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This article investigates how meso-level actors (MeLAs) contribute to HR practice transfer in diffusion and adaptation processes, drawing on the System-Society-Dominance-Corporate Effects (SSDC) framework to interpret the role of MeLAs in the transfer of the Japanese management model to the Indonesian automotive industry. We focus on two issues: i) the way Japanese MeLAs' training regimes in Japan affect the diffusion of the model and ii) the coordinated Japanese and Indonesian MeLAs strategy in seeking procedural influence through knowledge-sharing and in facilitating transfer activities over how the Japanese model is adapted in Indonesia. Our research adds to our limited understanding of the significance of MeLAs in processes of diffusion-adaptation in emerging market economies characterized by weak regulatory regimes and asymmetric socioeconomic power relations. Drawing on interviews with 75 key informants across Japan and Indonesia, we explore the significance of MeLAs from corporate and labor spheres alongside those of non-corporate MeLAs. Theoretically, this study extends the SSDC framework by highlighting MeLAs' influence in both diffusing conceptions of dominant management 'best practice' (dominance effects) and their role – and that of dominance effects – in shaping societal effects that inform how the model is adapted. We theorize the complex processes through which the effects identified in the SSDC framework are experienced by local actors, showing that they are neither monolithic nor mechanical in nature and thereby elaborating the inter-relationship in how dominance effects inform societal effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While resistance to human resource management (HRM) practice transfers from multinationals has been widely researched in economically advanced countries, emerging economies are generally assumed to be institutionally more welcoming. This article contributes to debates on international HRM diffusion both by highlighting hitherto neglected arenas of host-country resistance and identifying the multiple levels at which this plays out. Specifically, this article examines the transfer of Japanese multinational corporations' HRM practices into Indonesia. The study reveals that alongside apparently consensual micro-level (organization) relations between home- and host-country management, important political power games are occurring at the meso-level (subnational). These games involve competing notions of 'best practice' with host-country actors more powerful than deterministic models of diffusion would predict. The study shows how local actors seek to defend elements of the established Indonesian business system, while Japanese actors bypass host-country regulations by mobilizing corporate business associations. The findings extend current understanding of cross-border management practice transfer, highlighting contestation and negotiation at the meso-level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]