This thesis argues that corporations have outgrown the theoretical frameworks that were devised to explain their dynamics at the turn of the 20th century. Contemporary conditions result in crises of legitimacy between corporations and their public contexts. With their amplified scales of operation and wide-reaching physical, economic, political, and social consequences, corporations of the 21st century demand revised theoretical, legal, and pragmatic interpretations that are better suited to grappling with present-day dynamics and to addressing critical challenges. This research examines contemporary controversies between corporations and publics from a critical legal perspective. Analysis of corporate dynamics is informed by geographically oriented themes of space and scale, contingency and attribution, and materiality and risk as they bear relevance to theoretical and real enactments of the corporation. This thesis grounds its claims with reference to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) discourse; taking advantage of its reach and popularity while maintaining enough distance to note its limitations and internal contradictions. This thesis finds that the present-day account of CSR is originated and advanced by an ideological orientation that is universalizing, materialist, positivist, formalist and rationalist. Such an orientation is confronted and contested in this work by a more critical rationality that is concerned with power dynamics, as well as questions of agency and self-determination. This rationality is elaborated through four empirical chapters which find that: 1) appeals to a CSR agenda as an effective mechanism for addressing the corporation’s public impacts assumes the existence of a modern, liberal political context; 2) community ‘materiality’ presents an opportunity to bridge the notional public/private divide that is a core tenet of liberal theory; 3) the global corporation extends into plural territorialities and legal jurisdictions, and its public identity as interpreted through legal text sets the parameters for the accountability regimes devised to manage its impacts 4) pragmatist and aspirational legal agendas might be coordinated to advance issue-focused as well as case-based corporate liability reform. This work advances an account of the corporate-public relationship that carries relevance to a range of actors; corporations, public communities, policy makers and legal scholars. Each group has an integral part to play in addressing the challenges presented by the modern corporate arrangement and devising regimes that contain its public implications.

Title: Selection of Local and Expatriate Managers of MNEs in the Post-Entry Phase Authors: Rebecka Nilsson and Tilda Nithenius Level: Master thesis, 30 HP Keywords: Post-Entry Phase, Managerial Selection Strategy, Foreign Activities, Multinational Enterprises, Local Manager, Expatriate Manager     Background: The internationalization of companies contributes to competitive advantage as well as challenges for the companies. In foreign activities enterprises exist in different phases, which might have an impact on the management requirements. This makes the strategy of managerial selection relevant because it will ease the overall foreign activities.     Research Question: Which are the underlying factors that influence the selection of host-country managers in the post-entry phase?   Purpose:The purpose of this study is to develop the understanding for companies’ managerial selection strategies in the post-entry phase. In addition, the purpose of this study is to develop a model that will work as a theoretical guideline for managerial selections.   Theoretical Framework:Theories of firms’ internationalization process, different phases for companies that operate internationally and challenges for companies operating abroad, are presented. Further theories of managerial selection, international human resource management and management of international companies are discussed.     Methodology:This study is made with a qualitative research method and a multiple case-study design, with an abductive approach. Eight Swedish companies operating in China were interviewed through semi-structured and low standardized interviews. The respondents from the companies are top managers operating in China.   Findings:There are three underlying factors; trust, knowledge gap and legitimacy, that influence the managerial selection of host-country managers in the post entry-phase. Each underlying factor is indirect influenced by different factors. The underlying factors are also all influenced by an overall factor, social capital. This study implies that the selection of managers, except top managers, changes in the post-entry phase compared to the entry-phase as they recruit host-country nationals.

