The German government’s decision in 2016 to reduce the number of incoming immigrants by suspending family reunification for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection for two years, sparked a controversial debate, with some critics arguing that family reunification represents a human right. Contributing to the very scarce literature about this development, the aim pursued in this thesis is to better understand the differing discourses and (de-)legitimation strategies regarding the suspension by comparatively analysing written statements handed in to German parliament by the government and civil society organisations in March of 2017. The theoretical framework underlying this thesis are the discursive understanding of human rights by Seyla Benhabib and Michel Foucault’s theorisation of power and knowledge. The methodological framework consists of a three-dimensional critical discourse analysis by Norman Fairclough complemented with an analysis of the four categories of (de-)legitimation by Theo van Leeuwen. The results of the analysis show that two types of discourse are pursued in the material: a legal, technical discourse by the government supported by (de-)legitimation strategies relying on national laws, administrative court decisions and the value of qualities like leadership and a discourse focused on the value of family life by the civil society organisations. Despite the diverse backgrounds of the civil society organisations analysed, coinciding (de-)legitimation strategies based on the importance of family life for integration and based on the case law of federal and European courts were identified.

Dans un contexte de mondialisation accrue et d’apparition de nouvelles forces issues des marchés dits émergents, les firmes multinationales (FMNs) ont développé des stratégies d’innovation novatrices. C’est en particulier au niveau des processus d’innovation que s’est opérée une des transformations les plus importantes. Elles doivent aujourd’hui faire face à une multiplication des sources d’innovation en matière de recherche et de développement (phase amont du processus d’innovation). Dans le même temps, les FMNs doivent aussi saisir toutes les opportunités de commercialisation et d’appropriation des innovations à l’échelle mondiale (phase aval) à travers leur réseau de filiales. La phase amont de ce processus est par nature complexe et itérative du fait de l’intégration de connaissances multiples et dispersées géographiquement. Cette particularité du processus d’innovation des FMNs se traduit par un encastrement de l’innovation à un niveau dit local. Cet encastrement rend alors la phase aval elle aussi très complexe, ne se limitant pas à une démarche uniquement marketing. Jusqu’ici, la phase aval a été conceptualisée de manière centralisée et désincarnée d’un point de vue organisationnel à travers les concepts de diffusion et de transfert. Ces approches ne permettent pas de rendre compte des modifications du processus d’innovation des FMNs et de comprendre des phénomènes empiriques tels que par exemple l’innovation inversée ou l’innovation dite frugale. C’est à travers l’étude d’un cas unique, une grande FMN française, que nous avons exploré et analysé cette phase aval. Grâce à ce travail, nous avons défini un cadre intégrateur: le déploiement des innovations. C’est un processus qui comprend l’enchaînement des commercialisations d’une innovation par des filiales situées dans des contextes locaux différenciés et nécessitant à chaque fois son adaptation. Ce déploiement est ainsi spatial, car l’innovation est exploitée dans différentes géographies, et temporel, car les adaptations peuvent s’étendre sur une durée. Nos principaux résultats s’articulent autour de trois niveaux d’analyses. Nous étudions d'abord les projets et communautés de déploiement pour mieux comprendre l’articulation du déploiement entre l’organisation et les individus. Ensuite, nous analysons le déploiement au niveau des individus et des compétences en défendant l’idée que la FMN doit aujourd’hui penser une fonction "chef de projet déploiement" en son sein. Enfin, nous nous positionnons au niveau de la stratégie d’innovation des FMNs en mettant en perspective le rôle du siège et celui des filiales. / In a context of increased globalization and the rise of new forces from so-called emerging markets, multinational corporations (MNCs) have developed new innovation strategies. In particular, one of the most considerable transformations has taken place in their innovation processes. MNCs must now face a multiplication of sources of innovation in terms of research and development (upstream phase of the innovation process). They also have to seize all the opportunities for commercialization and appropriation of innovations on a global scale (downstream phase) through their subsidiaries’ network. The upstream phase of this process is complex and iterative in nature because of the integration of multiple and geographically dispersed knowledge. The result of this peculiarity of the MNC’s innovation process is the embededness of innovation at a local level. This embedding makes the downstream phase also complex, not just a marketing process. Up to now the downstream phase has been centrally conceptualized and disembodied from an organizational point of view through the concepts of diffusion and transfer. These approaches do not capture changes in the MNC’s innovation process and do not succed to frame empirical phenomena such as reverse innovation or the specialisation of subsidiaries in certain phases of the innovation process. It is through the study of a unique case, a large French MNC that we explored and analyzed this downstream phase. Thanks to this work, we have defined an integrative framework: the deployment of innovations. It is a process that includes sequencing of the commercialization of an innovation by subsidiaries located in differentiated local contexts and requiring each time to be adapted. This deployment is thus both spatial, because the innovation is utilized in different geographies, and temporal, because adaptations may take place over time. Deployment is therefore a concept that has a descriptive scope (understanding the downstream phase) but can also be utilized by companies (the means to be implemented to optimize this downstream phase). Our main results are based on three levels of analysis. First, at the level of deployment projects and communities to better understand the articulation of deployment between the organization and individuals. Then we put the stress on the skills needed for deployment with the idea that the MNCs must now think of a project deployment function. Finally, on the innovation strategy of MNCs, where we put the role of headquarter and subsidiaries in perspective.

