How Psychological Resistance of Headquarter Engineers Interferes Product Development Task Transfer to Overseas Units

There are very few existing studies that focus on the internal headquarter organization in relation to knowledge transfer or innovation in overseas units. It is almost as if there is an implicit assumption that headquarter members ought to be proactive in transferring knowledge or information to ove...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of Business Administrative Science 2015/08/15, Vol.14(4), pp.171-191
Main Author: KIM, Heejin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automobiles
Case studies
Emerging markets
Engineers
global product development
Innovations
Knowledge
Multinational corporations
Product development
psychological resistance of headquarter engineers
Qualitative research
R&D
Research & development
Studies
Subsidiaries
Suppliers
task transfer
Teams
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Summary:There are very few existing studies that focus on the internal headquarter organization in relation to knowledge transfer or innovation in overseas units. It is almost as if there is an implicit assumption that headquarter members ought to be proactive in transferring knowledge or information to overseas units. Thus, this study investigates the bottlenecks of the process in the transfer of product development tasks to overseas units, with particular focus on the psychological resistance of headquarter engineers. A detailed case study of a Japanese automobile supplier revealed the following problems that were faced by headquarter engineers: lack of motivation to business in emerging markets, perception gaps about original developers, and a high turnover rate of local engineers. Next, how the psychological resistance of headquarter engineers, which originate from these problems either directly or indirectly interferes with the transfer of development tasks, was explained by two paths, that is, decline in motivation toward information sharing and technical advices, and lack of communication channels. To promote the overseas expansion of development tasks, which is necessary for emerging market strategies, it will be critical to manage the causes and effects of the psychological resistance of headquarter engineers.
ISSN:1347-4464
1347-4456
DOI:10.7880/abas.14.171