Managing organisational knowledge is crucial to increase business performance and competitiveness. However, given the complexity and dynamic nature of knowledge management practices, multinational organisations experience difficulties in identifying business opportunities and often fail to make necessary investments. This thesis develops an alternative perspective on knowledge management through the creation of a model based on socio-technical characteristics and organisational ignorance, and argues that managing nescience, i.e. knowing what needs to be known and also acknowledging the power of understanding the unknown, could facilitate employees' knowledge sharing behaviour and could improve both short-term opportunistic value capture and longer term business sustainability. It also creates a novel technique for managing dysfunctional knowledge management scenarios and improving knowledge management practices in the workplace by definition of the concept of KM anti-patterns, while discussing practices that reduce the risk of making the wrong decision when using uncertain information. The philosophy of this study is based on an interpretative approach with inductive reasoning. Both qualitative and quantitative methods, based mainly on workshop style discussions, questionnaires and semi-structured interview data, were implemented using various departments of one multinational organisation within the Aerospace and Defence industry as units of the analysis. Managing organisational ignorance is seldom and insufficiently discussed by the current KM literature and no previous attempt has been made to detect, analyse and categorise KM dysfunctional situations using a systematic KM anti-pattern template. It is argued that the issues addressed in this study could lead to inefficient or otherwise inappropriate KM practices; therefore it is important, particularly for managers and senior executives, to acknowledge, verify and act upon such matters in order to increase performance within their business, and optimise the level of knowledge for an individual employee or group in knowledge intensive settings.

Increasing economic, social and environmental problems around the world have shown that current models of economic development cannot be sustained. Thus, new patterns of consumption are needed. According to the literature, global companies are well placed to attempt leveraging sustainable consumption, as their production lines; supply chains; products and services extend across many continents, and as such the cumulative effect of their actions are wide reaching. This research sets out to better understand the intertwined factors that companies in two different contexts (Mexico and the UK), need to consider in order to leverage sustainable consumption. Through the literature review it was seen that sustainable consumption requires a multitude of changes, which have to occur at a systems level. In response to this, user-centred design (UCD) principles were seen as a valuable approach to give a broader account of the complexities around consumption and consumer's behaviour that could be communicated to higher management. A series of interviews, a focus group and a document analysis was undertaken to collect qualitative data. The findings led to the construction of a theoretical framework supported by UCD principles. The theoretical framework was then translated into the Sustainable Consumption Leveraging (SCL) Model and its toolkit. The SCL Model is a mechanism that takes into account the interaction of elements in a specific business context to identify areas of opportunity to leverage sustainable consumption through a consumer-focused approach. During a series of workshops, the SCL Model and its toolkit were tested to distinguish further opportunities of improvement and to understand where global companies stand with regards leveraging sustainable consumption. The research concludes by saying that companies need to work in collaboration with other actors to build a strong sustainability and innovation strategy that could help them to find new ways of doing business that can enhance more sustainable lifestyles.

Multinational bank activities have gradually risen in developing countries since the beginning of the globalisation process. Rising foreign bank activities in developing countries have motivated researchers to investigate foreign banks, comprehensively. Turkey is a typical example of a developing country that achieved a tremendous growth rate in foreign bank asset, especially throughout the last decade. The aim of this thesis is to examine two-way linkage; (1) between foreign bank penetration (FBP) and banking variables; (2) between FBP and country risk and (3) between FBP, foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) in Turkey. Therefore, this thesis is constructed by three empirical sections. Moreover the pattern of FDI inflow and outflow in the world and in Turkey has been analysed, chronologically. In addition, the theory of FDI is taken into account and existing FDI theories has been criticised. In the first empirical work – Chapter 3 - the short run and long run relationship, if it exits, between FBP and determinants of bank performance (namely, domestic bank assets, domestic credit and banking profitability) in Turkey was investigated after controlling DGDP and 2001 financial crisis (DUM2001). The outcome of the Granger causality test indicates that there was unilateral causality which runs from DDB to DFBP . Moreover, I also found feedback causality between DFBP and DCREDIT . By employing impulse response functions, I found that there is positive relationship between DFBP and DCREDIT as I expected. Moreover, the response of DFBP to one standard deviation shock in domestic bank assets is initially statistically significant and positive. The reverse effect is statistically significant and positive. In the final model, the response of DFBP to one standard deviation shock in profitability (PRO) is significant and positive at 3rd quarter. The reverse effect is surprisingly positive but not statistically significant. Specifically, what has not been also investigated deeply in the empirical literature is the two-way linkage between foreign bank penetration and risk such as political, financial and economic. Thus, in chapter 4, linkage between FBP and country risk (namely, political risk, economic risk and financial risk) was examined in Turkey using quarterly data from 1994Q1 to 2009Q4. My finding indicated that I found one error correction term significant and positive in bivariate vector error correction in model 1 and 2, implying that in the long run, foreign bank penetration has contributed to economic and political risk. Moreover, short run causality based on VAR approach between DFBP and financial risk is investigated but I failed to find any significant causality in the VAR model after controlling DGDP and 2001 financial crisis, even at the 10% level. By analysing impulse response functions, I could not detect any significant relationship between DFBP and host country risk variables in the short run. This is because adding control variables (DGDP and DUM2001) make the relationship between host country risk variables and DFBP statistically insignificant. Finally, I investigated two-way linkage between FBP, FPI and FDI in Turkey after controlling DGDP and 2001 financial crisis. The finding from the VAR based block exogeneity wald test indicated that changes in DFBP significantly lead to changes in DFDI and there is also unilateral causality which runs from FPI to DFBP. Moreover, using the variance decomposition technique I found that DFDI and FPI have little explanatory power for the evolution of DFBP in Turkey. The contribution of DFBP to the variability of DFDI is more than that of FPI. The contribution of DFDI to FPI variability ranges between 0.000% and 9.122% throughout 12 quarter periods whilst the contribution of DFBP to FPI variability ranges between 0.000% and 7.611%.

