Thesis
Managing marketing practices in asymmetrical institutional duality : evidence from British and Chinese MNC subsidiaries
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2008
- Thesis identifier
- T12047
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- This dissertation refines a newly developed concept in the literature of institutional theory, institutional duality, focusing on its primary assumption - institutional distance and its essence of conflict. In so doing, it aims to better understand the interaction between MNC subsidiaries and the fragmented contextual environments they face. Specifically, by concentrating on the interaction between subsidiary managers and the socially constructed and symbolic aspects of marketing practices in MNC subsidiaries, the dissertation addresses two theoretical issues concerning organizations facing fragmented environments: (1) faced with multiple institutional templates, why do organizations adopt and institutionalize some of them, and not others? (2) how do organizations cope with the potential conflict between multiple institutional templates? The methodology adopted is chiefly a case study approach, following the logic of modified analytic induction. Throughout the dissertation I use the literature-driven concept, institutional duality and two initial propositions as sensitizers while still remaining open to discovering concepts and propositions not accounted for in the original formulations. Case evidence of marketing practices was gathered from two groups of subsidiaries: three British subsidiaries of Chinese MNCs and four Chinese subsidiaries of British MNCs. The research process included two stages: the first was a pair of initial case studies, one from each group, for exploratory purposes; they were then followed by more focused and explanatory multiple case studies. As a result, the two initial propositions were modified twice in light of the data from the new cases in each stage. Two of the key findings indicate the need for a refinement of the concept of institutional duality to take some mediating factors into account: (1) the findings suggest that different levels of home and host country development is one of the important contingency factors affecting the magnitude of institutional duality faced by MNC subsidiaries; (2) it was also found that MNCs and their subsidiaries are not only affected by institutional duality, they also have a certain level of choice to influence institutional duality.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Simpson, Barbara
- Resource Type
- DOI
- EThOS ID
- uk.bl.ethos.488841
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