No cenário de crescente envolvimento do setor privado em questões sociais públicas, em que a distinção entre o público e o privado torna-se cada vez mais tênue e empresas são conclamadas para a solução de demandas sociais, disseminam-se práticas de Responsabilidade Social Corporativa (RSC), e organizações multinacionais passam, gradativamente, a desenvolver iniciativas sociais além de suas fronteiras, enfrentando desafios inusitados. O Investimento Social Privado (ISP), que é definido na literatura brasileira como o repasse de recursos voluntários a projetos sociais e que representa a dimensão da RSC focada na comunidade e nas ações sociais voltadas ao interesse público (GIFE, 2013), vem se tornando objeto constante de pesquisas no Brasil. Dentre os desafios relacionados ao ISP, aponta-se a lacuna de estudos que analisem a internacionalização do Investimento Social Privado, fato este particularmente significativo visto que multinacionais brasileiras vêm expandindo suas práticas sociais para além das fronteiras do país (NOGUEIRA; SCHOMMER, 2009). Neste contexto, a presente pesquisa qualitativa e exploratória, realizada através de estudos de casos múltiplos em quatro representativas multinacionais brasileiras que investem socialmente em países estrangeiros nos quais mantêm atividades, se propõe a investigar como ocorre a internacionalização do Investimento Social de multinacionais brasileiras, analisando seus principais desafios e limitações. Os resultados apontam como principal desafio à internacionalização do ISP brasileiro o seu processo de governança, caracterizado pela baixa participação de seus stakeholders ao longo do processo, especialmente das comunidades locais, fato potencializado pela falta de articulação de atores locais em determinados países. Assim, o estudo propõe uma reflexão sobre o Investimento Social realizado na atualidade por multinacionais brasileiras no exterior, visto, de um lado, as preocupações do setor empresarial em relação ao respeito aos povos locais e, de outro, o baixo envolvimento das empresas com as demais partes interessadas. / In increasing private sector involvement in social public issues, where the distinction between public and private becomes tenuous and companies are invited for the solution of social demands, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices are spreading, and multinational companies are gradually developing social initiatives beyond its borders, facing numerous issues. The Private Social Investment (PSI), which is defined in Brazilian literature as the voluntary transfer of resources to social projects and that is the dimension of CSR focused on the community and on the public interest (GIFE, 2012), becomes a constant subject of study in Brazil in recent years. Among the challenges related to PSI, it is pointed the gap in the investigation of the internationalization of Brazilian Private Social Investment, as the phenomenon of expansion of Brazilian multinationals, often accompanied by the promotion of social practices by these global companies in the countries in which they operate (NOGUEIRA; SCHOMMER, 2009). In this context, this qualitative and exploratory study conducted through case studies in four representative Brazilian multinationals that invest socially in foreign countries in which they hold activities , proposes to investigate how the internationalization of Social Investment of Brazilian multinationals occurs, analyzing its main challenges and limitations. The results indicate that the main challenge to the internationalization of Brazilian PSI is related to its governance process, characterized by low participation of its stakeholders, particularly local communities, throughout the process, a situation aggravated by the lack of coordination of local actors in certain countries. Thus, the study proposes a reflection on the current phenomenon of social investment led by Brazilian multinationals abroad, since on the one hand, the concerns of the business sector in relation to respect for local people, and on the other, the low involvement of companies with other stakeholders.

Integrating distance research with the behavioral strategy literature on MNC headquarters-subsidiary relations, this paper explores how the distance between headquarters and subsidiaries relates to value added by the headquarters. We show for 124 manufacturing subsidiaries in Europe that, on average, distance is unrelated to value added by headquarters but that this effect is contingent upon the extent to which the subsidiary is locally embedded. Only after a certain threshold level of subsidiary embeddedness, distance is negatively related to headquarters value added. This effect is more pronounced for cultural, economic, and administrative distances than for pure geographic distance, highlighting the critical role of contextual variation for MNCs.

