Title: The emerging transnational dimension of organisational and individual identity: transnational technical communities as economic actors

Authors: Ravi Madhavan; Akie Iriyama

Addresses: Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, 208 Mervis Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. ' School of Management, University at Buffalo, 326B Jacobs Management Center, Buffalo, NY 14260-4000, USA

Abstract: An important feature of globalisation is the formation of |transnational technical communities|, groups of immigrants active in both home and host country technical networks. Viewed through the lens of identity, such communities demonstrate the intriguing interpenetration of individual identities and organisational identity. Further, building on the insight that such communities may be emerging as economic actors in their own right, we conceptualise them as a new type of knowledge conduit between nations. As such, their emergence has important implications for multinational corporations (MNCs), which have hitherto been viewed as the primary knowledge conduit between nations, suggesting the need for MNC managers to pay attention to the evolving identities of their own enterprises.

Keywords: individual identities; informal organisations; transnational technical communities; multinational corporations; MNCs; globalisation; communities of practice; transnational dimensions; economic actors; immigrants; immigration; home countries; host countries; technical networks; immigrant communities; knowledge conduits; senior managers; Taiwan; USA; United States; India; Hong Kong; China; business environment; organisational identity; dynamic equilibrium.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBE.2011.043650

International Journal of Business Environment, 2011 Vol.4 No.4, pp.378 - 399

Published online: 27 Sep 2014 *

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