The interactions of a Chinese MNE with local institutions in sub-Sahara Africa and the implications for workforce management in the subsidiary

ABSTRACT The unique nature of China’s interactions with Africa has been professed to respond better to the continent’s developmental and labor needs than the colonial and post-colonial engagements with Western countries. This has also been an impetus to the calls for more research on the implications for the institutional environments and management approaches of Chinese companies in Africa. This paper examines how a Chinese state-owned MNE interacted with the evolving and complex institutional context in Cameroon to manage its workforce. Evidence from the case study showed that the Chinese MNE actively disrupted the “rules of the game” as it championed the adoption of local work and employment practices and promoted newly-defined government priorities. In so doing, the Chinese MNE garnered a reputation of being a good employer and actively engaged in the maintenance and creation of new institutions of the country’s labor market. This research contributes to revealing the linkage between the underpinnings of the Chinese state investment motives and the contextual exigencies that shape, and in turn are influenced by, HRM policies and practices within their MNEs in Africa.