다국적기업 글로벌가치사슬에서 본사-해외자회사 간 지식자원 이전이 해외자회사 CEO 임명에 미치는 영향

This study empirically investigates how the knowledge transfer between multinational corporations (MNCs)’ headquarters (HQs) and its foreign subsidiaries impacts the assignment of subsidiary CEOs. According to resource dependence theory, a power relationship is formed between two firms exchanging resources. This suggests that the direction of resource exchange between a parent company and its subsidiary can influence their power dynamics. Considering that a subsidiary CEO staffing can vary depending on the bargaining power between the parent and subsidiary, this study argues that the direction of knowledge transfer between the parent company and its foreign subsidiary determines their power relationship, thereby influencing the appointment of the subsidiary's CEO. Since the subsidiary CEO is an important moderator of knowledge transfer within MNCs, the study focuses on knowledge resources and analyzes the impact of the direction of knowledge transfer on subsidiary CEO staffing. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effect of subsidiary size, as this can significantly influence the subsidiary's dependence on and autonomy from the parent company. A panel logistic analysis was conducted using 68 wholly-owned Korean subsidiaries of S&P 500 U.S. MNCs from 2000 to 2020. The study finds that a higher level of knowledge transfer from the parent company to the subsidiary decreases the tendency to appoint host country nationals as CEOs of foreign subsidiaries. Conversely, a higher level of knowledge transfer from the foreign subsidiary to the parent company increases the tendency. Additionally, the subsidiary size was found to mitigate the negative impact of knowledge transfer from the parent company on the appointment of local CEOs. These results suggest that the direction of knowledge transfer between the parent company and foreign subsidiaries has differential impacts on the subsidiary CEO staffing. This study contributes to our understanding of the staffing in foreign subsidiaries, including CEO assignment, by highlighting knowledge resource transfer through internal transactions as a determinant of CEO staffing in foreign subsidiaries, which has not been extensively explored previously.