IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intman/v15y2009i1p77-91.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding managers' preferences for internal markets versus business planning: A comparative study of German and U.S. managers

Author

Listed:
  • Egelhoff, William
  • Frese, Erich

Abstract

Internal markets and centralized business planning are alternative organizational designs for coordinating the economic activities within a firm. While some preliminary theory about when to use each exists in the literature, little is known about how managers understand and decide when to use one or the other. The study develops and tests in samples of German and U.S. managers a preliminary theory about factors that influence the preferences of managers for internal markets or planning as alternative modes of coordination. Managers' preferences are influenced by key constructs of internal markets and planning theory (the perceived limits of planning, speed and efficiency of markets, motivation potential of markets), but also by differences in their institutional contexts (national government and business context, company culture, and recent company experience with planning and internal markets). The study is the first to explore the substitutability of internal markets and planning within the strategic decision process of managers, closer to where it becomes reality.

Suggested Citation

  • Egelhoff, William & Frese, Erich, 2009. "Understanding managers' preferences for internal markets versus business planning: A comparative study of German and U.S. managers," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 77-91, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intman:v:15:y:2009:i:1:p:77-91
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1075425308001075
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Jerry Ellig, 2001. "Internal markets and the theory of the firm," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4-5), pages 227-237.
    3. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2009. "Can Germany Be Saved?: The Malaise of the World's First Welfare State," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262512602, April.
    4. Mats Forsgren & Ulf Holm & Jan Johanson, 2005. "Managing the Embedded Multinational," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4000.
    5. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    6. V. K. Narayanan & Liam Fahey, 2005. "The Relevance of the Institutional Underpinnings of Porter's Five Forces Framework to Emerging Economies: An Epistemological Analysis," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 207-223, January.
    7. Todd R. Zenger & William S. Hesterly, 1997. "The Disaggregation of Corporations: Selective Intervention, High-Powered Incentives, and Molecular Units," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(3), pages 209-222, June.
    8. Nitin Nohria & Sumantra Ghoshal, 1994. "Differentiated fit and shared values: Alternatives for managing headquarters‐subsidiary relations," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(6), pages 491-502, July.
    9. Parkhe, Arvind, 2003. "Institutional environments, institutional change and international alliances," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 305-316.
    10. M. Bensaou & Michael Coyne & N. Venkatraman, 1999. "Testing metric equivalence in cross‐national strategy research: an empirical test across the United States and Japan," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(7), pages 671-689, July.
    11. Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 1911. "The Principles of Scientific Management," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number taylor1911.
    12. Deepak K. Sinha, 1990. "The contribution of formal planning to decisions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(6), pages 479-492, October.
    13. William G Egelhoff, 1984. "Patterns of Control in U.S., UK and European Multinational Corporations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 15(2), pages 73-83, June.
    14. Robert M. Grant, 2003. "Strategic planning in a turbulent environment: evidence from the oil majors," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 491-517, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oberlaender, Michael & Dobhan, Alexander, 2014. "Behavioral analysis and adaptation of a negotiation based, quantitative planning approach for hybrid organizations," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 31-38.
    2. Dobhan, Alexander & Oberlaender, Michael, 2013. "Hybrid contracting within multi-location networks," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 612-619.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Drogendijk, Rian & Holm, Ulf, 2012. "Cultural distance or cultural positions? Analysing the effect of culture on the HQ–subsidiary relationship," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 383-396.
    2. repec:awi:wpaper:0421 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Williams, Christopher & van Triest, Sander, 2009. "The impact of corporate and national cultures on decentralization in multinational corporations," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 156-167, April.
    4. Jesús de Frutos-Belizón & Fernando Martín-Alcázar & Gonzalo Sánchez-Gardey, 2021. "The research–practice gap in the field of HRM: a qualitative study from the academic side of the gap," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(6), pages 1465-1515, August.
    5. Peng, George Z. & Beamish, Paul W., 2014. "MNC subsidiary size and expatriate control: Resource-dependence and learning perspectives," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 51-62.
    6. Brayden G. King & Teppo Felin & David A. Whetten, 2010. "Perspective---Finding the Organization in Organizational Theory: A Meta-Theory of the Organization as a Social Actor," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 290-305, February.
    7. Paul Knott & Chatchai Thnarudee, 2022. "Strategic planning as inter-unit coordination: An in depth case study in Thailand," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 201-224, March.
    8. Marlo Raveendran & Phanish Puranam & Massimo Warglien, 2016. "Object Salience in the Division of Labor: Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(7), pages 2110-2128, July.
    9. Blomkvist, Katarina & Kappen, Philip & Zander, Ivo, 2017. "Gone are the creatures of yesteryear? On the diffusion of technological capabilities in the ‘modern’ MNC," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 1-16.
    10. Hallin, Christina & Holm, Ulf & Sharma, Dharma Deo, 2011. "Embeddedness of innovation receivers in the multinational corporation: Effects on business performance," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 362-373, June.
    11. John Brehm & Scott Gates, 1994. "When Supervision Fails to Induce Compliance," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 6(3), pages 323-343, July.
    12. Schotter, Andreas & Beamish, Paul W., 2011. "Performance effects of MNC headquarters-subsidiary conflict and the role of boundary spanners: The case of headquarter initiative rejection," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 243-259, September.
    13. C. Chang & Sin-Hui Yen, 2007. "The Effects of Moral Development and Adverse Selection Conditions on Managers’ Project Continuance Decisions: A Study in the Pacific-Rim Region," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 76(3), pages 347-360, December.
    14. Ratto Marisa & Schnedler Wendelin, 2008. "Too Few Cooks Spoil the Broth: Division of Labor and Directed Production," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-19, August.
    15. William G. Egelhoff, 2010. "How the Parent Headquarters Adds Value to an MNC," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 413-431, August.
    16. Ionel Bostan & Aliona Bîrcă & Viorel Țurcanu & Christiana Brigitte Sandu, 2018. "Systemic Approach to Management Control through Determining Factors," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, October.
    17. Abbas Mohammed Hussein & Mohammed Mustafa Ahmed & Mohamed Yahya Mahmoud Khudari, 2021. "The Impact of Strategic Planning in the University’s Competitiveness According to NIAS," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 10, September.
    18. Markus Gmür, 2003. "Co-citation analysis and the search for invisible colleges: A methodological evaluation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(1), pages 27-57, January.
    19. Jose Uribe & Seth Carnahan & John Meluso & Jesse Austin‐Breneman, 2022. "How do managers evaluate individual contributions to team production? A theory and empirical test," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(12), pages 2577-2601, December.
    20. Chi, Wentao & Chen, Yun, 2021. "Employee satisfaction and the cost of corporate borrowing," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    21. Christian Brück & Jonas Ludwig & Anja Schwering, 2018. "The use of value-based management in family firms," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 383-416, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intman:v:15:y:2009:i:1:p:77-91. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/601266/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.