Background: From digitalization acceleration, digital disruptions such as edge-cutting technologies, have caused challenges and changes to business’ natures in terms of value, structures, and strategies. No industry nor organization is immune to these impacts, especially multinational enterprises in the information technology industry, whereas these businesses have started to overlook and disregard traditional ways of working to enhance these impacts. Agility has become a new vital dynamic capability in today’s environment, whereas organizational agility is argued to support businesses to cope with this turbulent era of increased competition, globalization, and digitalization. Although, to enhance this, traditional business processes and operations must be rethought and extended to a digital context.  Purpose: As digital disruptions have become a threat to businesses' values and operations, it has gained increased attention in both practice and research. Organizational agility is raised as a tool and response to cope with these new digital threats and changes to fundamental business values, however, this has also increased pressure on managers to create and maintain cohesion and motivation when change is imposed. Nonetheless, how this is managed and experienced within local subsidiaries of multinational enterprises lacks both exploration and understanding, and thus, suggesting that there is much left to uncover. This, especially on how to maintain local responsiveness while enhancing global fundamental values when introducing organization agility to cope with changes and digital disruptions.   Method: With a relativism ontology, interpretivism epistemology, and inductive research approach, this research studied how to be organizationally agile under digital disruptions, from a subsidiary perspective in an IT multinational enterprise. Through a qualitative explorative research and multiple-case study design, the empirical data was gathered from 12 semi-structured in-depth interviewees and observations, where the employee perspective set the foundation of how organizational agility and digital disruptions are managed and experienced within their local subsidiaries. The data were analyzed through a thematic analysis, including separate within-case analyzes, a cross-case analysis, and lastly, a comparison with existing literature.  Conclusion: The findings show how multinational enterprises in the information technology industry could manage organizational agility when digital disruptions occur and how this is experienced amongst employees. Subsidiary Management is vital for coping with digital disruptions whereas Strategic Decision-Making for responding to the same, fundamentally relying on the Organizational Culture with the six key factors of Ownership, Learning, Diversity, Inclusion, Trust, and Mindset. Moreover, organizational agility could cause a negative tradeoff of work-life balance and a negative tradeoff between increased workload and individual growth, whereas increased autonomy creates a tradeoff between local independence and global cohesiveness. This, however, was experienced as both positive and negative. Being organizationally agile is vital on both global and local levels to utilize efficiency, flexibility, and be locally responsive to regional market demands where the attention must be given to people rather than structures to be agile and digitally responsive.

The purpose of this study was to examine the aspects of redeployment in general terms, and then to present a case study of a specific redeployment program to analyze its effectiveness as a corporate financial tool. The first four chapters discuss the general and financial definitions of redeployment, as well as the objectives, benefits, and alternate methods of the operational asset form of redeployment. The specific redeployment program analyzed is the case study of Ling-Temco-Vought's use of the operational asset form of redeployment. The purpose of the case study was to determine if Ling-Temco--Vought achieved their stated objectives. An analysis of these objectives shows that redeployment was a success.

