There are more and more multinational companies adopting localization strategy in china, including all kinds of functions. Comparing with the reality, the related reaserchs about localization issues are very fewer. In order to understand more about the content of ¡§localizatin¡¨ (or call ¡§local responsiceness¡¨), the study divided localization into three kinds of sub-parts, including physical business activities, soft management machanism and human resources. Futhermore, the study propses and examines various determinants of localization. The findings of this reaserch are following: (1) Factors including culture distance, product demand heterogenity and Taiwan experience will influence the localization of physical business activities. (2) Factors of affecting localization of soft management machanism contain product demand heterogenity, industry cluster, headquarter commitment and Taiwan experience. (3) Factors of affecting localization of human resource contains product demand heterogenity, headquarter commitment and the dependence of subsidiary on headquarter. Above all, we also found the influencial factors for three different kinds of localization are different.

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.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has emerged as a global trend, has gained increased focus in the everyday media and among practitioners on the political agenda. CSR has also risen as an important research topic in the field of organization. This study investigates European multinational corporations’ tendencies to adapt CSR policies and practices, or more specifically corporate community involvement, to different national cultures. The paper explores if/how and why companies with subsidiaries in different countries differentiate CSR policies. Theories of culture are used to analyze the basis and/or validity of such adaptation. The units of analysis in this research paper are two European multinational corporations, namely, the Husqvarna Group and Nestlé S.A.

MNCs face challenges in developing complex strategic and organizational capabilities to meet their global efficiency and local responsiveness needs. Effective competitive strategy involves different management control over its product, functional and geographic diversity, language and culture. There are many options available for MNCs to use to develop models for business operations in different countries. The planning and executing these competitive strategies have significant impact to MNCs and they must be sustainable and successful. Human resources (HR) in MNCs have been playing an increasingly important role to improve organizational capabilities. Organization structure, responsibility, the practices, functions and professionals in the Human Resource management are key factors in creating the organizational capabilities. Meeting the current challenges and laying groundwork for the future calls for the redesign of roles and new competencies among HR professionals. With the aligning of the skills of HR professionals with the changing HR visions, strategies, structures, systems, and processes, the transformation of HR functions will be of value to their organization. Emerging trends in the strategic partner development of HRM is discussed.

During the last decades, the world has become increasingly globalized, leading to an increased interdependence between nations. This development has given rise to an increased vulnerability to turbulence created by external events and made it even harder to find the right strategic fit while managing the trade-offs between global integration and local responsiveness. The purpose of this thesis is, therefore, to understand how external events, namely Trade wars, Brexit and Pandemic affect an MNC's international strategy and how an MNC can adapt its strategy and structure to respond to the turbulent environment. Consequently, this thesis follows a case study-based design which helps to provide an in-depth company view and a strong foundation for the analysis of the strategic considerations made by the case company. The findings show that external events affect the company's capacity to produce, reduces trade opportunities, and prevents the continuous supply. Further, a direct response to the turbulent environment is to adapt the strategy and structure towards an adjusted Regional Strategy, with a focus on interdependence within geographical market clusters. This will create more opportunities to find the integral trade-off between global integration and local responsiveness and consequently respond to the arising regional complexities.

As recent immigrants seek a productive and dignified life in “new immigrant destinations” that have little historical experience with immigration, public education systems serve a key function in immigrant integration efforts. In a federal system increasingly focused on accountability, a crucial sub-set of education policy and local responsiveness to immigration is English language instruction and services for Limited English Proficient (LEP) students and parents. In such contexts, the role that local bureaucrats play, and whether they actively represent the interests of the newfound diversity of community members, are crucial questions if strongly held American ideals of social equity and equal opportunity are to be upheld. This research asks broad questions at the intersection of bureaucratic power, representative bureaucracy and educational policy toward English language learners at the local level. Variations in how school systems in the political bellwether of Virginia responded to a recent policy shock - federal guidance released in January 2015 that reiterated local school system responsibility for providing equal educational access to LEP students and parents – form a unique window into local policy-making. Using a concurrent triangulation mixed methodology that consists of a state-wide survey and interviews with a sub-set of the Title III coordinators who supervise programs for English Language Learners, this research shows Title III coordinators to be unrepresentative in passive terms of the foreign born population but nevertheless to have a strong sense of advocating for English Language Learners. Findings suggest that public service motivation is the key explanatory factor in driving a sense of role advocacy and this in turn drives a greater range of action taking by the coordinator to benefit ELLs. Despite this link between role advocacy and coordinator action, role advocacy is not found to be significant in driving the likelihood or range of system level responsiveness to the letter. Instead, political and demographic factors increase the likelihood of system action but, counter to existing literature, more conservative localities are found to be more likely to have responded to the Dear Colleague Letter. This suggests that a previous reluctance to act in these places may have been dislodged by the letter and points to the importance of change over time in conceptualizing local responsiveness to immigrants.