In recent years there has been a growing trend of Western companies outsourcing many engineering jobs to Taiwan, India, and China. While companies have been outsourcing and moving manufacturing jobs for decades, there is a recent acceleration of sending “high tech” engineering jobs overseas. While the job loss in the Western world is alarming to Western engineers, there is another trend that is keeping jobs in the West that deserves some consideration. Asian multinational corporations are acquiring engineering operations in the United States and Europe. Since there is seemingly abundant talent available in their home countries, what motivates these Asian multinational corporations to invest in Western engineering operations? Is this investment a long term viable employment option for Western engineers? This paper will address these two critical questions. / text

The primary goal of the current study is to develop a more advanced model of information-seeking behaviors. For achieving this goal, it paid attention to two social phenomena characterizing contemporary society: informationalization and globalization. First, focusing on these two influential phenomena, this study investigated how individual-level factors—information overload, information ambiguity, and goal orientations—affected information-seeking behaviors among employees in a multinational corporation. Next, in addition to these individual predictors of information-seeking behaviors, this study explored the effects of two team-level factors—team task interdependence and team tenure—on the relationships between the main predictors and information-seeking behaviors. Last, paying more attention to the multicultural context, this study investigated how these employees in a multinational corporation seek task and feedback information from two culturally different sources: American direct advisors and Korean expatriates. In order to more thoroughly investigate the roles of the cultural backgrounds of information sources, this study explored how American employees perceived the cultural backgrounds of the two culturally different sources and how such perceptions influenced those employees’ information-seeking behaviors. / text

With the spreading of globalization during 1980s, discourses about demise of nation states and relevance of post-national forms of institutions for contemporary politics have been widely accepted in social sciences. Cosmopolitanism, with its suggestions of extending democracy and citizenship beyond national boundaries, being world citizens, and creating universal political institutions has been considered as the project in line with these supposed conditions of globalization. This study evaluates theories in social sciences that are in favor of cosmopolitanism as a political project appropriate for the globalized world. It is argued that supporting disappearance of national borders and emergence of world citizenship is talking from the perspective of an upper class minority who have necessary resources to travel to other countries and who don&rsquo / t experience visa difficulties. It is claimed by some social theorists that a transnational capitalist class started to emerge. Although members of this class live in separate countries, they have common interests and similar lifestyles with each other much more than they have with their fellow nationals. These people regard themselves as world citizens, as they have a high access to foreign countries and share common lifestyles with foreigners. In this study, in the case of Turkish high level managers in a multinational corporation, it is aimed to describe the life style characteristics of these managers, considering the life style conceptualization of Bourdieu, and to understand to what extent these managers can be regarded as a part of transnational capitalist class, and whether they perceive themselves as world citizens.

<p>Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are facing the paradox of globalization and localization in entering each new market. Generally, there are two perspectives which regard to how a MNC configure its cross-border activities: The first is global convergence perspective, which focuses on leveraging corporate resources and attaining global synergies. The second is international diversity perspective, which lays more emphasis on local adaptation and harnessing diversities. Both perspectives have their pros and cons, a balance between international standardization and local adaptation is vital.</p><p>For the major Auto Giants in the world operating and competing worldwide, the significance of China market is as clear as day to everyone. This paper focuses on how the major Auto Giants balance the paradox of globalization and localization in the China market. In other words, how the MNCs deal with the dilemma of globalization and localization under different strategic contexts? We adopt a model which divides their activities in China into 6 stages and which includes criteria with regard to the dilemma of localization and globalization.</p>

In this thesis it is suggested that the local context and culture has a large impact on how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is perceived and worked with. Previous research shows that it is important for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) to govern their CSR with respect to the local context to be trusted and run their business in a ‘good’ (what is socially perceived as good) way. The aim of this study is to examine how MNCs that are founded in Sweden and in some ways have established in China, perceive CSR and how they work with it in respect to the global- and the local context. The thesis further studies what approaches, and drivers lies behind the engagement in CSR-related activities. The thesis is based on a qualitative approach with six semi-structured interviews, that makes up the empirical material. The interviews were conducted with participants in leading positions in Swedish MNCs located in Shanghai, China. The results show that a global perspective is perceived as important for MNCs to work with, and that they in many ways adapt their global practises with respect to local culture. Furthermore, the approaches used when working with CSR are in many ways strategic and has an ethical and philanthropical drive behind them.

