12 March 2021
We are pleased to announce that Ms. Sondes Turki, a doctoral candidate at the School of Industrial Relations of the Université de Montréal and a student member of CRIMT, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled: L’autonomie décisionnelle des gestionnaires des filiales des entreprises multinationales et ses déterminants multinives niveaux.
Congratulations on behalf of the centre’s coresearchers and student members.
Summary of the thesis
This thesis investigates the multilevel determinants of managers’ decision-making autonomy in the HR policies and practices of subsidiaries of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Based on different theoretical approaches, managers’ decision-making autonomy is studied as a concept embedded in a particular institutional structure, dependent on organizational resources and negotiated by individual actors according to their identities. The methodological approach is qualitative. The data collected consist of 40 semi-structured interviews with MNE managers, mainly responsible for the HR function, and hundreds of internal documents, organizational reports and press reviews. The results of our study show that the concept of autonomy is multifaceted, dynamic, and varies across MNEs, HR policies, and managers. National institutions and organizational structures are necessary, but not sufficient, determinants of managers’ decision-making autonomy. The identities of these managers such as gender identity, professional identity, organizational identification, and country of origin contribute to a better understanding of autonomy. This confirms that individual actors still have room to maneuver, even in the most centralized structures.
