This thesis deals with multinational companies and their operations in developing countries. The first part describes characteristics and general functioning of multinational companies, their origin, development and role in the global economy. The second section introduces economic and social structure of developing countries and analyzes the positive and negative impacts of multinational companies on economic, social and political development, culture and environment of host developing counties. The subject of the third chapter is description of two particular examples of these companies in developing countries -- Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria and Nike in Southeast Asia. The fourth chapter presents the possibilities of regulation of multinational corporations.

This exploratory study examined the different tourism market development strategies that tourism Multinational Corporations (MNCs) implement in their operations in African host countries. It empirically investigated the existence of any relationships between tourism MNCs’ market development strategies and the “Needs and Expectations of African host countries.” Also, it investigated the influences of external environmental factors on tourism MNCs’ tourism market strategic choice. Its sample population were top management executives of tourism MNCs‘ with operations in the African market. The unit of analysis was the corporation. The sample frame was an exhaustive list of tourism MNCs with operations in the African region. The initial sample size was 106 tourism MNCs’ executives. Thirty-seven of them responded to a mail in survey questionnaire. Two of the questionnaires were discarded due to numerous missing data. Thus, there were 35 usable questionnaires for data analysis, which is a response rate of 33%. The study results identified relationships between the integration of Multinational Corporations’ (MNCs) tourism market development strategies with the needs and expectations of developing African host countries, and their successful performance in those host countries in terms of growth in operations and profitability. It revealed that significant differences exist among the market development strategies on the factors of needs and expectations of African host countries. The significant factors were community participation, local entrepreneurship, and job and national security. Also, the economic development factor was observed to be partially significant. This study also identified free trade economy in the African host countries as a significant factor on the influence of external environment. The framework of this study is embedded in the underlying theories of international strategic management, international business, international development, and needs and expectations. The study’s final conceptual model depicts the significant factors of African host countries’ needs and expectations, the tourism market development strategies, an integration of the two concepts and the resultant tourism MNCs successful performance. This research study investigated MNCs in all sectors of the tourism industry. And the findings have shown that for the tourism MNCs to be successful in their African host countries, they should be sensitive to the identified sectors, namely economic development, community participation, local entrepreneurship, and job and national security measures. Also, they should exert more efforts in exploring African free trade economies for their business locations in the region. / Ph. D.

In 2016, the ICIJ independent organization released the leaks of the Panama Papers. Using the data presented, this thesis aims to evaluate and examine the models developed for the quantification of money laundering, analyze the variables that define the appeal of certain tax havens, and develop extensions to the Walker-Unger model. The proportion of illicit funds flowing from a source country to a host country was calculated using the Walker-Unger model as a reference while considering 35 source and 10 host countries. The variables were adjusted for statistical analyses input through multiple fractional probit regressions, and the outcome was compared to the original Walker-Unger estimates. At a 5% significance level, the research found significance between the account proportion and the independent variables. Furthermore, the evidence showcased more significant values obtained with the regression model, implying that the Walker-Unger model has become irrelevant in this modern era. Due to the following reasons, this study provides a perspective into improving the model through several recommendations.

