Bakgrund: Som ett resultat av ett förändrat samhälle där fristående rådgivning blivit alltmer efterfrågat har fler problem uppkommit. EU-kommissionen lagt fram ett förslag på ändrade revisionsregler för att hantera dessa påstådda problem. Förslaget antyder att revisorns oberoende och revisionens kvalité hotas av dessa sidotjänster. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att skapa en förståelse för sidotjänsternas betydelse på revisorns oberoende och revisionens kvalité samt öka förståelsen för de nya lagförslagen och dess konsekvenser. Metod: Med utgångspunkt i en induktiv forskningsansats har vi genom en kvalitativ design utfört studien. Primärdata har samlats in genom intervju och öppna frågeformulär som sedans jämförts med tidigare forskning och erkänd litteratur. Resultat och slutsats: Studiens slutsats visar att sidotjänsterna inte har någon betydande inverkan på revisorns oberoende och revisionens kvalité, varken positivt eller negativt. Studien finner att revisorns integritet och egenintresse är så pass starkt att oberoendet inte hotas på grund av sidotjänsternas vara eller icke-vara även om resultaten i viss mån tyder på problem att invända mot en kollega. EU-kommissionens förslag finner studien vara en aning överflödig i sin nuvarande utformning. Syftet med förslaget är bland annat att stärka oberoendet och revisionens kvalité, problem som vi i studien inte kan styrka existerar i den mån att nyttan ska överstiga kostnaden. / Background: As a result of a changed society where non-audit services have been increasingly in demand which has raised new problems. The European Commission presented a revised set of audit rules to address these alleged problems. The proposal suggests that auditor independence and audit quality is threatened by these subsidiary services. Purpose: The aim of this study is to create an understanding of how the non-audit services impact the auditor independence and audit quality. The second purpose is to increase awareness of the new legislative proposals and their consequences. Method: Based on an inductive research approach, we have through a qualitative design conducted the study. Primary data were collected through interviews and open questionnaires which then were compared with previous research and recognized literature. Results and conclusion: The conclusion of the study shows that non-audit services do not have any significant impact on auditor’s independence and audit quality, either positive or negative. The study finds that the auditor's integrity and self-interest is too strong so that independence is not threatened due to non-audit services even if the results to some extent indicate of problems to express objection towards a colleague’s work. The study finds that the EU Commission's proposal to be a bit redundant in its present form. The proposal is to strengthen the independence and audit quality but the study concludes that the benefits will not exceed the cost.

Current research has pointed out that a subsidiary ́s external network, constituted by its suppliers and customers at the local market, is very important for the corporation as a whole. In this study we seek to explore if this is the case for a certain Multinational corporation through exploring the usage of its networks. More specifically how the knowledge within its networks sharing contribute to the company’s innovation development process. A number of interviews have been conducted with personnel at a Multinational corporation, General Electric Healthcare Life Sciences in Uppsala. The results have been analyzed using a theoretical frame of reference covering network theory and a subsidiary’s part in it. Our findings show that even though the external network may play a necessary part, the internal network of a large Multinational corporation is an important resource and should not be ignored.

This study of Taiwanese managers in overseas subsidiaries, the appointment of high thinking, because the layout of Taiwan businessmen in the world of enterprise, both in Europe and the United States or in mainland China and other places, almost all of its subsidiaries responsible for the nationals, rather than local nationals, and this practice with European and American foreign just the opposite. Taiwanese firms such practices, what reaction to what Taiwanese thinking. This study uses the case interview, a total of three Taiwanese high-end interview with a foreign manager, general manager for content analysis. The results showed that Taiwanese business culture heritage importance, that have a common intellectual culture can communicate seamlessly. Second, is the head of Taiwan to overseas subsidiaries as a reward for a job, people who have contributed to the company to get this position, the third, a complete financial system, local Taiwanese that if appointments to subsidiary responsible person, then the completeness of the financial system is essential, however, that this problem of foreign production, but also Taiwan's accounting system is the result of lack of transparency. Finally, Taiwan's Pan-Familism and views on human nature as "human nature is evil," the basic assumption that all is to allow Taiwan businessmen in overseas subsidiaries, the appointment of responsible persons, who take the nationality of the reasons for this appointment.

