Organizational leadership practices in MNCs: the effect of the HRs value as a competitive factor and the FDI structure

Abstract The main goal of the paper is to present the research results on the impact that the value ascribed to human resources (HRs) as a strategic competitive factor of a company and the structure of FDI may exert on the advancement level of organizational leadership practices (as one of the HRM subfunctions) in multinational companies (MNCs). The structure of FDI covered: legal form of the foreign entities, type of investment, i.e., brownfield vs. greenfield, and four indices, i.e., internationalization index (II), geographical spread index (GSI), country’s economic development index (EDC), and culture distance index (CDI). The research sample was composed of 200 headquarters of MNCs located in Poland. All in all, three variables seem to have the most visible impact on the activities in the area of organizational leadership development practices, i.e., ownership structure, centralization vs. decentralization practices and cultural distance. Less important, but identifiable influences come from the GS index, EDC index and the smallest one from II index.