The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and provide a deeper understanding of how the national culture of China affects the use of formal and informal management control systems of Swedish firms, operating in China. In order to conduct this research, relevant theories concerning internationalization, culture and management control systems were gathered and analyzed in relation to each other. This resulted in a conceptual framework, which illustrates the interrelationships between the concepts. Thereafter, this was used as the ground to which the empirical findings were analyzed and compared to. The analysis chapter involves a discussion of the similarities and dissimilarities between theory and empirical data, which leads to the conclusions of this study. This is lastly followed by theoretical implications, practical implications and recommendations, limitations and suggestions for further research.   The study has been conducted with a qualitative research method, in order to obtain a deeper understanding of how national culture can affect the use of  management control systems of Swedish firms in China. Further, due to the unexplored and limited research area of this complex subject, the study followed an abductive approach.   The findings of this research indicate that the Chinese culture affects the use of formal control systems, in which they are used extensively within Swedish firms, operating  in China. However, the national culture of China does not have an effect on the informal control systems of Swedish firms. Nevertheless, the use of the informal control systems should not be undermined, as the use of these triggers for more innovation and creativity among the members of an organization. This in turn could lead to Swedish firms operating more efficiently in the Chinese market. This research can be valuable for Swedish firms that wish to internationalize to the Chinese market, as well as firms operating in China with concerns regarding the use of management control systems in relation to the culture.

Since the People's Republic of China opened its market to the rest of the world, an enormous necessity to negotiate with Chinese business partners has arisen. Businessmen from the Czech Republic as well as those from all over the world face Chinese counterparts more and more often. Business relations are becoming deeper and negotiating skills play one of the key roles in the successful process of entering the Chinese market. Good interpersonal relations with Chinese business partners seem to be of great importance for creating and maintaining long-term business relations. This work mainly focuses on fundamental cultural determinants which influence the Chinese business behaviour. The goal of this thesis is to identify the core cultural factors which might cause misunderstandings or even conflicts in cooperation within any Czech-Chinese business negotiation. Through critical interviewing existing relevant literature the author studied specifics of Chinese business behaviour and defined areas requiring further research. According to the analysis of methods being used in managerial research and the aim of the thesis the author designed her own research to explore the above mentioned areas in detail (to identify the key problematic aspects of Czech-Chinese business negotiation process). Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with Czech businessmen and analyzed by using grounded theory. The work provides models of Chinese business negotiation behaviour, points out its specifics and concludes by designing a Czech-Chinese cross-cultural training.

Over the last few decades trends such as globalization have sharpened up competition on the worldwide open market and in order to meet customers demand high level of technological and competitive uncertainties have increased the pressure of reducing R&D budgets, reduce innovation cycles and shorter time to market as a consequence of the rising competition and as a result, forced companies to source external knowledge. One way of doing this is by tapping external information and knowledge from universities.China is a country with a steady rapid growth on science and technology, but also with a progressively increasing R&D. Today they have the highest input level in the history and this is an opportunity for Western MNCs to establish collaborations in order to gain competitive advantages and create new technology. This study focuses on Industry-University collaborations in China for high technological companies and the process of finding knowledge and establishes networks at Chinese universities with the aim of establish Industry-University collaboration. Based on literature review and a qualitative study of Chinese universities, this thesis explores how a MNC can build a network of local universities connection in a fast growing market and use this network as a source of technology scouting.Over the last few decades trends such as globalization have sharpened up competition on the worldwide open market and in order to meet customers demand high level of technological and competitive uncertainties have increased the pressure of reducing R&D budgets, reduce innovation cycles and shorter time to market as a consequence of the rising competition and as a result, forced companies to source external knowledge. One way of doing this is by tapping external information and knowledge from universities.China is a country with a steady rapid growth on science and technology, but also with a progressively increasing R&D. Today they have the highest input level in the history and this is an opportunity for Western MNCs to establish collaborations in order to gain competitive advantages and create new technology. This study focuses on Industry-University collaborations in China for high technological companies and the process of finding knowledge and establishes networks at Chinese universities with the aim of establish Industry-University collaboration. Based on literature review and a qualitative study of Chinese universities, this thesis explores how a MNC can build a network of local universities connection in a fast growing market and use this network as a source of technology scouting.

