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Despite studies exploring factors affecting knowledge acquisition from multinational enterprises in subsidiaries, what accounts for a successful acquisition is unresolved. We argue that such disparity may stem from inattention to investment motivations of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in foreign markets and to the fact that learning patterns of subsidiaries can be influenced by foreign firms' market‐seeking or efficiency‐seeking behaviors. We find that absorptive capacity in learning organizations and daily interactions with knowledge possessors are essential to learning from parent firms. In addition, active support from parent firms is particularly crucial for subsidiaries seeking to improve operational efficiency of MNEs. We also suggest that potential absorptive capacity plays a catalyst role in initiating knowledge acquisition, particularly in cases where MNEs have market‐seeking motivations. Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to empirically analyze the extent of the impact stakeholders' pressure has as a determinant of multinational enterprises' MNEs' local environmentally responsible management (ERM), aiming to contribute to the interlocution with stakeholders and ERM strategy establishment of MNE subsidiaries. Design/methodology/approach – To identify key stakeholders, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis was used. The data were collected from 300 foreign subsidiaries established by Korean MNEs from August to December 2012. Findings – The results show the parent company (as a major internal stakeholder) and government, NGOs and media (as external stakeholders) are major factors that promote ERM by subsidiaries. Stakeholder theory provides a comprehensive understanding about stakeholders' pressure as a force to engage overseas subsidiaries with environmental responsibility. Originality/value – The research contributes to environmental and international business literature by investigating antecedents of ERM of overseas subsidiaries. A stakeholder perspective is used as an overarching theory in order to develop an ERM framework.

In this article, we attempt to identify key factors affecting local corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices by overseas subsidiaries of Korean multinational enterprises (MNEs) according to stakeholder theory. In this article, internal managers and the parent company (i.e., MNE) are considered as internal stakeholders in an organization; customers, government, local community, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and media are significant external stakeholders, as actors on the local society level. We test the relationship between local CSR practices and stakeholders by using multiple regression analysis (ordinary least squares [OLS] method). According to the results, parent company, government, and NGOs are verified as major factors that promote local CSR of subsidiaries, while the roles of internal managers, customers, local community, and media are not considered significant factors. Our research contributes to research flows regarding CSR and stakeholder theory and provides several practical implications for multinational enterprises.