摘要：The local IT managers in foreign subsidiary of multinational operation are unique
in the sense that they face dual conflicts: one is between local IT manager and
headquarters caused by cultural difference existing between headquarters and subsidiaries,
and the other is between the IT manager and local workforces. The objectives of the
study are to identify factors causing the dual conflicts that the local IT manager of
multinational enterprise must manage, and to analyze how the factors work in the
conflicts resolution management in IT usage of workforces in local subsidiary.
Based on literature review, we identified the effects of local IT manager
participation, media, cultural difference, and firms’ strategy on the dual conflicts. We
employed a case study method because we attempt to explore meaningful insights on a
phenomenon which is at an early stage (Hovav and Schuff, 2005).
The study on Company X was carried out in the subsidiary of a United Kingdom
based multinational corporation in South Korea. We employed qualitative data gathering
methods such as participant observation and unstructured interviews over the years 2006-
2007.
From the interview and observation, we found that participation of local IT
manager is strongly affected by headquarters’ strategy. Under the standardized strategy,
active participation of local IT manager would increase the conflict with headquarter
whereas it decreases the conflicts with local end users. Cultural difference increases the
conflict with headquarter and affect the level of adoption of the strategy. However, media
richness has restrictive effect on decreasing conflict with headquarter and cultural
difference.
关键词：Information Technology, Local IT Manager, Cross-Cultural Conflicts,
MNC
