A Nurturing HQ Is Good for the MNC

Abstract

Good parenting, nurturing, training and close networking within the organization by the headquarters are very vital for the overall MNC. An MNC’s HQ must pursue better nurturing and fostering developmental and networking approaches in its relationships with its foreign subsidiary units. A well supported and nurtured constellation of foreign subsidiaries will perform more cooperatively and harmoniously within the framework of the overall MNC organization. In turn, these approaches will generate more effective strategies for competitive performance because of the improved cross-fertilization of ideas. This is for younger and mature organizations because of the inherent hierarchical difference between the HQ and the foreign subsidiaries. The HQ must pursue a spirit of collaboration and partnership that would generate a feeling of near equality among the partners. HQ may give the final assent even so, only after good deliberations and factual and rational analyses. Good nurturing and close communications would likely align the values and views of the many disparate foreign units, given the diverse environments of operations. Learning in an MNC organization, which has these collaborative, closer internal and stakeholder networking, communicative attributes, is multi-directional: HQ learns as much from the foreign subsidiary units as the units learns from the HQ. Closer internal and external stakeholder networking in an MNC and good parenting and nurturing involve good, continuous expatriate training. These activities result in better organizational effectiveness and competitiveness.