面對全球化競爭與產業環境的變化，如何在動態的競爭環境下永續經營，是企業目前面臨的考驗。台灣企業積極的想從低利的代工產業轉型成品牌公司，試圖調整經營策略，並建構新的核心能力，以提昇競爭力。 成為品牌公司，除了本身的企業文化與競爭能力外，必須要投入相當多的能力與資源，尤其要有長期抗戰的準備；品牌的投資，不是一時的資本投入，而是需要整個企業的核心價值與組織架構的推動，若要深耕其品牌，企業的行銷策略與通路管理能力則是品牌經營的基礎架構。 本研究以品牌商的角度，透過其在地主國執行的行銷策略，分析其行銷策略與通路管理的重要性，以及在執行時，面對地主國各中間商(包括代理商與通路商) 不同的能力與資源所遇到的問題，因而檢視其母公司所規劃的經營策略與行銷組合，是否符合全球化的經營意圖。 經過資料整理與訪談後，發現該品牌商有其完善的行銷策略以推廣品牌，並提升該品牌的權益，但因其全球化的策略，其大部分的區域都交由代理商經營，並由代理商負責執行該區域的行銷策略，此代理商與通路商的能力與資源會影響其行銷策略的規劃與執行，因而產生客制化的行銷方案，並與品牌商所規劃的行銷策略(即通用的行銷策略)，在內容與成效上存在差異。 因此，品牌商在擬定全球化的經營策略時，必須先考量到本身的能力與資源，並在規劃行銷策略時，事先做好STP分析，選擇適合的目標市場，再行擬訂通路策略，才有辦法利用通路管理將品牌的行銷組合落實到目標族群身上，以達到企業追求長期發展的願景和目標。 / Facing global competition and high volatility in the market, a major challenge of all firms is to seek long-term survival. Aiming to the future, some Taiwanese companies have changed their business models from suppliers to foreign branding companies to owners of their own brands through revising their strategies and building up new core competencies. Transforming into branding companies, in addition to changing corporate culture and enhancing competitiveness, these firms need to invest a lot of resources to prepare for the long run. Building a brand is a long-term commitment and a firm needs to have a comparable core value, a functional organizational structure, a well-thought marketing strategy and abilities to manage channels. This study, based a branding company's point of view, analyzes how it utilizes channels to implement its marketing strategy in a host country (i.e., Taiwan). The capabilities and resources of its channel members (including dealers and distributors) for successfully implementing its marketing strategy are assessed and how the resources constraints of these channels affect the firm’s global marketing strategy is also examined. After analyzing the data, gathering through personal interviews and other secondary sources, we found that the international brand did have well formulated marketing strategy to promote its brand and increase its brand equity for the long term. The implementation of its global marketing strategy relies on agents as well as channels in different countries to carry out. Therefore, whether a marketing strategy is effective really is in the hands of partners abroad. The international branding company’s experience in Taiwan illustrates this point well. We examined several types of channels and found that some executed its marketing strategy well and some did not. The differentiation factor is the resources and capabilities of a channel: the more it has, the better for it to implement the marketing strategy of the branding company. We also found that local adaptation is needed when a channel member had limited resources or capabilities. To conclude, when a branding company formulates global strategy, it has to assess its own capabilities and resources first and then engages in STP analysis and develops marketing strategy. After selecting a host country and target segments, it needs to select agents or/and channels to implement its marketing strategy. Because channels in foreign countries are the keys to create brand-awareness, a branding company has to spend resources to select and manage channels.

Le phénomène de transferts de fonds suscite un débat passionnant au sein de la classe politique, des chercheurs et des universitaires. Ceci est dû au fait qu’il touche à des aspects humains, économiques et financiers. Les transferts de fonds sont considérés comme étant une source de financement importante pour la majorité des pays en développement. Le Maroc n’échappe pas à cette logique. Il est, en effet, l’un des pays qui reçoit le plus de transferts de fonds dans le monde. L’objet de notre thèse est triple. Il s’agit dans un premier temps, de comprendre l’évolution des transferts de fonds depuis les années 1980 jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Dans un deuxième temps, il s’agira de cerner les principaux déterminants de ces transferts. Dans un troisième temps, nous proposerons une analyse approfondie de l’impact des transferts de fonds sur l’économie marocaine dans son ensemble, avec une attention particulière aux politiques de change et aux politiques monétaires. En utilisant des techniques économétriques adéquates et pertinentes ainsi que des données fines (bilatérales), nous arrivons à mettre en lumière des aspects importants des transferts de fonds. En effet, les transferts de fonds constituent un enjeu majeur pour l’économie marocaine, de même, le comportement des migrants en termes de transferts varie selon le pays d’accueil et dans le temps. Leur impact ne s’avère pas être nuisible (absence du phénomène du syndrome hollandais) à l’économie marocaine. Les politiques marocaines d’émigration semblent être pertinentes. Cependant, pour être efficaces, ces politiques doivent être plus hétérogènes, en tenant compte des spécificités et des caractéristiques des migrants en fonction des pays d’accueil. / The phenomenon of migrant remittances has attracted keen interest among policymakers, scholars and researchers. This owes to the fact that remittances involve multiple human, economic and financial aspects. International remittances have become an important source of foreign exchange for several developing countries. One such country is Morocco, being one of the world’s major remittance-receiving countries. This dissertation deals with three features of remittance inflows to the country. First of all, the evolution of remittances from 1980 onwards is analyzed. Secondly, key drivers of these flows are empirically determined. Thirdly, their impacts on the Moroccan economy are examined in detail, especially those pertaining to the country’s exchange rate and monetary policy. Employing pertinent sophisticated econometric techniques and bilateral data, we come up with important findings in this context. We find that remittances are indeed playing a major role in the Moroccan economy; that the behavior of Moroccan migrants in terms of the amounts remitted back home vary with respect to the destination countries as well as the time dimension; and those remittances do not appear to induce the Dutch disease in the country’s economy. As a result, Morocco’s migration policies seem to be adequate. The policy can be made more effective by adapting it to the diverse features and specificities of Moroccan migrant communities residing in different parts of the world.

