The Central- and East European Countries have lowered their corporate tax rates substantially in order to induce shifts of production capacity to their countries. This paper analyses empirically how inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows channeled to these countries reacts to these tax policies. We estimate a panel of 35 bilateral country-relationships over a period of 1995-2002. Results suggest a semielasticity of -2.93 which is in line with results derived in studies mainly on OECD countries. This indicates that from an individual country perspective, tax-lowering strategies have been successful in the past, yet they may not be a successful policy option for the future when privatization-related FDI will decrease. / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination

Para as empresas multinacionais, transferir conhecimento disperso em diferentes localidades ao redor do globo, de modo rápido e eficiente, tem sido, ao mesmo tempo, uma vantagem e uma necessidade constante (KOGUT e ZANDER, 1993). Nos últimos anos, têm se intensificado os debates acerca do tema, em especial na área de gestão internacional. Além disso, há um aumento considerável no número de empresas brasileiras atuando no exterior e uma maior importância das multinacionais de países emergentes (GUILLEN e GARCIACANAL, 2009). No entanto, apesar de terem sido registrados inúmeros avanços, esses dois fenômenos - aumento do número de multinacionais de países emergentes ou em desenvolvimento e a acentuada discussão sobre a transferência de conhecimento em multinacionais - ainda apresentam uma série de questões não respondidas, além de haver uma série de conceitos, taxonomias e modelos sobre os quais se necessita avançar, pois o tema é cada vez mais importante e emergente (FOOS et al. 2010). Nesse sentido, nesta tese, procurase analisar como ocorre o processo de transferência de conhecimento das multinacionais brasileiras para suas unidades localizadas no exterior e vice-versa, através da análise da estratégia internacional e de uma visão multidimensional, que inclui as dimensões organizacional, pessoal e tecnológica, utilizando como aparato teórico a estratégia internacional e a Visão da Firma Baseada em Recursos – VBR. Através de abordagem qualitativa e do método estudo de caso foram pesquisados quatro grupos multinacionais sediados no Brasil e com operações em Portugal - país com quem o Brasil possui uma intensa e histórica relação comercial. Para análise dos dados, foi utilizada a técnica de análise de conteúdo. Ao todo, foram entrevistados 23 executivos ligados às áreas de recursos humanos, sistemas de informação e comercial/internacional, das matrizes e das filiais, e três especialistas foram consultados para a validação do roteiro de entrevistas. Os resultados evidenciam um aumento dos investimentos de multinacionais brasileiras no exterior, sobretudo em países emergentes. Também é possível ressaltar que em Portugal a entrada se deu principalmente via aquisições e Green fields. As filiais nesse país são, sobretudo, contribuidoras especializadas e a integração global vem ocorrendo, ainda que não de forma totalmente efetiva, sendo frequente a troca de conhecimento entre essas unidades e a sede no Brasil. No que tange à dimensão organizacional, observou-se que a geração de inovações é frequente nos grupos pesquisados e se dá, sobretudo, por meio da análise do mercado, amparada fortemente no conhecimento disponível na matriz. O tempo é um fator fundamental e há a visão de que o conhecimento é um recurso estratégico, embora isso não esteja totalmente claro. Na dimensão pessoal, observou-se que o expatriamento de executivos é muito maior do que o impatriamento, e que existe a prática de job rotation e formação de equipes, embora esta última numa frequência não tão grande quanto o esperado. A realização de reuniões é frequente, mas não existe apoio financeiro para a troca de conhecimento. Por fim, na dimensão tecnológica, observou-se a importância das tecnologias de comunicação e informação como forma de redução de custos e de aumento da conectividade. Há uma considerável base de conhecimento nos grupos multinacionais e boas relações com universidades e centros de pesquisa. / For multinational companies the act of transferring knowledge, quickly and efficiently, diffuse in different locations around the globe, has been both an advantage and a constant need (KOGUT; ZANDER, 1993). In recent years, the debate about this theme has been intensified, particularly in the international management field. In addition, there is an increase in the number of Brazilian companies operating abroad and a rise of importance of multinationals from emerging countries (GUILLEN; GARCIA-CANAL, 2009). However, despite having been registered numerous advances, these two phenomena – the increasing number of multinationals from emerging and developing countries and the discussion about the knowledge transfer in multinational companies – still present some unanswered questions. The existence of concepts, taxonomies and a variety of models which demonstrates a need to advance shows how important and emerging the theme is (FOOS et al. 2010). In this sense, this thesis aims to analyze how the process of knowledge transfer from Brazilian’s multinational to their units located abroad and vice versa happens. This will be made through the analysis of international acting and multidimensional view, which includes the organizational, personal and technological dimensions, using the Vision of the Resource- Based Firm - VBR and the international strategy as theoretical apparatus. Based on a qualitative approach, the case study method will be used, analyzing four multinational groups based in Brazil with operations in Portugal, a country which Brazil has an intense and historical trade relationship. Data were analyzed through the technique of content analysis. In this sense, 23 executives were interviewed, from the areas of human resources, information systems and commercial / international, from headquarters and subsidiaries, and three experts were consulted for validation of the interview script. The results show the increase in investments of Brazilian multinationals abroad, especially in emerging countries. In Portugal this expansion was mainly by green fields operations and through acquisitions. The subsidiaries in this country are mainly specialist contributors, while global integration is happening, even though not totally effective, with frequent exchange of knowledge between units and headquarters in Brazil. Regarding the organizational dimension, it was observed that the generation of innovations is frequent in the groups analyzed, and it occurs mainly through market analysis, being strongly supported by the knowledge available in headquarter. Time is a key factor and there is a view that knowledge is a strategic resource, although this is not entirely clear. It is noted that in the personal dimension the expatriation of executives is much higher than impatriation, there is the practice of job rotation and teams formation, although the latter at a frequency not as large as expected. Meetings are common, but there is no financial support for the exchange of knowledge. Finally, in the technological dimension we noted the importance of communication and information technologies as a way of reducing costs and increasing connectivity. There is a considerable knowledge base in the multinational groups and good relations with universities and research centers.

