DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN THE MNC

Multinational corporations (MNCs) face increasingly complex challenges in today's global competition. The MNC could earlier develop new products and processes at its headquarters and then replicate them in its foreign subsidiaries. However, in the dynamic competitive environments this is no longer tenable. Innovations for e.g. new products or management processes are created in all parts of the MNC, not only at the headquarters. The question is how this organizational competence is developed and managed in a way that benefits the whole corporation. This research project concentrates on how organizational competence is developed in the foreign subsidiary of the MNC and how that competence can be integrated into the rest of the MNC. In particular, the emphasis is on those subsidiaries that have developed distinctive competencies and are engaged in transferring their competence to other units within the MNC. These units have been referred to as Centers of Excellence.