Subsidiary Hybridization — Conceptual and Methodological Tools

The unit of analysis of this research project is the production systems of four automobile subsidiaries in India. The core goal is to identify, compare and explain the hybridization profiles of their production systems. Instead of identifying the hybridization profiles by asking if predefined aspects of a production template or model (e.g. the Japanese) were successfully applied or adapted (e.g. Abo et al., 1994), this project turns the identification of hybridization profiles upside down by asking about the contextual origins of the organizational configuration on functionally predefined dimensions of a production system. In such an approach transfers and adaptations are still relevant for the identification of the profile. However, this approach allows seeing hybridization profiles also as a result of more or less deliberate non-transfer. If, for example, a certain dimension of a production system is not targeted by transfer, it may either be locally constituted or neither locally nor foreign constituted. This perspective stresses the possibility that firms do not always undertake the transfer of clearly defined production templates. Instead, they may be very selective with regard to what they transfer, depending on particular strategic choices and strategic and institutional contexts of their subsidiaries. The advantage of this approach is that instead of defining some abstract transfer model in advance that may or may not exist, a more open approach is taken. This involves defining functionally the core dimensions of a production system and identifying what contextual origin the different dimensions reflect.