Today's business environment has been fundamentally transformed as a result of the world's recent evolution into the information age, along with the advent of the global economy. Knowledge-intensive firms have proliferated in this new economy and have been observed to employ more proactive and rapid internationalisation strategies than traditional firms. While traditional start-ups generally originate as domestic firms and gradually evolve into multinational enterprises, contemporary start-ups increasingly begin as international firms. This study set out to examine several key dimensions of these emerging high technology international start-ups, conducting a quantitative and qualitative study in the UK and US in order to enhance academic knowledge by addressing crucial gaps in the limited extant literature. The study's primary research objective was to identify firm-specific success factors for small high technology international start-ups, so as to understand what specific founder, organisation, and product and marketing strategy characteristics are correlated with higher relative levels of performance. The study found that the critical success factors were the international commitment of the founders, having an entrepreneurial and goal driven internal organisational behaviour, applying customer-driven product design, having unique and innovative products, engaging in continuous innovation, and targeting similar customer segments world-wide. Another major research objective was to identify factors influencing their distinctive early internationalisation in order to understand why small high technology start-ups are increasingly international in nature at or near inception. The study found that the most influential factors were the international vision of the founder(s), the desire to be an international market leader, the identification of a specific international opportunity and the international and competitive nature of the firm's industry. The findings of this thesis study have important implications for theory, practitioners and policy-makers. These implications are delineated in the thesis along with limitations of the study and suggested areas for future research.

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The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the development of a theoretical model which captures the main firm, sector and location characteristics of multinational firm activity. The knowledge capital model (Markusen and Venables, 1995, 1996) is extended by intra and inter-industry supply linkages to allow multinational firms to be attracted to a country to exploit the agglomeration externalities created by pooling of national or other multinational firms. The main finding through computational general equilibrium (CGE) simulations is that firms show a preference to locate their affiliates in countries with strong supply linkages, as long as the competition among sectors for limited endowments do not increase the factor prices to a level that makes the country disadvantageous. Multinational firms (MNFs) particularly in sectors with high total scale economies, low trade costs and high plant versus firm level scale economies prefer to locate in close proximity to industrial clusters. The propositions obtained from CGE simulations are also tested empirically for manufacturing sector affiliates. The empirical findings provides evidence on the importance of supply linkages in a host economy for attracting MNFs in technology-intensive sectors and that the sub-sectors may vary on the importance they set on finding locations with industrial clusters. In addition to these, the determinants of location decisions of MNFs in Europe and the impact of the European integration policies on multinational production are investigated. The empirical analysis for the potential effects of a regional integration policy reveals that central and peripheral countries may benefit from different aspects of an integration process. Moreover, the intra-region and extra-region foreign direct investment may display different motives for choosing a location for their affiliates. The findings provide support on the hypothesis that intra-EU FDI has become more efficiency seeking, hence, leading to a redistribution of multinational activity within the region.

A substantial amount of prior research has focused on the conflicting demands put on managers in multinational corporations (MNCs) as a result of simultaneous pressures for local responsiveness and global integration. However, despite this research we do not really understand how managers in subsidiaries balance pressures for integration and responsiveness. To address this issue, the research focused on how subsidiary managers interpret and respond to cross-border integration efforts originating from the corporate headquarters when also confronted with substantial pressures for local responsiveness. In relation to extant research, which tends to focus on integration from a macro perspective, this research makes a contribution to knowledge about integration from a micro-strategy and micro-politics perspective by going inside the multinational subsidiary. The empirical material consists of five case studies of mobile operators in China (1), Denmark (2), Romania (1) and Sweden (1). The research uses a constructivist grounded theory approach to understand the causes of local-global tensions at the subsidiary level and how managers respond to integration efforts. Identified causes of tension were perceptions of misfit, lack of procedural justice, weak execution, loss of personal control and cultural misunderstanding. Following from this, the research uncovered factors that led to subsidiary managers following either a rules-based logic of complying with headquarters, or shifting to a task-based logic of practical action to negotiate/challenge, manipulate or ignore headquarters‟ integration efforts. The core thesis in this research is that subsidiary managers‟ perceptions and responses are central to the outcome of corporate integration efforts. Given this, managers at headquarters have critical roles to play as sensegivers and change deployers in order to influence the sensemaking and actions of subsidiary managers.