<p> </p><p>Since the 1990s and the Swedish membership in the European Union in 1995, the presence of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) has increased radically in the Swedish economy. The objective with this study is to analyze MNEs effects in different regions within the Swedish manufacturing industry in terms of productivity. Is a region with more MNEs, more pro-ductive than a region with a lower share of MNEs? The theory claims that productivity spillovers of MNEs occurs through three channels namely, via R&D, increased competi-tion and transmission of technology. By observing 81 regions which consists of all 290 municipals in Sweden and taking the average value of productivity and the explanatory variables trough 1997-2004, a cross-sectional analysis is conducted. The results evidently showed signs of productivity spillovers of MNEs on local firms in the manufacturing in-dustry. Findings suggest that (1) a regions with higher share of MNEs did face a higher re-gional productivity. However the spillovers was not successfully absorbed by regions with a industry structure that was not dominated by a the manufacturing industry. (2) Larger re-gions, in terms of population, tend to show a lower productivity level compared to the av-erage levels of the rest of the regions, since their structure was dominated by the service sector. (3) Regions with small technological difference compared to the MNEs, tends to hold the skills and knowledge needed to efficiently exploit the productivity spillovers, hence MNEs influence on regional productivity was greater in these regions than regions with a lower level of technical capability.</p><p> </p>

This study analyzes the activities of the organized crime groups involved in the drug business, as well as examining national and international efforts to control these groups. Specifically, this study addresses the following questions: How is organized crime connected to the international drug business?; What are the major transnational organized crime groups involved in the international drug business?; What is the nature of the drug problem as it relates to organized crime internationally?; What international cooperative law enforcement efforts currently exist to deal with organized crime and the drug business? Findings indicate that efforts to create an effective international law enforcement network are needed to meet the challenges of drug trafficking and globalized crime. To date, such efforts have largely been unsuccessful.

The aim of this research is to examine the extent to which the offshoring and outsourcing practices in Multinational Corporations, when the headquarters are registered and located in either the UK or Germany; are embedded in the institutional contexts of their respective home countries. There are six research questions relating to differences in approach and choice of location, ownership and coordination, employment practice, cultural proximity, trade union influence and finally the extent of re-shoring. These are primarily assessed through the 'varieties of capitalism' perspective. A comparative case study approach has been adopted with a focus on two sectors; airlines and engineering; in each case a major UK and German organisation are compared. Fourteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews took place in both the home countries and overseas locations in Europe, India and Asia. The sample size is small, however, each was with a senior executive and the transcripts revealed 'rich data' for compiling the case studies and answering the research questions. The contribution to original thinking is a conceptual framework posited by proposing a taxonomy to analyse the relationship between coordinated and liberal market economies and the components of the offshoring and / or outsourcing process. Reference is made to theory drawn from the resource based view, global production networks, dynamic capabilities, embeddedness as well as varieties of capitalism to focus on competences, spatial dimensions and power. It is this collective approach that is considered to be novel. Qualitative analysis is deployed to re-construct the actual framework for each industry sector. Constructs (Reichertz, 2004) combining abduction, deduction and induction are used to develop propositions that lead to conclusions. The similarities between the two UK companies and the two German companies confirms the usefulness of the taxonomy and allows for its extension to other firms and sectors. Key findings and conclusions from the two case studies are that German organizations are less inclined to outsource (in both sectors) preferring to reduce costs and retain control through captive offshoring. The UK businesses were less risk adverse and more flexible and agile in their sourcing policies. There was evidence that the UK companies regarded outsourcing and offshoring as options for closer co-operation that may lead to strategic alliances and mergers or acquisition. The relationships with trade unions/works council was also found to be very different, with a reluctance by management in Germany to progress radical initiatives. Other differences in terms of autonomy and division of labour were found. From an institutional perspective the German CME's cases were less able to deploy outsourcing and offshoring strategies with the degrees of freedom that the UK LMEs typically enjoyed. CMEs are constrained by their policies, interconnectedness and style of working. A number of ambiguities are highlighted. The thesis argues that the outsourcing and offshoring practices are embedded to a high degree in the institutional practices of the home countries. Finally, the empirical novelty lies in the 'rich data' generated by valuable insights from the senior executive interviewees to which the researcher was privileged to have access.

