A Political Economy Approach to Global Mobility in Crisis: Insights from Chinese Multinational Corporations

Managing the global workforce is crucial to the ability of multinational corporations (MNC) to operate internationally. Although research on the nature, causes, and consequences of global mobility has expanded following the COVID-19 pandemic, it has primarily evolved within an individualistic framework that tends to separate personal motives from broader social and political institutions. Drawing on an in-depth case study of a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) during the pandemic, we explore the underexamined issue of collective workforce deployment in emerging market SOEs. We analyze the role of a type of national institution — political party ideology — in shaping the SOE’s capacity to develop and adapt deployment practices. Specifically, the communist party served three functions in times of crisis: a managerial function in coordinating and adapting workforce deployment; a governmental function in providing reassurance as proxy of the state; and a voice function in leading trade union to foster teamwork and workforce unity. By exploring the ideological influences of a political party in a non-Western context, we expand theories of global mobility through a political economy approach that reflect the pertinent differences between MNC headquarter countries. In doing so, we suggest that international mobility needs to be understood as a global activity shaped by distinctive national institutions.