Today's multinationals are
caught in a dialectical
tension between the desire for a unified strategy at the
executive level (the headquarters) and the social realities within
subsidiaries that might be termed multicultural and which have an urgent need
to cooperate with a larger number of actors than at any other period
(R Sainsaulieu, 1991: p. 258). Caught between local levels of
regulation, between autonomy and centralization, managerial
functions have grown in complexity.
The main area of research for this article, the oil industry,
illustrates particularly well the pressure there is on large companies to
look for wealth where it is found, i.e., underground, in a distant country
of origin, and by making use of a variety of investment
possibilities (mergers, participation, licence and technical agreements, etc.).
We have observed that, after 1970s in most oil
companies, there has been an evolution in the way both
technology and management have been transferred from the headquarters
to subsidiaries. This is due to a variety of factors: greater availability of
long distance travel, quota systems introduced by local administrations
anxious to promote access to managerial posts for their own citizens,
reduced international mobility costs, and a decline in the number of
extended overseas postings for families. Within such firms, the drawing
up of uniform, written budgetary auditing and reporting procedures to
guide the actions of interdependent units at the global level represents only
one aspect of coordination mechanisms. These firms also rely on what
JF Hennart calls "A process of socialization consisting of
strengthening and developing an organizational culture by geographical mobility,
career management and systems of remuneration and recompense"
(JF Hennart, 1993: p. 157). |