Modern management literature highlights the importance of headquarter and country organisations working together in an interdependent fashion to improve their performance. However, empirical support for this link is scarce; moreover, the theoretical framework on the factors that may affect these relationships and the prerequisites for fostering them is limited. Current literature highlights the importance of high levels of interdependency between HQs and subsidiaries for the performance of the subsidiary, but a direct relationship has not been established. In this research, the link between headquarter-subsidiary interdependence and subsidiary-level performance is empirically probed and explored, using a longitudinal, multi-method approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data. Responses to surveys from 53 marketing and business managers are used to describe the interdependence levels, which are then combined with actual launch outcomes data for Xarelto® in their respective countries. Based on the survey results, a direct link between headquarter and subsidiary interdependence and the launch success of Xarleto® could not be established and subsidiary interdependence and uptake levels were used to select 10 countries for further explorative interviews. The results of these highlighted that, through fully collaborative and supportive headquarter subsidiary relationships, improved knowledge transfer, avoidance of duplication and leveraging of materials and expertise, product launch outcomes in the subsidiary could be enhanced. Moderators to these relationships and factors to maintain these relationships will be presented and this research and a link to network theory and social capital will be made. This research provides several practical recommendations that can be taken into consideration when planning future launches to enhance product uptake in subsidiary markets. / Bayer Corporation (US)

Research background: Digitization, technological advancements, such as AI, the global customer base and varying ownership structures can be seen as a few of the largest challenges that contemporary international MNEs face with regards to their internal operations. Such disruptive factors require firms to be innovative in their products, services, and operations, to retain a competitive advantage and thrive in the international markets – at the foundation of which lies having an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). This is applicable not only to HQs, but also to subsidiaries, which possess the local knowledge needed to succeed in that market. From this, the whole MNE can and should benefit, enabled through effective diffusion of initiatives – realizable through central roll-out from the HQ.  Research purpose: This study explores how HQs behave when faced with initiatives from their foreign subsidiaries. The main goal of this study is to identify behavioural patterns and how this influences the ultimate decision-making of the HQ. This study aims to join the discussion on HQ-subsidiary relationships with regards to initiative realization. The growing interest in research on the role of HQs in contemporary MNEs, the lack of research on central initiative realization, and the centralization of knowledge at HQ are fundamental to this study.  Research question: What internal organizational factors influence HQs’ decisions on the central realization of their foreign subsidiaries’ initiatives?  Research method: This thesis is based on the research paradigm of relativistic ontology and social constructionist epistemology, meaning reality is shaped by people and their observations. I adopted an explorative, holistic, single-case study design of a Dutch MNE with subsidiaries in Germany and Sweden. I used the approach of heterogeneous purposive sampling, denoting various inclusion criteria beforehand. In total, I conducted seventeen interviews. The collected data was consequently analyzed using the principles of the template approach.  Conclusion: The findings are consolidated in a conceptual model (see Figure 2) that denotes knowledge sharing and autonomy as the direct internal influences on the HQ’s decision to centrally realize foreign subsidiaries’ initiatives. These effects are moderated by managerial and HQ intentionality, the pursuit of a common strategy, trust as a dual relationship, the perceptions of alignment of organizational culture and the subsidiary’s motivation to engage in initiatives.

The relationship between the MNCs organizational units, HQ and subsidiaries, has beencharacterized as an inherently conflictual arena and conflicts may arise due to the counterpartsnot being completely aligned and having conflicting interests. This is often caused by thedifferent pulls towards global standardization by the HQ and local adaptation by thesubsidiaries, and different internal and external pressures and factors. Through a case study ofthe MNC Arla Foods, the causes and consequences of the conflict regarding the HQ desire forthe discontinuation of the local Swedish brand, Arla Cow, in favor of global standardization hasbeen discussed. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with managers from theHQ and Swedish subsidiary and a microethnographic study on-site at the Swedish subsidiary.The results show that the primary causes of the conflict are due to bounded rationality by theHQ, which results in problems related to communication and knowledge transfer between theSwedish subsidiary. Institutional or cultural aspects did not seem to be an influencing factor inthe conflicting interests.

