This dissertation focuses on how rural community college students make decisions regarding their post-secondary plans. To understand these decision processes, I interviewed students, faculty and administrators at Southeast Community and Technical College in Harlan County, Kentucky. The literature informing my research reflects on rural college going patterns. Most studies connect place and post-secondary plans. Central Appalachia has among the lowest population percentages with Bachelor degrees in the country. Studies argue this is because of limited application for such degrees in the region. Matching their education and training to local job market requirements, people hesitate to complete advanced degrees when little if any local application requires such additional education. This study discusses how place informs and shapes students’ decisions around college and degree selection. Unlike those who connect advanced education with outmigration patterns, my research highlights students who pursue post-secondary training in hopes of applying these degrees locally to build their communities and families’ quality of life in a rural place. From the twenty-eight student and fifteen faculty and administrator interviews conducted, rationales regarding the purpose of post-secondary degrees and training surfaced. Through selected follow up oral histories, students further described the application of their degrees towards terminal, transfer and/or transformative ends. Their articulated positions regarding the purpose and application of higher education in Central Appalachia adds to the continuing studies on how advanced degrees informs students’ decisions to stay or leave rural areas. From the Southeast interview data, I provide a critique of policy directives related to advanced education and economic development. Given many of the urban assumptions embedded in development theory, my study was interested in how these rural students, in a place considered underdeveloped partly because of low college attendance rates, attain and then apply their degrees and the rationale they articulate in doing so. As US policy makers continue to require advanced education for more and more of their citizens, my research shows the complications and complexities such rhetoric evokes when people, committed to rural places and ways of life, apply them in their local contexts.

Cette thèse s’inscrit au cœur du chantier de réflexion sur l’interaction entre les États et les entreprises multinationales qui s’impose dans le contexte de l’accélération actuelle du processus de mondialisation de l’économie capitaliste. Nous l’abordons sous l’angle plus particulier des multinationales et de leur engagement institutionnel au sein des organisations, associations, forums ou réseaux qui contribuent à la définition et parfois même à la gestion des différentes politiques publiques orientées vers le développement économique, l’innovation et le marché du travail. Quelles sont les différentes facettes de l’engagement institutionnel des filiales de multinationales au Canada ? Comment ces comportements peuvent-ils être influencés par les différentes caractéristiques et stratégies de ces entreprises ? Un modèle théorique large, empruntant des hypothèses aux nombreuses approches théoriques s’intéressant aux comportements généraux des multinationales, est testé à l’aide d’analyses quantitatives de données obtenues dans le cadre d’une enquête auprès des multinationales au Canada associée au projet international INTREPID. D’abord, cette thèse permet une opérationnalisation plus précise du concept d’« imbrication de la firme » à travers la notion d’engagement institutionnel. Elle met en évidence les différentes dimensions de ce phénomène et remet en question la vision « essentiellement » positive qui l’entoure. Les résultats de cette thèse viennent questionner de la centralité des approches macro-institutionnalistes, particulièrement celle associée aux Variétés du capitalisme, dans les études sur les multinationales. Ils réaffirment par contre l’importance des différentes approches économiques et démontrent plus particulièrement la pertinence de la théorie de la dépendance aux ressources et l’impact de la présence d’un acteur structuré venant faire le contrepoids aux gestionnaires. Malgré nos efforts de théorisation, nous sommes incapable d’observer un effet modérateur des facteurs stratégiques sur l’impact du pays d’origine dans la détermination de l’engagement institutionnel. Cette thèse offre des indications permettant de cibler les interventions institutionnelles qui cherchent à « attacher » les multinationales à l’économie canadienne. Elle met aussi en évidence la contribution d’acteurs indirects dans la consolidation des relations d’engagement institutionnel et plus particulièrement le rôle positif que peuvent jouer les syndicats dans certains forums ou réseaux. / This thesis participates in a wide reflection on the interaction between government and multinational companies that is required in the current context of an accelerated globalization of the capitalist economy. We approach this issue by focusing on the institutional engagement of multinationals within different organizations, associations, forums or networks related to various development, innovation or labor market policies. What are the different dimensions of the institutionnal engagement of canadian subsidiary of multinationals ? How are those behaviors influenced by the various characteristics and strategies of these companies ? A comprehensive theoretical model, borrowing from many approaches used to understand the general behaviors of multinationals, is verified by quantitative analysis using original data obtained through the author’s participation in the Multinationals in Canada survey associated with the global INTREPID research initiative. By highlighting the different facet of institutional engagement of the firm, this thesis establishes a more accurate operationalization of the broad concept of the “embeddedness”. Doing so, it put in question the essentially positive interpretation of the lather. The results reaffirm the relevance of various economics approach, but question the centrality of macro-intuitionalist approaches, particularly the Varieties of capitalism paradigm. Our analysis also illustrates the relevance of the Resource dependence theory and the impact of the presence in a firm of a structured actor able to counterbalance managers. Despite our theoretical venture, we were unable to observe a moderator effect of autonomy or power of the subsidiary on the country of origin influence on its institutional engagement behaviors. This thesis provides some insight for better targeting institutional and economical interventions that seek to ‘embed’ multinationals and their capital inside the Canadian economy. It also draws light to the contributions of different stakeholder in the consolidation of the institutional engagement of multinationals, especially unions for training forums or employers networks.