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Many studies have highlighted that EMNEs are utilizing strategic asset-seeking (SAS) internationalization as a means to upgrade their capabilities and build up their competitive advantages (Lecraw, 1993; Makino et al., 2002; Child and Rodrigues, 2005). However, no research has specifically examined or directly studied how a firm's internal capability, with the particular focus on absorptive capacity, influences the outcome of EMNEs' SAS international activities. The overall aim of this research is to explore how absorptive capacity of EMNEs influences the outcome of their SAS internationalization, specifically focusing on two key dimensions of absorptive capacity, i.e. the ability to identify external assets, and the ability to acquire external assets. Given the exploratory nature of this research, a qualitative multiple case study method was adopted. Altogether, four Chinese MNEs were selected with a total of 10 SAS events conducted by them respectively. We clearly demonstrated the linkages between firms' absorptive capacity and SAS outcomes. We found that the outcome of case companies' SAS events were not effective in terms of gaining substantial assets, rather case companies can gain reputation and other benefits through the events. We found a new element comprising absorptive capacity, i.e. the ability to retain the acquired assets. We argued that it is a precondition for assimilation to happen. We demonstrated how firms' absorptive capacity in the dimensions of identification, acquisition and the new emerged dimension, i.e. retention ability, together influenced their SAS outcomes. We also explored the underpinning factors for each dimension of absorptive capacity. An integrated model was developed. Our study is the first to specifically explore the linkage between absorptive capacity and EMNEs' SAS internationalization. We made several contributions to international business literature on SAS events and literature on absorptive capacity respectively. Specifically, we attempted to gain understanding of why EMNEs' SAS strategies may or may not be fully effective, to enhance our understanding of absorptive capacity issues in emerging country contexts, and to achieve potential conceptual enrichment.

In this thesis, using Taiwanese companies investing in China as the sample, the impact of localisation and R&D intensity on the firm performance of MNE subsidiaries investing in an emerging market are examined. There has been limited previous research for this important topic. In order to strengthen the statistical results, the thesis includes two major models to compare: OLS regression model and binomial logit model. In the empirical part, five explanatory variables: local employment ratio (local worker linkage), local content ratio (local supplier linkage), local capital ratio (local financial linkage), local sales ratio (local sales linkage), and firm’s age will be employed to measure the scope and extent of localisation. The strategic goal and operation type of local-market-seeking FDI are significantly different from that of export-oriented FDI. Thus, I categorise Taiwanese manufacturing industries investing in China into two groups: the local-market-seeking group and the exportoriented group. It is noteworthy that for these two groups, each localisation variable and R&D intensity exert a different impact on subsidiary performance. Besides, the aggregate influence of these five localisation variables on the subsidiary-level performance of local-market-seeking group is larger than that on the subsidiary-level performance of export-oriented group. Therefore, it is suggested that local-market-seeking FDI is more affected by host country local business environment than is export-oriented FDI.

The importance of multinational corporations (MNCs) on a global scale has continued to increase over the past decades. This is evidenced in rapidly rising levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) coupled with high amount of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity. MNCs are likely to have a significant impact on their surroundings, including national governments, suppliers, customers, trade unions and employees. This research focuses on the impact on the latter by investigating post-acquisition transfers of employee participation practices in MNCs. This thesis examines Swedish and UK MNCs and their foreign acquired subsidiaries. Following a review of comparative industrial relations, institutionalism, international business, national business systems (NBS), and M&A literature, the influence of NBS and nine specific company characteristics on MNCs' ability and willingness to transfer employment practices are discussed. The contribution to knowledge is fivefold. Firstly, it extends the understanding of employment practices transfers following cross-border acquisitions. Secondly, it contributes to the global-local debate of how MNCs try to implement global standard employment practices on the one hand and on the other to adapt and conform to local conditions. Thirdly, it provides an insight into MNCs from small and large economies engaging in transfers. Fourthly, it compares acquisition integration approaches from Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian MNCs. Fifthly, it informs about the forces at national and company levels influencing MNCs in their choice of employment practices abroad. Empirically, the research is based on detailed case studies. Case data has been collected from five MNCs - two UK and three Swedish - and their foreign acquired subsidiaries. Interviews have been carried out at corporate and subsidiary levels in the UK and Sweden in the native languages. The research draws some significant conclusions. Firstly, the influence of the NBS on the transfer of employment practices varies according to the type of practice in question. Secondly, it adds another dimension to Bartlett and Ghoshal's (1998) MNC typologies, the brand structured MNC. In this type of MNC, practices are transferred according to brands rather than national patterns. Thirdly, the pattern of transfer supports the argument of a flow of transfers from 'dominant' systems to 'follower' systems both in terms of forward and reverse transfers. Finally, the results reveal that transfers are not only influenced by the NBS but also company characteristics are significant. This is most clearly demonstrated by the post-acquisition integration approach and the 'significance' of the subsidiary.