Article Critique

Article Critique

Article Critique

Introduction

The influence of contextual factors on the management of multinational enterprises (MNEs) has been an important issue in the study of International Business. Especially, the cultural, social and political factors play critical roles in MNEs which are from developed countries to developing countries. Aiming on this topic, Graeme R Tonks and Peter J Dowling conducted a case study upon Bougainville Copper Ltd, an Australian mining company operated in Papua New Guinea. (“The case of the Bougainville mine: Success and failure in the management of a multinational corporation.” Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management, vol. 8; pp70-85). This essay focuses on the article in terms of the clarity of ideas, adequacy of literature review, specification of research goals, adequacy of data collection and data analysis, assessment of empirical methods, and the overall contribution of the article to future research in International Management.

Summary (Key Findings and Arguments)

There have been few researches having been done regarding the MNEs involved in less developed countries. Tonks and Dowling filled up the gap by publishing their research article in 2002 about their research on studies of the management of Bougainville Copper Limited that operated in less developed country (In Papua New Guinea).

From the failure in the management of MNE's, the research of Bougainville Copper revealed the important relationship between the company's internal operations and its contextual factors. The research's findings claim that the importance of aligning internal and external environments and are influenced each other in the management of Bougainville Copper. External factors including host countries' legal system, heterogeneity culture, economic situation and political systems. Host society, instead of host country, should be targeted as MNEs' main task on contextual congruency.

The research also states that MNEs have to ensure the alignment of those host countries' characteristics with the MNEs internal factors. For instance, most of MNEs are from developed countries and operating in developing countries, but due to the differences in terms of the cultural values of their people, political systems, social norms, legal system and economy between developed and developing countries, MNEs have to be sensitive and responsive to national social and political characteristics of the host countries, otherwise the alignment becomes increasingly difficult and can lead to a difficult operating environment.

As to the concept of “Host Society”, Tonks and Dowling pointed out the instability of political system, over supply of unskilled workers (scarcity of skilled workers on the other hand), and undeveloped democratic principles are key issues. The management must link the values and expectations of developing countries' social system, enhance its capacity for social responsiveness, and are sensitive to the political and economic climate. They also used Child's (1981) theory about a collaborative and multicultural working environment to emphasis the release of ethnic tension is critically important to MNEs' management. In other words, globalization is localization.

Clarity of Ideas

As recently claimed out by Lichtenberger (2004), the clarity of ideas is an important constituent of a research article. This argument is supported in literature on research writing (Leininger, ...