Recent media articles have illustrated different human resource management problems within Zara Sweden and the retail industry in Sweden. In these articles numerous employees speak about mistreatment and abuse at Zara Sweden. A union official states that Zara is not a unique case, but more so a representative case of the retail industry. Adding to this Zara Sweden has not performed well financially and they state that they are still trying to adapt to the Swedish market.   There is plenty of research explaining the relationship between human resource management and performance. Furthermore, a lot of research urges international companies to be locally responsive especially in their people management. To understand the level of local responsiveness it is important to first examine the cultural disparity between the organization and the employees, for this Hofstede’s cultural dimension was used. With this background the study explores Zara Sweden’s level of local responsiveness as well as their general human resource management practices from three perspectives. Semi-structured interviews have been used to understand the employee perspective. The two other perspectives come from the Annual reports produced by both Inditex and Zara and media articles.   Our findings demonstrate that media perspective and employee perspectives comply well with each other. However, there is a great disparity between the annual report perspective and the other two perspectives. The results show three major HRM liabilities, the sole use of internal promotion, general employee dissatisfaction and the lack of local responsiveness. Our aim is that this study will benefit the Swedish retail industry, to perhaps understand performance issues through study. Also, benefit Zara and Inditex if they have similar problems in other countries and the study might explain their lack of financial performance in the Swedish market. In general, this research could assist companies that are expanding into the Swedish market, seeing it emphasis the importance of regional adaption.

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India through the lens of postcolonial criticism, with a specific focus on Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. It explores the complexities of colonial relationships in India during the British Raj, examining themes of power dynamics, cultural dominance, and racial discrimination. By drawing from key postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said and Frantz Fanon and other writers like Albert Memmi, the essay explains how Forster’s narrative exposes the influence of Western superiority and the perpetuation of cultural disparities between the colonizer and the colonized. It underscores the portrayal of Chandrapore as a microcosm of colonial tensions, where privileged English settlers dominate over the marginalized native population. The essay also discusses Forster’s critique of colonial conditions and the accidental reinforcement of Orientalist stereotypes. Ultimately, it concludes that A Passage to India effectively portrays the clash between Eastern and Western cultures within the colonial context, thereby highlighting the expressed urgent and significant desire for autonomy.