• International Area Studies Review
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.275-301
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• 2011

This study examines antecedent factors that influence subsidiaries' MNC (multinational corporation) knowledge adoption. I argue that subsidiary local environmental factors(local embeddedness, level of local competition), subsidiary organizational factors(parent investment, subsidiary CEO expatriation, scope of subsidiary value chain), and subsidiary relational factors(subsidiary autonomy, the strength of subsidiary in MNC, social capital) are the important enablers for subsidiaries to adopt knowledge from other MNC units. Especially, I use two data set (knowledge from (1) peer subsidiaries, (2) parent company) to estimate the effect of the factors. The results indicate that subsidiary local embeddedness and scope of subsidiary value chain negatively influence on subsidiary knowledge adoption from peer subsidiaries. Conversely, the strength of subsidiary in MNC and social capital positively influence on that. Subsidiary knowledge adoption from parent company is positively influenced by parent investment and social capital.