Technology Sourcing of Subsidiaries: Differentiation and Dynamics

Abstract

A central theme of analysis and empirical investigation of this book is that, even for a country such as China which is able to initiate an industrialisation process from a starting point with considerable quantities of level-two resources, it is access to technology and the processes of technological change that will quickly become central to sustainable growth and the deepening of its sources of competitiveness and development. We have then suggested that MNE subsidiaries have an innate capacity for evolutionary dynamism that can allow them to become significantly embedded elements in the sustainability of host-country development. This is predicated on subsidiaries’ abilities to refocus their operations within the changing needs and capacities of the host country, and to do so in ways that are potentially perceived positively in terms of differentiating their status in their parent company’s wider global networks. Central to this, we argue in this chapter, is an evolutionary restructuring and individualising of the technologies accessed, generated and operationalised by subsidiaries.