Economia / Master in Economics / The relevance of foreign direct investment (FDI) (UNCTAD, 2007) is recognised by a vast body of literature. However, until recently most studies and policy-making initiatives were focused on the mere magnitude of FDI inflows (i.e. the quantity), neglecting the quality of these investments. Recent literature on subsidiaries roles and evolution is shedding light on the asymmetric quality of multinationals (MNEs) operations, hence helping to understand their differentiated impact on host economies. This dissertation contributes to this literature by investigating empirically the quality of foreign subsidiaries activities located in Ireland and Portugal. Using data from a purposely designed questionnaire survey, the following questions will be analysed. First, which characteristics of multinational subsidiaries are conducive to innovation? This study will consider the impact of age, education and R&D intensities, among other characteristics, on innovation. This question will be analysed using a probit model. Second, do foreign subsidiaries based in Ireland and Portugal differ in a systematic way with regard to these characteristics and with regard to the motivations that led to their establishment? This question will be studied using nonparametric methods. The empirical results (first application) corroborate the hypotheses that age, education and R&D intensities of the subsidiary impact positively on innovation. The results are consistent with previous studies that emphasise the time dependent aspect of multinational subsidiaries evolution (Young, Hood and Peters, 1994; Birkinshaw and Hood, 1997, 1998) and those that highlight the importance of human capital (Bartel and Lichtenberg, 1987; Narula and Marin, 2003) and R&D activities (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989, 1990) for technology absorption and creation. It was also found (the second empirical application) that the asset-seeking motivation played a more important role in attracting investors to Ireland than to Portugal and that subsidiaries based in Ireland tend to display greater education and R&D intensities than those based in Portugal.

This thesis focuses on the private sector response to the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and the United States (US) in multinational businesses and corporations. From an epidemiological perspective HIV/AIDS and its co infections cause acute and chronic illness in the workforce leading to programs and interventions of various complexity and effectiveness. Workforce HIV/AIDS epidemiology in South Africa and the US is reviewed and discussed. From a critical medical anthropology perspective multinational corporations are political and economic entities with immense resources and power over people, communities, and governments globally. Corporate culture becomes important in the design of prevention and treatment strategies. Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) global AIDS program (GAP) allowed the researcher to conduct key informant interviews and participant observation in five multinational business in South Africa. Important issues are raised regarding workforce education, stigma, workplace and community relationships, rapid-saliva versus blood sample testing, and the need for more disclosure and involvement of people with HIV/AIDS (PWHAs) in the workplace. In light of increasing global capitalization, poor government services for prevention and treatment, and the fact that HIV/AIDS discrimination is a human rights abuse, from a collective standpoint businesses have been slow to respond to HIV/AIDS, in southern Africa as well as in the United States, and should make it a core component of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies regardless of disease prevalence in the workforce.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of international programs in preparing participants for effective engagement in the world's economy and the complexity of multiple societies and cultures. The study's objective is to identify and assess the skills and competencies that are in demand for graduates of international programs, from both the United States and foreign perspectives, and their main economic social and civic contributions. This research project develops, pilots and validates a list of critical competencies and skills for persons starting careers in international settings, creating a unique and valuable product. In addition, the project uses the validated listing for gathering and analyzing preliminary empirical data to help understand and evaluate the outcomes and importance of these competencies from three different--yet related perspectives--major employers, preparation institutions, and recent graduates of the program. The researcher will address the following questions: 1. What are the competencies and skills being required of employees and perspective employees as identified by the businesses and the corporate world? 2. What are the competencies and skills being emphasized by academic institutions in preparing prospective employees for the world of work? 3. To what extent are the competencies and skills of academic programs congruent with the required competencies and skills of the corporate world? The products of this work provide for the first time a valuable foundation for policy, planning, research, evaluation, and marketing the nature and importance of high quality, well prepared higher education graduates to meet the needs of our country's global workforce.

It is understood that national culture has an impact on organisations but what is not well understood is the extent to which this occurs and how it occurs. This thesis examines how employees working in a major multinational corporation (MNC) in the Asia Pacific Region (APR) perceive work commitment. Multinational corporations use ethnocentric and largely American constructs and measures in all areas of staff performance, including work commitment. This study is situated within the service sector where the work commitment of employees is increasingly posited as an important element of achieving competitive advantage. This is an applied research study that seeks to both further the understanding of work commitment in a cross-cultural context, namely the collectivist cultures of the APR, and to provide answers to questions that the management of the MNC in question had regarding the applicability of their American-developed measure of work commitment. The MNC in this study is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, employing 154,000 employees. The methodological approach adopted was a mixed methods sequential exploratory study, with triangulation of data that included: surveys, interviews, focus groups, forced choice questionnaires and expert panels. The final analysis of data was conducted using the MNC's employee survey (n=19950) of APR countries. A hallmark of the research is the extensive use of triangulation or multiple methods within a mixed methods approach. Cross-cultural studies are fraught with methodological problems, and triangulation of data is considered to be essential to overcome a range of problems, associated with the use of traditional survey methods. This is an insider investigation as the researcher was an employee of the MNC, called Merico for the purposes of this thesis, to maintain the organisation's privacy. The first stage of the study revealed the dimension of collectivism as being of importance to employees in the APR. The familial-type organisational culture Merico created a degree of isomorphism because it aligned more readily with the collectivist values and orientations of employees. In the second stage, the research explored work commitment and discovered that in the APR there was a different set of understandings of work commitment compared to the one used currently by Merico. Through integrating the findings from both stages of the study a new framework of work commitment, called the 'Work and Organisational Kinship' (WOK) framework, was developed. The WOK was then tested against the American model through using the existing employee survey that Merico conducted in 2000 and a new index of work commitment, called the WOKI was proposed for use by Merico. The relevance of this study is that it shows that the 'one size fits all' approach to work commitment will no longer provide a sound approach for managing performance within a competitive market place. The research shows that there are differences between drivers of work commitment and outcomes in the APR compared to those of the US and Australia. Performance management in Merico is heavily rewarded by work commitment. To misunderstand work commitment in the context of the APR and to measure it in a culturally insensitive manner, and then apply reward systems accordingly, poses major problems in performance management. The WOK framework introduces two constructs called 'organisational kinship' and 'service loyalty' that are critical to creating a geocentric approach to work commitment in the APR, and in Merico.

