Building server capabilities: Trajectories and contextual Implications

Many western companies have moved part of their operations to China in order to take advantage of cheap resources and/or to gain access to a high potential market. Depending on motive, offshore facilities usually start either as “sales-only” of products exported by headquarters or “production-only”, exporting parts and components back to headquarter for sales in the home country. In the course of time, the role of offshore subsidiaries in a company’s operations network tends to change and, with that, the capabilities, of the subsidiaries. Focusing on Danish subsidiaries in China, the objective of this project is to identify and explain trajectories of offshore subsidiary capability development. The domain of inquiry is defined as value chain capabilities. Given the nature of this objective the chief methodology is longitudinal, partly retrospective, partly real-time, case studies.