Politics and Power in the Multinational Corporation

Christoph Dorrenbacher is Professor of Organizational Design and Behaviour in International Business at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin. Mike Geppert is Professor of Comparative International Management and Organization Studies and Director of the Research Centre for Comparative Studies on Organizational Learning in International Settings (COLIS) at the University of Surrey, Guildford.

• List of figures; List of tables; Foreword Ram Mudambi; Part I. Introduction: 1. Politics and power in the multinational corporation: an introduction Mike Geppert and Christoph Dörrenbächer; Part II. Politics and Power in MNCs: Institutions, Social Embeddedness and Knowledge: 2. Resource dependence and construction, and macro and micro politics in transnational enterprises and alliances: the case of jet engine manufacturers in Germany Arndt Sorge and Katja Rothe; 3. Bargained globalisation: employment relations providing robust 'tool kits' for socio-political strategizing in MNCs in Germany Karen Williams and Mike Geppert; 4. Bridging roles, social skill and embedded knowing in multinational organisations Mark Fenton-O'Creevy, Paul Gooderham, Jean-Luc Cerdin and Rune Rønning; Part III. Politics and Power in MNCs: Headquarters-Subsidiary Relations: 5. Conflict in headquarters-subsidiary relations: a critical literature review and new directions Susanne Blazejewski and Florian Becker-Ritterspach; 6. Intra-organizational turbulences in multinational corporations Andreas Schotter and Paul W. Beamish; 7. Conflicts in headquarters-subsidiary relationships: headquarters-driven charter losses in foreign subsidiaries Christoph Dörrenbächer and Jens Gammelgaard; 8. Headquarters-subsidiary relationships from a social psychological perspective: how perception gaps concerning the subsidiary's role may lead to conflict Stefan Schmid and Andrea Daniel; Part IV. Politics and Power in MNCs: Role of National Identities and Identity Work: 9. Subsidiary manager socio-political interaction: the impact of host country culture Christopher Williams; 10. Unequal power relations, identity discourse, and cultural distinction drawing in MNCs Sierk Ybema and Hyunghae Byun; 11. National identities in times of organizational globalization: a case study of Russian managers in two Finnish-Russian organizations Alexei Koveshnikov; 12. Contesting social space in the Balkan region: the social dimensions of a 'Red' joint venture Mairi Maclean and Graham Hollinshead; Part V. Conclusions: 13. Reflections on the macro-politics of micro-politics Glenn Morgan; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'This collection of original research-based contributions takes our understanding way beyond that previously offered by mainstream studies of power and politics in the multinational corporation. It provides new insights into political dynamics within multinationals and how these are informed by the socio-cultural identities of key actors as well as conditioned by local institutional and cultural factors. From reading this book we can appreciate how apparently mighty and monolithic corporations often lack the cohesion and rationality they like to portray.' John Child, Emeritus Chair of Commerce, University of Birmingham