With increasing globalisation of the world economy, there is growing interest in international business research among academics, business practitioners and public policy makers. As marketing is usually the first corporate function to internationalise, it occupies the centre-stage in the international strategy debate. The objective of this study is to understand the environmental and organisational factors that drive the desirable outcomes of learning, innovation and performance in multinational firms. By adapting the IO-based, resource-based and contingency theories, the study proposes the environment-conduct-outcome framework and a model of global marketing in MNCs. Using the structural equation modelling-based PLS methodology, the model is estimated with data from a global survey of marketing managers in MNC subsidiaries. The results show that the traditional international marketing strategy and organisational structure constructs of adaptation and autonomy do not have a significant direct effect on MNC performance. Instead, the effects are largely mediated by the networking, learning and innovation constructs that are included in the proposed model. The study also shows that, whereas collaborative decision making has a positive effect on interunit learning, subsidiary autonomy has a significant influence on innovativeness in MNC subsidiaries. Finally, it is found that marketing mix adaptation has an adverse impact on the performance of MNCs facing high global integration pressures but improves the performance of MNCs confronted with low global integration pressures. The findings have important implications for global marketing in MNCs. First, to enhance organisational learning and innovation and ultimately improve corporate performance, MNCs should simultaneously develop the potentially conflicting organisational attributes of collective decision-making among the subsidiaries and greater autonomy to the subsidiaries. Second, to tap local knowledge, MNCs should increasingly regard their country units as 'colleges' or 'seminaries' of learning rather than merely as 'subsidiaries' with secondary or subordinate roles. Finally, to improve MNC performance, the key requirement is to achieve a good fit between the global organisational structure, marketing strategy and business environment. Overall, the results provide partial support for the IO-based and resource-based views and strong support for the contingency perspective in international strategy.

As multinational corporations (MNCs) are extending their international operations they need to examine issues such as the localisation of human resource policies and management, and the effective use of local and expatriate managers. Examination of expatriate studies indicates a lack of attention given to the relationships between expatriate managers and local managers or the perspectives of local managers working in MNCs. This thesis attempts to fill these gaps by focusing on the cross-cultural interactions between expatriate and local managers. This thesis addresses the importance of positive cross-cultural understanding between Japanese expatriate managers and local managers in Japanese subsidiaries in Australia, and its effect on work-related outcomes such as job satisfaction and commitment to the organisation. It identifies macro and micro factors which are associated with levels of job satisfaction and commitment of Japanese expatriate managers and Australian managers with special focus on economic functions of industry, communication, and mutual perceptions. Conceptual models for predicting organisational commitment for Japanese expatriate and Australian managers are developed, and the validity of the models is empirically tested. ¶ Australian managers and Japanese expatriate managers working for Australian subsidiaries of twelve Japanese-owned firms completed self-report questionnaires anonymously. A unique paired data set is used for particular analyses such as measuring communication and perceptions of each other. This thesis examines differences in work values and beliefs between Japanese expatriates and Australian managers on issues derived from structural and cultural features of Japanese MNCs; for example, the type of subsidiary-head office management (eg. strategic planning), integration of local managers, group-oriented decision making, and work ethic. It is found that there is a significant gap in perceptions between Japanese and Australian managers with regard to corporate membership, but no significant differences are found in their opinions towards the strategic planning style of management. Contrary to our expectations, Australian managers are found to be more group-oriented than Japanese managers. ¶ The characteristics of two industries, general trading firms (the sogo shosha) and manufacturing firms, are discussed and their impacts upon cross-cultural relationships and work attitudes of managers are examined. Findings indicate that Australian managers in manufacturing firms have more positive perceptions of work relations with Japanese managers and positive work attitudes than Australian managers in the sogo shosha. This suggests that manufacturing firms provide a more positive work environment to Australian managers than the sogo shosha, whereas cross-cultural interactions in the sogo shosha are not very effective, which may cause misunderstanding and mistrust between managers, and lower levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment of local managers. The type of industry does not affect the work attitudes of Japanese managers or their perceptions of Australian counterparts. ¶ A conceptual model for predicting the organisational commitment of Japanese and Australian managers are developed and tested empirically. Independent variables included in the model are: individual characteristics, type of industry, psychological integration of local managers into the Japanese organisation, work relations between Japanese and local managers and job satisfaction. Results indicate that job satisfaction, work relations and tenure have significant impacts upon organisational commitment of Australian managers. As for the Japanese managers, job satisfaction and tenure have significant impacts upon organisational commitment, but no association between work relations and organisational commitment is found. In addition, the relationship between work relations and organisational commitment for the Australian managers is partially mediated by job satisfaction, however, this is not the case with the Japanese managers. ¶ The findings of this thesis will improve our understanding of cross-cultural interactions between expatriates and local managers, increasing overall firm performance and improving the quality of cross-cultural relationships within contemporary society. Moreover, these findings will provide a wider perspective on understanding how organisations can implement localisation of management and integrate local managers into the organisation.

