While most research in the international business field focuses on the impact of the national institutional environment on multinational enterprises (MNEs), this paper explores the opposite relationship—the role and impact of MNE subsidiaries on the host country institutional environment. I analyze the subsidiaries' agency in the transfer activities of human resource management (HRM) practices by bringing the case of IKEA subsidiaries in Korea and Japan and find that these subsidiaries not only adapted to pressures arising from an institutional distance but also played an important role in influencing the institutional arrangement for employment system of their host countries. With a contextualized agency model, this study finds that institutional and organizational contexts that these subsidiaries are embedded in shaped their agencies and strategic responses and co-evolved with their host institutional environments while transferring HRM practices. These findings have implications for the IB and IHRM field, as they highlight the potential of MNE subsidiaries as agents.

尽管国际商务领域的大多数研究都集中在国家机构环境对跨国企业（MNEs）的影响上，但本文探索了相反的关系-跨国公司子公司在东道国机构环境中的作用和影响。通过以韩国和日本的宜家子公司为例，我分析了子公司在人力资源管理（HRM）实践的转移活动中的代理，发现这些子公司不仅适应了机构距离带来的压力，而且还发挥了重要作用影响其东道国就业制度的体制安排。借助情境化的代理模型，这项研究发现，这些子公司所嵌入的制度和组织环境塑造了他们的代理机构和战略对策，并在转移人力资源管理实践的同时与其所在的制度环境共同发展。这些发现突出了跨国公司子公司作为代理商的潜力，对IB和IHRM领域具有重要意义。