Car Corporation’s establishment in the Chinese market through its subsidiary Volvo Car China. The findings show that HRM at the case organization followed an implementation trajectory of establishing and building, deploying and broadening, reconfiguring and augmenting, and integrating and deepening. Managerial capacity development by means of ambience, permeability, accretion, and pertinence of competencies and the role of the local capacity context and its influence on local managerial capacity development is discussed. Keywords Human resources · Managerial capacity · Capacity context · Management development · MNC · China
Introduction The contemporary international business literature has paid extensive attention to the ability of multinational corporations (MNCs) and their subsidiaries to generate, disperse, and absorb, inter alia, technological competencies (Ivarsson and Alvstam 2005; Narula and Dunning 2000), knowledge (Minbaeva et al. 2003; Yakob 2018), and routines, practices, and policies (Jensen and Szulanski 2004; Mudambi and Swift 2011). However, with specific regard to managerial capacity, less attention has been given to how this is generated within the MNC and its subsidiaries (Mudambi and Swift 2011; Collings et al. 2009). Managerial capacity (i.e., the valuable competencies of an organization’s managerial resources in terms of knowledge, skills * Ramsin Yakob [email protected] 1
School of Business Economics & Law, University of Gothenburg, Box 610, 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden Vol.:(0123456789)
R. Yakob
and abilities, social behaviors, and attitudes existing at any given point in time) is a key resource for exploring and coordinating resources effectively on a global level (Tseng and Chien 2010; Wright et al. 2001; Mäkelä et al. 2009). This is by virtue of managers’ role in the effective allocation of organizational resources to resolve problems, capitalize on business opportunities, and facilitate growth (Kor et al. 2007). Previous research, largely based on panel data, has established the antecedents and consequences of managerial resource constraints on organizational growth and explored the conditions under which such constraints are likely to prevail. A lack of local managerial capacity in overseas subsidiaries, for instance, constrains growth activities that the subsidiary can plan and execute in any given period of time (Goerzen and Beamish 2007). It can also lead to an inability to manage increasing coordination complexity resulting from increased information-processing demands, the complexity of decision-making, o
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