Multinational Firms, Labor Market Discrimination, and the Capture of Outsider's Advantage by Exploiting the Social Divide
- 주제(키워드) gender , outsider's advantage , employment relation , strategy , international management
- 주제(기타) Business; Management
- 설명문(일반) [Siegel, Jordan] Univ Michigan, 701 Tappan St,Room 6374, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA; [Pyun, Lynn] Ewha Womans Univ, Int Business, Grad Sch Int Studies, Dept Int Studies, Room 802-2,Int Educ Bldg,52 Ewhayeodae Gil, Seoul 03760, South Korea; [Cheon, B. Y.] Hanshin Univ, Liberal Arts, 4302 Baekseok Bd Insoobong Ro 159, Seoul 01025, South Korea; [Cheon, B. Y.] Hanshin Univ, Publ Policy Inst, 4302 Baekseok Bd Insoobong Ro 159, Seoul 01025, South Korea
- 등재 SSCI, SCOPUS
- 발행기관 SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
- 발행년도 2019
- URI http://www.dcollection.net/handler/ewha/000000160594
- 본문언어 영어
- Published As http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0001839218769634
초록/요약
We theorize that foreign multinationals wield a particularly significant competitive weapon in host markets: as outsiders, they can pinpoint social schisms in host labor markets and exploit them for competitive advantage. Using two data sets from South Korea, we show that multinationals improve profitability and productivity by aggressively hiring an excluded group, women, in the local managerial labor market. We predict and find that foreign multinationals in South Korea are in a unique position to identify social schisms, implement practices designed to support and enhance the hiring and promotion of female managers, hire and promote members of the socially excluded group to positions of managerial leadership, and enjoy a net profitability benefit from doing so despite the real risk of backlash from some regulators, customers, suppliers, and employees from the socially dominant group in society. Many multinationals, even those whose home markets discriminate against women, appear to have recognized the strategic opportunity of what we call the outsider's network advantage. The gradualness of the host market's shift toward a new equilibrium freer of discrimination presented multinationals a multiyear competitive opportunity for outsider's advantage. Our study extends understanding of the multinational enterprise by showing how its competitive opportunities include identifying and exploiting social schisms in a host country's labor market.
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