國際企業子公司發展階段與管理模式之個案研究

Abstract

本研究以一家立基於台灣的國際企業與其六個海外子公司為系絡，以質性個案研究的方法，探討子公司在發展歷程、任務角色、能力與性質均存在多元差異的情境下，母公司對其海外子公司的管理與協調控制模式的演進，以及這些動態的改變對於子公司的績效影響。藉由這個問題的探討，本論文試圖歸納出建構海外子公司的成功模式，從而提供台灣企業在未來的國際化過程中，一個創新的管理實務建議與參考。 本研究結果發現，個案企業在設立海外子公司之策略，主要著眼於外在環境的競爭與對未來市場的預期與策略雄心，但是這樣的策略願景往往僅存在於特定高階管理階層，而未建構完整的營運計劃與管理組織架構，並忽略將國際化擴張的策略意涵轉換為組織中公開的承諾，使得相關單位置身事外者居多；同時，母公司的管理原則也傾向「單一化」的管理模式，缺乏母子公司間有效率的「多元化」跨國網絡連繫。 個案企業進行國際化活動已近二十年，雖然產品組合的複雜度提高、通路發展漸趨多元化、跨國行銷策略的差異性增加、以及技術支援需求趨向多元，母公司本身卻未能隨之調整內部資源配置與管理模式，因而產生多國管理的困難度，因而影響子公司的績效表現。 基於上述歸納，本研究根據Bartlett與Ghoshal (1989)所提的跨國經營模式理念，提出一個可兼容多國差異需求與跨國整合需求的組織決策邏輯，並據以建議個案公司面對加速變動的國際經營環境，需要因應組織複雜性，建立合宜的決策程序與資訊流通管道，針對不同事業處與不同議題，釐清角色、任務與責任，察知與回應各地變動的環境需求，提升營運效率，以達到整合全世界各據點的在地回應、創新知識與提昇全球效率。

Taking a multinational corporation and her six subsidiaries as empirical context, the present research endeavor to explore how and why the parent firm employed various different coordination and control models to manage her subsidiaries which were heterogeneous in their founding background, role, task, and capability. Undertaking a qualitative approach, this research attempts to further explore how the parent firm’s management approach would affect the performance of different subsidiaries. By identifying factors leading toward subsidiary’s success and failure, we hope to provide normative suggestions to Taiwanese companies who have strategic intent to excel in the global arena. Through a case-base exploration, we found that strategic intent in exploring opportunities in the foreign markets drove the focal firm to aggressively establish overseas subsidiaries. However, such a vision and intent did not get across all levels of management in the organization. Therefore, the implementation of overseas units were by and large opportunistic and non-systematic. Detailed operational plan and organizational supports were lacking. Corporate parent tended to underake simplifed control rules to ease administrative loading. Operational synergies due to possession of a diverfieid resource network was failed to be created. With almost twenty years of international development, the focal firm did not come up with an effective model to resolve the conflicts due to increasing product complexity, channel diversity, marketing strategy difference, and heterogeneous needs of technical supports, which situations in turn lead to poor subsidiary performance. Based on the insights suggested by Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989), I propose a framework of decision considerations for the focal firm which is able to encompass the need for differential local responsiveness and that for global integration. Implications and strategy suggestions based on this framework to the focal firm and practitioners are also discussed.