<p>With the increasing trend of globalization, the impact of globalization has lead to a fast changing environment the boundaries for business is diminishing day by day so is the movement of people between different countries and cultures. The requirements of multinational organizations like expansion plans in international market has continuingly increased the need to understand the cultural dimensions of different countries to achieve better results. Therefore the companies are required to understand a national culture’s impact on areas like communication in multicultural teams in different countries which has a high degree of effect on team performance. So our research question revolves around this topic as “How does culture influence communication in multi cultural teams<em>”</em>. This thesis makes an attempt to investigate the influence of national cultures on communication in project teams in China and India by focusing on construction industry based on a number of factors including Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensional framework. The researchers intend to explore the cultural factors having major impact on communication in multicultural project teams of both countries. Throughout our research and study, useful lessons on national cultures impact on communication can be drawn for multicultural project team in China and India. It can provide a better insight for the project teams to have concern for and understand why people from different countries and cultures react or respond to various situations in a different manner, giving high emphasis to communication process.</p><p>To support our thesis a total of 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers in different companies from construction sector. An empirical qualitative research using semi-structured interviews was conducted from a total of 12 project team members from multinational companies in China and India based on their experiences on cultural influence on team communication when working in project teams. The research revealed that there are significant differences and similarities in communication styles of Chinese and Indian teams, and the differences are mostly attributed to have strong links with cultural aspects. Specially with increasing economical changes the traditional patterns of behavior in communication are changing with time. The results also addressed number of similarities; especially in both the countries, culture continues to dominate most aspects of communication. The major implication is that the knowledge of the cultural differences and similarities would facilitate better team performance. Therefore, by keeping in mind the importance as well as the impact of various national cultures and presenting each member with a better understanding and knowledge about social background of the team mates within the multicultural teams, arguments and conflicts arise due to misconception and pre-judgment can be reduced. Hence it will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the teams working in multicultural environment.</p>

<p>The pressures of increased foreign competition can persuade a company to expand its business into international markets. In most cases, the motive is a search for improved cost efficiency or looking for the chance to expand and achieve growth. Swedish firms often develop their international operations in small steps rather than by making large foreign production investments at single points in time. Typically firms start exporting to a country via an agent, later establish a sales subsidiary, and eventually, in some cases, begin production in the host country. Such process was called Uppsala Model or Internationalisation Stage Model. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether Uppsala Internationalisation Model apply to transition market such as Poland. The year 1989 was an important turning point in the history of the Polish economy. After a long period of isolation to the Western world, Poland opened its boarders not only for visitors and tourists, but also for foreign companies. Many of them have invested in production in Poland during the transition period. One of the Swedish investors present in Poland almost from the beginning of the transition process is Scania. Scania holds fourth position in the world in manufacturing trucks and buses, and the second place in Europe in sales of heavy trucks. Poland as a transition market attracted Scania for many different reasons such as market size, geographical location and future growth perspectives. Company's activities confirmed the assumption that Internationalisation Stage Model can be applied to transition country and can explain MNE's initial steps in the unknown environment.</p>