This thesis deals with the globalization of production, a salient feature of the modern economy. The development of international outsourcing as a widespread business practice and the simultaneous decrease in trade and transport costs have contributed to the growth of a phenomenon known as global value chains. The main aim of the thesis is to understand how global value chains alter the location of economic activity. The thesis also studies the extent of firms' participation in global value chains and its consequences for firm performance.   The thesis consists of four papers studying the behavior of firms in global value chains. Paper 1 analyzes how production fragmentation influences the importing and exporting behavior of Swedish firms in the manufacturing sector. Paper 2 focuses on manufacturing firms in the ICT sector and analyzes the effect of global sourcing on firm performance. In Paper 3, the thesis examines deeper implications of global production by investigating whether exposure to trade raises firms' sensitivity to external shocks. The final paper in the thesis studies the location patterns of multinational firms and analyzes the effect of institutional distance on the number of multinational entries in developing countries.   A number of patterns emerge from these studies. The first is that Swedish manufacturing firms increasingly participate in global value chains by sourcing production inputs from overseas to create products for local and foreign customers. As a result, global value chains help to alter the specialization patterns of manufacturing firms. The second finding is that firms reap benefits from global sourcing in the form of greater efficiency. However, global sourcing may also raise the responsiveness of firms to negative external shocks. The final key result points to a developing trend in the location of activity in which emerging market multinational firms are becoming significant sources of foreign direct investment flows and their investment patterns challenge existing theories of multinational location choice.

Attention of top managers has an impact on future direction of an organization according to the attention-based view of the firm. In the context of multinational corporations, headquarters’ attention is likely to influence the actions and behavior of subsidiaries. Thus, in the thesis, I respond to calls for more research on this topic: enhancing the understanding about how a subsidiary’s perception of headquarters’ attention relates to its choice of communication moves when sharing business ideas with headquarters (also known as subsidiary voice). In recent research, subsidiary voice is viewed as a bottom-up tool for subsidiaries to attract headquarters’ attention to issues that they consider important for their local units and the entire organization. In line with the research purpose, the data were collected at the subsidiary level through a combination of both, survey and interviews. The findings based on empirical data point out that a subsidiary’s perception of headquarters’ attention engagement has a positive impact on its voice. This means that subsidiaries not having regular interaction with headquarters are unable to select communication moves that can attract headquarters’ attention and hence encounter challenges in adopting an initiative-taking approach to gain influence or a central position in the organization. As a result, contrary to the claims put forth in recent research, the thesis findings highlight that subsidiary voice alone is not enough to attract headquarters’ attention. Instead, subsidiaries can only use their voice when they have power (also called weight) to influence headquarters’ attention and decisions. This gives rise to an unequal playing field because subsidiaries that lack considerable weight are unable to contribute to strategy formulation and future planning done by the headquarters, with regard to their own units and the organization in general. On the contrary, subsidiaries with a considerable weight experience a high degree of attention engagement from the headquarters and thus find it easier to attract headquarters’ attention for their business ideas.