Ce travail de recherche a pour objectif d'apporter un éclairage et une compréhension sur l'évolution du droit des affaires en Chine et plus particulièrement sur les outils de protection des investissements pour les étrangers dans ce pays. Cet ouvrage analyse les incidents liés à la protection juridique des investissements étrangers ainsi que l'effectivité des voies de recours en cas de différents. / The objective of this thesis is to bring insights into the understanding of the evolution of business law in China and in particular on the tools of investment protection used by foreigners in this country. This paper analyses the events related to the protection of foreign investments as well as the efficiency of arbitrative solutions in the case of problems.

In the author’s view culture plays an important role in the international business. Cultural issues represent the key factors for a successful cooperation and partnership among companies from different countries. Most of the time the adaptation to a new culture and new governmental policies influence the foreign companies in the direction of changing their business strategy. This thesis is a cross-cultural research study that aims to examine the cultural struggles of some Italian companies established in China. In particular, based on the collection of qualitative data obtained by the conduction of four interviews the study identifies three main influencing elements of the Chinese culture and the way they induce the Italian companies to adapt their business strategy. The study’s most important findings are: guanxi and mianzi influence the Italian business strategy in networking building in China and affect the Italian psychological attitude in the business management and organization. In revealing more short-term thinking in Chinese business circles the findings of the study contrast Hofstede’s theory of a long-term orientation in China. / 本研究认为文化在国际经济中起着重要的作用。文化是不同国家公司成功合作的关键因素。尽管如此，大多时候对一个新文化和新政策的－应影响着外国公司改变他们经济战略的方向。作为一项跨文化研究，本文的主要目的在于调查在华意大利公司的文化竞争力并提供建议。通过汇总,分析四个访谈收集的定性数据，本文提出了影响在华意大利公司适应战略的三个重要因素,指出：关系和面子各自影响意大利企业在中国构建关系的商业战略，并影响其在企业管理和组织方面的心理态度。最后，本研究表明，在商业圈的短期思维方面，中国的情况与霍夫斯泰德的文化维度理论形成对照

The topic of leadership and leadership devolvement has attracted considerable interest from both academics and practitioners. Further, there have been explicit and implicit claims, that both leadership and culture are linked with each other and both influence organizational performance. While modern leadership and its evolving theories has been examined independently, its applicability was taken as universally. Few studies have investigated the association between the three concepts. This thesis focuses on the new styles of modern leadership and presents evidence suggesting that leadership is very dependent on its cultural context. It further shows that most leadership theories are based on western values, and therefore questions, whether these are applicable in Chinese companies. In fact, this paper is based on the assumption that the relationship between leadership style and performance is mediated by the organizational culture that is present at hand. It concludes with several implications for theory and practice and identifies future research objectives.

What makes real life contractual arrangements? How does the law influence real life contractual arrangements? These are everyday questions for businesspeople and commercial lawyers. The traditional ‘imperative’ view of law assumes that business people contract ‘in the shadow of the law’ and contractual arrangements conform to what the law says. But empirical studies on contract practice suggest that contract law may, in fact, play a very insignificant role in real life contractual arrangements. This thesis provides a sociological view of the role of contract law in real life contractual arrangements in the context of the Vietnamese market. Specifically, this thesis applies an institutional law & economics approach to investigate how social structures of the market influence contractual arrangements to marginalize contract law in the Vietnamese market. Drawing on two surveys of contract behaviour in the Vietnamese market, this thesis finds that real life contractual arrangements respond to the institutional structure of the market as a whole, rather than only ‘the shadow of the law’. Institutional changes in the Vietnamese market suggest that there exists a merchant law system, constituted of traditional moral norms and social structures in the market. This merchant law system continues to order contractual arrangements in the market, despite the introduction of a transplanted contract law system. Disagreeing with the imperative approach, this thesis claims that contract law reform should conform to the institutional structure of the market to reduce transaction costs of contracting and to provide an effective framework for real life contractual arrangements.