Bureau Zee

This paper highlights the dynamics between a global project team and two local sites, all taking part in a global change process in the manufacturing division of a multinational company (MNC).
The original research (2004) studied how a Dutch and a US site responded to the opportunity to participate in shaping a global project, one site being co-operative, the other showing signs of resistance. It focused on three questions: What degree of participation was expected by people in various roles and at various levels in each location? What was resisted? What factors impacted different responses to these questions? It showed that different organisations in the mind of the global project team, and each site, accounted for a significant part of the differences in response, as did, to a lesser extent, local site circumstances and patterns of social stratification.
The paper extrapolates some reflections and hypotheses about local-global relations in MNCs, based on the original research and on more recent work with the same organisation. Analysis and reflections will focus on:

• Impact of perceived sources of authority on organisation in the mind – why one site seems to have shifted from seeing itself as a large player identifying with a global network to a victim feeling persecuted by the global leader;
• Role of the site manager as hinge in the system – how the site manager may be the role in which global and local expectations, as well as projections of omnipotence and feelings of powerlessness collide;
• Tension between global and local perceptions of task – is the paradox that effective contribution to a global task may require the acknowledgement of the need for local tasks that can be identified with, not the denial of them;
• Performance anxiety at a global level – are KPIs an effective way of monitoring site performance or do they serve as a defence against the globally experienced anxiety of not being able to influence the local performance that your superiors and shareholders hold you accountable for?

Paper for OPUS Conference, November 2007