Career development of host country national managers in the overseas subsidiaries of Japanese firms

本研究的目的是调查日本企业海外子公司的东道国经理人的个人网络的职业发展，并利用本研究的结果和启示，制定更有效的管理培训计划。虽然母国国民的外派成本很高，而且并不总是成功的，但日本经理人在回国后，可以改变母公司的企业文化或战略（Saito，2008 a）。对于公司高管来说，国际经验被认为是进入高层管理的门票。另一方面，由于子公司与姊妹公司之间的内部竞争日益激烈（Takahashi，Takenouchi，& Saito，2007），为了适应当地环境，必须创造知识（Takenouchi，2008 b），因此当地经理的职业发展成为经理人和企业的重要课题（Yamada，2008）。首先，正如先前的研究表明，虽然职业发展或转型带来的工作经验是真正的个人，在工作场所与其他成员的关系对这些经验的看法有影响。也就是说，个人的网络可以将一些经验转化为“发展经验”。第二，在东道国招聘的日本员工可以在当地管理者和日本侨民之间发挥桥梁作用，作为“知识Transformer”。

The purpose of this research project is to investigate into career development of host country national managers in overseas subsidiaries of Japanese firm in terms of their personal network, and to utilize findings and implications from this research to develop more effective management training program.Although expatriation of home country national is costly and is not always successful, Japanese managers, after repatriation, can make change to corporate culture or strategies of the parent companies (Saito, 2008a). For the corporate executives, international experiences have been considered a ticket to top management. Meanwhile, because a subsidiary is increasingly facing internal competition with sister subsidiaries (Takahashi, Takenouchi, & Saito, 2007) and so have to create knowledge in order to adapt to local environment (Takenouchi, 2008b), career development of local managers becomes important issue for both managers themselves and firms (Yamada, 2008).We have the two followings findings. First, as prior researches have suggested, though career development or transformation brought about through job experiences is truly personal, relationships with other members in the workplace have impact on perception of those experiences. Namely individuals' networks can turn some experiences into "developmental experiences". Second, Japanese stuff recruited in the host country may play bridging roles between local managers and Japanese expatriates, as "knowledge transformer".