The paper titled How do Subsidiaries Confront Institutional Duality? Identity Claims at Hindustan Lever 1961-2009 by Dr Anirvan Pant and Professor J Ramachandran, won the International Management (IM) Division Fundação Dom Cabral Best Paper in Strategy / IB Theory Award at the Academy of Management 71st Annual Meeting held at San Antonio, USA during August 12-16, 2011. The theme at this year's meeting was West Meets East: Enlightening, Balancing, and Transcending.
The IM Division Fundação Dom Cabral Best Paper in Strategy / IB Theory Award is presented to the best scholarly paper of the IM Division focusing on Strategy / IB Theory at the Academy of Management annual meeting.
Founded in 1936, the Academy of Management is the largest organization in the world devoted to management research and teaching. It has more than 19,000 members in 102 countries, including about 11,000 in the United States. This year's annual meeting saw more than 9,000 scholars and practitioners for sessions on a host of subjects relating to business strategy, corporate organization and investment, the workplace, technology development, and other management-related topics.
ABSTRACT
Paper Title: How Do Subsidiaries Confront Institutional Duality? Identity Claims At Hindustan Lever 1961 - 2009
Authors: Anirvan Pant and J. Ramachandran
The concept of institutional duality informs us that the subsidiary needs to conform, simultaneously, to isomorphic pressures emanating from two distinct institutional environment: the multinational organization and the host country. However, research in international management has yet to examine how the subsidiary management confronts the strategic challenge posed by the condition of institutional duality. Reinterpreting the classic global integration-local responsiveness tension from the subsidiary perspective, we argue that the subsidiary possesses a hybrid identity, i.e., an identity framed by the synthesis of two distinct, often conflicting identities - an MNC identity and a host country identity. Further, we propose that changing subsidiary identity claims reflect the ongoing process whereby the subsidiary responds and adapts to the dynamic balance between multinational organization pressures and home country pressures. Using qualitative procedures, we examine the evolution of identity claims made over a period of nearly half a century by the subsidiary management at Hindustan Lever - the Indian subsidiary of Unilever Inc., one of the world's leading MNCs in the fast moving consumer goods industry. Employing grounded theoretic techniques, we develop a process model that highlights how the coupling of manifest and latent aspects of subsidiary identity provide subsidiary managers the flexibility to respond to the dynamic character of institutional duality. An important implication for practice lies in the revival of the country manager and the possibility of subsidiary identity management becoming central to the role of the country manager.
Key words: institutional duality; subsidiary management; organizational identity, qualitative research.
J. Ramachandran is a Bain Fellow & BOC Professor of Business Policy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. His research focuses on strategic and organizational challenges of emerging economy multinationals, family business groups and firms in cultural & creative Industries. Recognition for his research work include best paper rankings from Academy of Management, USA, Strategic Management Society, USA, awards from the Association of Indian Management Schools, the Central and East European Management Development Association, and the Tata Steel-IIMB award for best case on corporate social responsibility.
Anirvan Pant is a Sasken Research Fellow. His research interests lie at the intersection of international business, organization theory, and the emerging economy context. A Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, his dissertation examined a diverse set of organizational legitimacy and organizational identity challenges pertaining to the internationalization of Indian MNEs and the Indian subsidiaries of foreign MNEs. Anirvan was awarded the Infosys Fellowship for 2006-2009. He has also received the Outstanding Reviewer Award for 2005-2009 from the International Management Division of the Academy of Management and the Best Proposal Runner-Up Award in 2008 from the Strategic Management Society. Articles written by Anirvan have appeared in the Academy of Management Proceedings, Advances in International Management, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management.
The paper titled How do Subsidiaries Confront Institutional Duality? Identity Claims at Hindustan Lever 1961-2009 by Dr Anirvan Pant and Professor J Ramachandran, won the International Management (IM) Division Fundação Dom Cabral Best Paper in Strategy / IB Theory Award at the Academy of Management 71st Annual Meeting held at San Antonio, USA during August 12-16, 2011. The theme at this year's meeting was West Meets East: Enlightening, Balancing, and Transcending.
The IM Division Fundação Dom Cabral Best Paper in Strategy / IB Theory Award is presented to the best scholarly paper of the IM Division focusing on Strategy / IB Theory at the Academy of Management annual meeting.
Founded in 1936, the Academy of Management is the largest organization in the world devoted to management research and teaching. It has more than 19,000 members in 102 countries, including about 11,000 in the United States. This year's annual meeting saw more than 9,000 scholars and practitioners for sessions on a host of subjects relating to business strategy, corporate organization and investment, the workplace, technology development, and other management-related topics.
ABSTRACT
Paper Title: How Do Subsidiaries Confront Institutional Duality? Identity Claims At Hindustan Lever 1961 - 2009
Authors: Anirvan Pant and J. Ramachandran
The concept of institutional duality informs us that the subsidiary needs to conform, simultaneously, to isomorphic pressures emanating from two distinct institutional environment: the multinational organization and the host country. However, research in international management has yet to examine how the subsidiary management confronts the strategic challenge posed by the condition of institutional duality. Reinterpreting the classic global integration-local responsiveness tension from the subsidiary perspective, we argue that the subsidiary possesses a hybrid identity, i.e., an identity framed by the synthesis of two distinct, often conflicting identities - an MNC identity and a host country identity. Further, we propose that changing subsidiary identity claims reflect the ongoing process whereby the subsidiary responds and adapts to the dynamic balance between multinational organization pressures and home country pressures. Using qualitative procedures, we examine the evolution of identity claims made over a period of nearly half a century by the subsidiary management at Hindustan Lever - the Indian subsidiary of Unilever Inc., one of the world's leading MNCs in the fast moving consumer goods industry. Employing grounded theoretic techniques, we develop a process model that highlights how the coupling of manifest and latent aspects of subsidiary identity provide subsidiary managers the flexibility to respond to the dynamic character of institutional duality. An important implication for practice lies in the revival of the country manager and the possibility of subsidiary identity management becoming central to the role of the country manager.
Key words: institutional duality; subsidiary management; organizational identity, qualitative research.
J. Ramachandran is a Bain Fellow & BOC Professor of Business Policy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. His research focuses on strategic and organizational challenges of emerging economy multinationals, family business groups and firms in cultural & creative Industries. Recognition for his research work include best paper rankings from Academy of Management, USA, Strategic Management Society, USA, awards from the Association of Indian Management Schools, the Central and East European Management Development Association, and the Tata Steel-IIMB award for best case on corporate social responsibility.
Anirvan Pant is a Sasken Research Fellow. His research interests lie at the intersection of international business, organization theory, and the emerging economy context. A Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, his dissertation examined a diverse set of organizational legitimacy and organizational identity challenges pertaining to the internationalization of Indian MNEs and the Indian subsidiaries of foreign MNEs. Anirvan was awarded the Infosys Fellowship for 2006-2009. He has also received the Outstanding Reviewer Award for 2005-2009 from the International Management Division of the Academy of Management and the Best Proposal Runner-Up Award in 2008 from the Strategic Management Society. Articles written by Anirvan have appeared in the Academy of Management Proceedings, Advances in International Management, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management.