Abstract The present study develops the knowledge of industrial customer relationships by examining how multinational corporations (MNCs) make sense of global customer relationships. This study also discusses how individuals make sense of global customer relationships inside of MNC networks. Sensemaking is thus viewed as both an individual action and an organizational-level action. In this research, individual sensemaking views are combined into organizational-level understanding to offer a multilevel approach to both relationships and networks. The empirical study is a qualitative single-case study that focuses on three global customer relationships of an MNC. This research describes the sensemade views of the selected customer relationships and explores how these views are created. The discussed customer relationships are global by nature, they cross national borders, and they involve the episodic and discontinuous project level as well as global customer relationships that are managed at a more continuous organizational level, and these relationships are intertwined over time. The sensemaking of customer relationships is intertwined with relationship development. This research creates an understanding of sensemaking and operationalizes the concept by showing the different types of sensemaking and exploring how individuals make sense. This research also identifies primary sensemakers whose acting and sensemaking have contributed to developing the MNC view of global customer relationships and connected the multiple different views. This research shows that within a single corporation, multiple different understandings of the customer as well as of the type and status of customer relationship can exist. This research describes how the sensemaking process inside of a network functions and how the MNC sensemade views of the customer relationship are formed from multiple individual views. In addition, the definition of an MNC is widened in this research, and an MNC is defined as an internal network that is formed around its customer relationships. Customers constitute a key driving force of internal cooperation and create the environment in which individuals strive to make sense of their own network and of the customers with whom they are operating. / Tiivistelmä Tässä väitöskirjassa keskitytään teollisiin asiakassuhteisiin tutkimalla, miten monikansallinen yritys luo ymmärrystä globaaleista asiakassuhteistaan. Lisäksi työssä keskitytään siihen, miten yrityksen sisäisessä verkostossa työskentelevät yksilöt luovat omaa ymmärrystään globaaleista asiakassuhteista. Ymmärryksen luomista tutkitaan siis sekä yksilö- että organisaatiotason toimintana. Monikansallisessa yrityksessä eri yksilöiden näkemykset yhdistyvät organisaatiotason ymmärrykseksi asiakkaasta, minkä vuoksi suhteita ja verkostoja tutkitaan usealla analyysitasolla. Tutkimuksen empiirinen osuus toteutetaan laadullisena, yhden tapauksen tapaustutkimuksena, joka keskittyy monikansallisen yrityksen kolmeen asiakassuhteeseen. Nämä asiakassuhteet ovat luonteeltaan globaaleja ja ylittävät maantieteelliset rajat. Organisaatiotason asiakassuhde toimittajan ja asiakkaan välillä voidaan kuvata jatkuvaksi, vaikka asiakassuhde käytännössä koostuukin useista epäjatkuvista projekteista eri maantieteellisten ja teknologisten yksiköiden välillä. Organisaatio- ja projektitason suhteet kietoutuvat toisiinsa suhteen kehittyessä. Ymmärryksen luominen asiakkaasta on jatkuva prosessi ja se tapahtuu samanaikaisesti asiakassuhteen kehittymisen kanssa. Tässä tutkimuksessa kuvataan, kuinka asiakkaista luodaan ymmärrystä organisaatio- ja yksilötasolla. Tutkimuksessa tunnistetaan keskeisiä henkilöitä, joiden toiminta rakentaa monikansallisen yrityksen ymmärrystä globaaleista asiakassuhteista ja yhdistää eri yksilöiden näkemyksiä. Tutkimuksessa havaitaan, että yhden organisaation sisällä voi olla lukuisia eri ymmärryksiä asiakassuhteesta ja sen tilasta. Tutkimus kuvaakin, kuinka ymmärrystä luodaan organisaation sisäisessä verkostossa ja miten organisaatiotason ymmärrys globaaleista asiakassuhteista muodostuu useiden eri yksilöiden käsityksistä. Lisäksi tässä tutkimuksessa monikansallisen yrityksen määritelmää laajennetaan kuvaamalla se sisäiseksi verkostoksi, joka rakentuu asiakassuhteiden ympärille. Asiakas on tärkein ohjaava voima sisäisessä yhteistyössä. Toimiessaan yrityksen sisäisessä verkostossa, yksilöt pyrkivät luomaan ymmärrystä omasta ympäröivästä verkostostaan sekä asiakkaista, joiden kanssa he toimivat.

