The paper models the MNE as a complex adaptive system and investigates the effects of lateral collaboration on performance at both the MNE and subsidiary level. Applying the NKC and rugged landscapes methodology, computer simulations are conducted to explore the boundary conditions governing lateral collaboration in MNEs. At the MNE level, the results show that the success of lateral collaboration across subsidiaries is related to the level of within-subsidiaries collaboration, which is a measure of internal complexity. More specifically, increasing the level of lateral collaboration above the level of internal complexity results in inferior performance and hence internal complexity represents an upper limit on productive lateral collaboration. At the subsidiary level, the results indicate that flatter structures generally outperform hierarchical ones. They also point to the advantage of concentrating the responsibilities for lateral collaboration within the subsidiary in the hands of one or few boundary spanners.

本文将跨国公司建模为一个复杂的自适应系统，并研究横向合作对跨国公司和子公司层面的绩效的影响。应用 NKC 和崎岖景观方法，进行计算机模拟以探索管理跨国公司横向合作的边界条件。在跨国公司层面，结果表明，跨子公司横向协作的成功与子公司内部协作的水平有关，这是衡量内部复杂性的指标。更具体地说，将横向协作的级别提高到内部复杂性的级别以上会导致性能下降，因此内部复杂性代表了高效横向协作的上限。在子公司层面，结果表明，扁平结构通常优于分层结构。他们还指出了将子公司内部横向协作的职责集中在一个或几个边界扳手手中的优势。