Contemporary studies in international management field conceptualize subsidiaries as semi-autonomous entities. By involving in entrepreneurial undertakings and strategic activities, subsidiaries could contribute strategic value to parent multinational corporation (MNC). Distinguishing from previous researches derived from entrepreneurship theory and done by Birkinshaw and his colleagues, this study incorporated human capital theory and knowledge-based view (KBV) to fulfill the existing research gap and enlarged our understanding of subsidiary entrepreneurship. This research proposed two models to unlock and testify the underexplored phenomenon of subsidiary entrepreneurship. In the first model, this research incorporated human capital management in MNCs context and testified that not merely top management team (TMT) entrepreneurial leadership and subsidiary entrepreneurial culture were critical antecedents of subsidiary¡¦s strategic initiative, but the human resource management (HRM) practices of subsidiary talent management played an important mediator to generate the entrepreneurial system. In the second model, this study demonstrated the cross-field integration and synthesis of entrepreneurial literatures, human capital theory and knowledge-based view and expressed a more comprehensive illustration of strategic entrepreneurship. This study certified that absorptive capacity could facilitate subsidiary¡¦s entrepreneurial culture and further enhance subsidiary¡¦s strategic initiative. Moreover, subsidiary¡¦s practices of talent management could facilitate its absorptive capacity and further contribute to subsidiary¡¦s strategic outputs. By analyzing the empirical data collected from 202 MNCs¡¦ foreign subsidiaries in Asian area, this study testified that the subsidiaries which could contribute strategic value creation for parent MNCs should equip multilayer of initiative-takings: the local distinctive capability, market initiative and knowledge outflow. Furthermore, the HRM practices of talent management in subsidiary played critical mediating role on both the development of organizational capability, improvement of absorptive capacity and the enhancement of subsidiary strategic initiative. TMT entrepreneurial leadership was the core engine which could activate subsidiary¡¦s mechanisms to facilitate the activities of strategic value creations.

To Invest in Mainland China becomes Taiwan corporations¡¦ high priority by virtue of China¡¦s vast internal consumer market, the trade liberalization after joining WTO, low labor cost, and easy communication in Chinese language. However, the special relationship between Taiwan and China induces Taiwan corporations¡¦ investment risks due to political uncertainties. The establishment of information and communication network between headquarters in Taiwan and their mainland subsidiaries enables the governance and coordination between two sides. However, bearing these special relations, it is a nontrivial question to ask any unique information infrastructure and system that Taiwan corporations adopt which may be consistent with or different from prior literatures in multi-national corporations. This thesis develops a conceptual framework to identify the relationship between the factors and IT configurations, and then proposes propositions to explain findings from three Taiwan companies, which have subsidiaries in China. This study asserts that the political uncertainties that influence the IT configuration of Taiwan companies with subsidiaries in China are common with multinational firms whose headquarter and subsidiaries have normal relationship. The major contribution of this study is to explore the factors that affect Taiwan companies¡¦ IT governing practice toward their China subsidiaries.

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.

Multiple customer needs and rapid technological change are what MNCs are confronted with, thus, they rely on subsidiaries responding to local market needs. The ability of subsidiaries to integrate resources to respond to market opportunities determines its competitiveness, and contributes to whole corporate. The purpose of this dissertation is to construct an integrative framework toward generating subsidiary initiatives and competitiveness. Structural equation modeling was employed to verify the conceptual framework. Based on the results of SEM, entrepreneurial leadership of top management teams enhances the talent on the process of human-capital leveraging to facilitate them to be creative and agile; further, promote collective learning among members. Additionally, with the support of top management teams, learning culture of subsidiaries can be strengthened. Support of top management team, human-capital leveraging and learning culture, improve the absorptive capacity, further, they promote subsidiary initiatives and competitiveness.

The traditional issue selling process refers to strategic actions taken at a subsidiary in order to gain attention from the HQ. This study aims to broaden the theories on issue selling to also cover internal issue selling, which refers to the individual level of issue selling within a subsidiary. Further is attention and initiative taking worth investigating when studying issue selling, whereas these underlying constructs of issue selling are highlighted in the paper. For this specific study we have performed a case study with L’Oréal Sweden to investigate how the individuals are selling issues within the subsidiary. This micro-level focus of the issue selling process have the potential to contribute to an understanding of the process and the underlying constructs of issue selling on a macro perspective. The findings of this study indicate a tendency that issue selling exists on a subsidiary level. Thereby it could be argued that ideas and initiatives raised by the individuals within a subsidiary have the potential to generate in strategic and organizational improvements on a macro perspective for the MNC.

This article investigates the determinants of subsidiaries' profitability using a unique dataset of more than 23,000 listed and unlisted subsidiaries worldwide over the period 1994-2005. We find that profitable parent companies are able to transfer some of the intangible assets that make them profitable to their subsidiaries. Our results indicate that good institutions (measured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators) are associated with better performance for companies' subsidiaries. When we categorize countries in terms of the origins of their legal systems, we also find that this dimension of institutional quality is generally associated with better performance. Controlling for both legal origins and country governance institutions, we find that both sets of institutions are significantly related to subsidiaries' performance, and that there is an overlap in their explanatory power. (authors' abstract)

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.