Corporate sustainability has become a crucial aspect of business strategy, particularly for multinational corporations (MNCs) aligning their operations with global sustainability goals. The successful implementation of sustainability strategies is often influenced by organizational factors, with organizational culture playing a significant role.  This thesis investigates the influence of organizational culture on the implementation of corporate sustainability strategies within an MNC subsidiary. It seeks to understand how different aspects of organizational culture facilitate or hinder the adoption and execution of sustainability initiatives. As a result, an exploratory research approach is employed, utilizing qualitative methods such as interviews. Through in-depth analysis of data collected from a selected MNC subsidiary, the study identifies key drivers and barriers within the organizational culture influencing sustainability strategy adoption and execution. Findings highlight the significance of leadership support, employee engagement, communication channels, and individual beliefs in fostering a conducive environment for sustainability initiatives. This research provides empirical insights into how organizational culture affects the implementation of corporate sustainability strategies, offering practical guidance for organizations to facilitate the effective implementation of sustainability initiatives.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2019-03-20T12:32:52Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Klaus Peter Stolzmann_.pdf: 1291405 bytes, checksum: 8ba46b28ffcae95c2b291db9ef3d1a05 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2019-03-20T12:32:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Klaus Peter Stolzmann_.pdf: 1291405 bytes, checksum: 8ba46b28ffcae95c2b291db9ef3d1a05 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-12-17 / Nenhuma / Ainda que os gerentes tenham expectativas moderadas sobre a capacidade das suas subsidiárias de contribuir para a renovação estratégica e tecnológica de todo o grupo multinacional, várias medidas poderiam ser tomadas para possibilitar a geração de novas tecnologias nas subsidiárias. Como a geração de conhecimento numa subsidiária é um tema relativamente recente explorado no campo acadêmico, a proposta desse trabalho é trazer alguma contribuição no processo de geração de conhecimento tecnológico como fator de mudança do papel de uma subsidiária brasileira de uma multinacional de um país desenvolvido. Por meio de um estudo de caso único, os dados foram coletados em análise documental, observação in loco e entrevistas com diversos colaboradores, entre eles engenheiros, gestores, expatriados, estrangeiros e brasileiros. Após, os dados foram triangulados com a técnica de análise de conteúdo. Os resultados indicam a relevância da geração de conhecimento tecnológico pela subsidiária e reconhecido pela matriz, para a mudança de seu papel na MNC, representado por um esquema gráfico de como tal processo ocorreu. Durante o mapeamento do mesmo, percebeu-se algumas particularidades no caso estudado, como a grande importância do papel do repatriado (funcionário da subsidiária que passa um determinado tempo na matriz e retorna), pouco abordado na literatura, e no presente caso, da relevância do cliente no processo de geração de conhecimento tecnológico no país da subsidiária, assim como ficou confirmada a grande importância do papel do gerente da subsidiária como também a influência dos fatores moderadores nesse processo. Por fim, esse trabalho traz alguma contribuição prática para os gestores de subsidiárias de países emergentes, sobre os quais poderão avaliar as iniciativas da sua subsidiária, tais como o treinamento dos seus empregados na matriz ou a busca de novos projetos para atender clientes locais, para obter a atenção da matriz e preparar-se para a mudança de seu papel dentro da MNC. / Although managers have moderate expectations about their subsidiaries' ability to contribute to the strategic and technological renewal of the entire multinational organization, a number of measures could be taken to enable the creation of new technologies in the subsidiaries. As the knowledge generation in a subsidiary is a subject that has not yet been deeply explored in the academic field, the proposal of this work is to bring some contribution in the process of technological knowledge generation as a factor to change the role of a Brazilian subsidiary belonging to a multinational from a developed country. Through a single case study, the data were collected in document analysis, in loco observation and interviews with several collaborators, among them engineers, managers, expatriates, foreigners and Brazilians. Afterwards, the data were triangulated with the content analysis technique. The results indicate the relevance of the technological knowledge generation by the subsidiary and recognized by the headquarter, to change its role in the MNC, represented by a graphic diagram of how such a process occurred. During the process analysis, we noticed some peculiarities in the present case, such as the great significance role of the inpatriate (employee of the subsidiary who spends a certain time in the headquarter and returns) which was less discussed in the literature and for this specific case, the customer role relevance in the process of technological knowledge generation in the subsidiary country, as well as confirming the great importance of the subsidiary manager's role and the moderator factors in this process. Finally, this work brings some practical contribution to managers of emerging-country subsidiaries who can evaluate their subsidiary's initiatives, such as the training of its employees in the headquarters or the search of new projects to serve local clients, to get the parent's attention and prepare to change its role within the MNC.

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.