This was a comparative study of international and American study abroad students' experiences and expectations with the host countries. The rationale for this study was to acquire a deeper understanding of different experiences of students who study abroad and to understand whether their expectations of the host country have an impact on their experiences. An opportunity sample of American study abroad and international students was selected from the United States student population and their expectations and experiences of the host country compared. The study addressed 6 research questions, using a mixed-method approach. The principal instrument for the investigation was the Cross-Cultural Participant Questionnaire conducted online. Associated hypotheses with the research questions were analyzed using Independent sample ttests and Paired samples t-tests at an alpha level of .05 and the results were described using descriptive statistics. The open-ended questions were analyzed according to established qualitative techniques. The survey was completed by 421 respondents comprised of 155 international students, 252 American study abroad students, and 14 unknown labeled as others. The results of this study identified language fluency, building relationships with the host nationals, learning about a new culture, and personal change as significant expectations of the students. Overall, the students reported being satisfied with the services provided. International students were slightly more satisfied with access to support services than the American study abroad students. American study abroad students had experiences that closer matched their expectations of study abroad than was the case for international students.

Chinese presence in Africa has been rapidly increasing in the past few years and has been speculated to be mainly due to China seeking Africa’s political alliance and access to Africa’s natural resources and growing consumer markets. The growing presence of Chinese organisations in Africa, however, has not been without its challenges. In particular, Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs) in search of consumer markets in Africa have been cited as facing human resource (HR) challenges which may affect their organisational performance. In this regard, literature on human resource management has already established the important role of organisational culture, HR practices and organisational commitment in enabling organisations to achieve superior organisational performance. Given the fact that there is currently little research knowledge of Chinese presence in Africa at the organisational level, this research aimed to contribute empirical knowledge to the growing body of research in this area. Specifically, the main purpose of this research was to examine how the organisational culture of a Chinese MNC’s South African subsidiary has shaped the nature of its high commitment work system (HCWS) and to assess the consequences thereof on organisational commitment. In alignment with the phenomenological paradigm, the research applied a descriptive and explanatory case study methodology in order to generate rich, qualitative data which was required for in-depth descriptions and to uncover the underlying interactions of the researched phenomena at the subsidiary. The selected case for the research was, therefore, a Chinese MNC operating in the personal computer (PC) industry, which had expanded its operations to South Africa in order to reach Africa’s growing consumer markets. In particular, the South African subsidiary served as a PC sales and distribution organisation for the Chinese MNC. There were about 40 employees at the subsidiary who were all South African employees. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with twelve employees from different job functions and across different job levels. Data collection was guided by the theoretical frameworks by Cameron and Freeman (1991) for organisational culture and Xiao and Bjorkman (2006) for the HCWS and organisational commitment. The data collected from interviews was then analysed through a qualitative, content analysis process. The findings of the research thus pointed to the market culture as the dominant organisational culture type at the South African subsidiary of the Chinese MNC; characteristics of the adhocracy and clan cultures were also discovered. The externally oriented market culture was found to be the most relevant for the high performance and market leadership aspirations of the subsidiary. The market culture also appears to be the most appropriate organisational culture that would enable the subsidiary to deal with the competitive nature of the PC industry. Furthermore, it was found that certain cultural values emphasised by the Confucian and Ubuntu value systems could have had a part to play in the formation of the subsidiary’s organisational culture. The market culture was also found to have had the greatest influence in shaping the primarily performance oriented HCWS practices. Of the investigated HR practices at the subsidiary, all were found to be consistent with HCWS practices, with the exception of ownership practices and the performance appraisal system. Finally, although there were generally high levels of organisational commitment reported at the subsidiary, other job and organisational context factors besides the HCWS practices were found to be the major contributors to those feelings of organisational commitment. By investigating the organisational culture, HCWS and organisational commitment of a Chinese MNC in South Africa, this research has added to the body of knowledge concerning the growing presence of Chinese organisations in Africa. Based on the empirical findings of this study, several recommendations have been made in an attempt to assist the Chinese MNC manage the organisational commitment of its South African employees towards superior organisational performance.