This diploma thesis is dealing with integration of employees in multicultural environment. It defines terms related to the subject: culture, company culture, working group, intercultural communication and intercultural integration. It contains analysis of real multicultural environment, represented by one team of IBM office in Brno. In the end, this thesis offers some improvements for better efficiency of intercultural integration in this team.

Corporate entrepreneurship is dedicated to the continuous exploration of opportunities and leveraging innovation activities to achieve a competitive advantage, improved performance, and prosperity of companies. The problem is that the complex reality of multinational corporations is creating distinct obstacles for subsidiary managers who are attempting to develop and promote entrepreneurial activities. The purpose of this qualitative analytic autoethnographic study was to explore barriers and enablers for corporate entrepreneurship ‎practice by focusing on the individual and organizational processes, culture, and lessons learned from entrepreneurial activities that took place at the selected organization during the last decade. The interviews with 9 participants, who were involved in the activities covered by the study, served to reflect the researcher’s narrative and strengthen the reliability and trustworthiness of the results. The study results are based on the contextual data analysis and involved identified barriers in organizational, cultural, and business environments along with the specific manager’s actions and organizational processes for overcoming them. Findings showed that despite the obstacles in the subsidiary’s internal and external environments, one could achieve acknowledging the value of the subsidiary’s innovation activities and establish foundations for the practice of corporate entrepreneurship. The adaption of the study findings is expected to catalyze social change and strengthen the positive impact of entrepreneurial activities on employees’ motivation and job satisfaction, innovativeness, sustainability, and growth of companies and national economies.

According to Saville (1993), the economic growth of less developed countries is impeded due to the presence of four “gaps” in these economies. However, Saville (1993), states that, by filling these gaps, developing economies are able to achieve economic growth and development. The main objective of this research is to update the study of Saville (1993) in order to determine the impact of the multinational corporation on the host economy in reference to the drivers of exogenous and endogenous growth in contribution to filling these gaps.This is a quantitative study which makes use of secondary data obtained from JSE listed firms operating in the mining sector in South Africa. Statistical regression analysis was conducted and results are compared to the previous Saville (1993) study.In summary, the results of the study are mixed however in terms of informing government policy, this study confirms the importance of FDI in emerging markets. The caveat however, firstly, is to inform policy to attract the right kinds of FDI to contribute to filling specific gaps in to achieve the required economic growth. Secondly, policy should require collaboration between MNC’s, private firms as well as public sector firms in order to share knowledge and profits in having a positive effect on social welfare and economic growth in the domestic economy. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The research regarding best practice transfer complexity is limited and mainly focused on a Western perspective. Thereby, it overlooks the emerging market context. Further, previous research has not examined the constraints affecting the transfer success from several dimensions. Therefore, this thesis aims at answering what the main constraints are to a successful best practice transfer from a Swedish multinational corporation headquarter to a Chinese subsidiary. Additionally, this thesis aims to examine how these constraints affect the transfer success from both a process and outcome perspective. In order to investigate this, the theoretical framework explains the potential internal and external constraints that can affect the transfer and defines success. This study was conducted through a qualitative case study based on a Swedish regional HQ’s transfer to its Chinese subsidiary. The data was mainly collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from both Sweden and China. Conclusively, the findings showed that relational, organizational and contextual constraints were present. However, the qualitative research showed that there are often trade-offs between constraints and their effect on success, which previously have not been shown in quantitative research. In addition, the results suggest that the context is important to acknowledge when transferring best practices.