The internationalisation of Chinese firms has attracted attention worldwide although most of Chinese MNEs are still in their early stage of internationalisation. Chinese firms internationalisation has unique characteristics due to their home country s unique political environment, culture and economic structure. This thesis aims to investigate the implications of both of short-term stock market performance and long-term operating performance of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by Chinese firms. Drawing on signalling theory and the institution-based view, the thesis firstly examines the extent of stock market reactions to the announcement of cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) deals from a financial perspective, based on an event study of a sample of Chinese firms during the period 2000-2012. The findings indicate that Chinese firms cross-border M&As result in a positive stock market reaction. The shareholders of Chinese firms that acquire a target firm in a host country with a low level of political risk gain higher cumulative abnormal returns than those firms targeting companies in countries with a high level of political risk. However, the shareholders of Chinese state-owned enterprises experience lower abnormal returns compared with those of Chinese privately owned firms when engaging in cross-border M&A deals. The thesis further examines the impact of M&As on Chinese firms post-acquisition operating performance by integrating organisational learning theory with the institution-based view. The findings indicate that firms with serial cross-border M&As achieve better performance than those engaged in first-time cross-border M&As, and those with horizontal M&As perform better than those carrying out vertical M&As. The positive effects of acquisition experience and horizontal acquisitions on the post-acquisition performance of Chinese acquiring firms are reinforced by the institutional quality and language similarity of host countries. Finally, this thesis investigates from a management perspective how Chinese MNEs adopt different management strategies (e.g. expatriates and subsidiary autonomy) to respond to environmental challenges and improve the performance of overseas subsidiaries. Drawing on the resource dependence theory, this thesis examines the indirect effects of expatriates on subsidiary performance via subsidiary autonomy based on a survey sample of Chinese MNEs. The findings show that an increase in expatriates reduces the level of subsidiary autonomy and thus negatively affects subsidiary performance. This study also finds that the institutional quality of host countries reinforces the negative impact of expatriates on subsidiary autonomy, but reduces the importance of the latter on subsidiary performance.

L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé. / L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé.

abstract: This study investigates three issues that are relevant for the development of multinational investment banks in China. The first is about the domestic market conditions that are necessary for a country to develop multinational investment banks. The second issue is about the degree to which China has met these conditions. The last issue focuses on the potential strategies Chinese investment banks can undertake to become multinational corporations. To address the first issue, I draw an important distinction between international investment banks and multinational investment banks. For an international investment bank to be regarded as a multinational, I propose that it must have a strong presence (i.e., holding at least one percent of the market share) in at least two of the seven major capital markets in the world. Using this criterion, I identify 25 multinational investment banks. I then analyze their home countries’ domestic market conditions and propose that the following six factors are important to the development of multinational investment banks: the size of the home country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the total capitalization of its domestic security market, the number of its Global 500 firms, the volume of its foreign direct investment (FDI), the internationalization of its currency, and the openness of its capital market to foreign investors. By comparisons, I find that China’s domestic market conditions are comparable to the home countries of multinational investment banks with respect to the size of GDP, total market capitalization, the number of Global 500 firms, and the volume of FDI. What China lags behind are the internationalization of currency and the openness of capital market to foreign investors. Given the current trends of development, it is very likely that China will be able to catch up on the latter within ten years, thus meeting all the conditions necessary for the development of multinational investment banks. Based on the above findings, I suggest that Chinese investment banks seize this historical opportunity, speed up the internationalization of their businesses, and learn from the experiences of global industry leaders to become truly multinational corporations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2015

This study analyzes crisis communication strategy of a Chinese multinational technology enterprise on social media and tests the effectiveness of the crisis response. This study conducts quantitative analysis on two social media crises experienced by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd in 2017. The analysis uses Situation Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) as the theoretical framework, and proposes advices of crisis management for multinational technology enterprises in emerging countries represented by Huawei. The results show that when multinational technology enterprises face crisis, it is necessary to analyze the situation of crisis in a rational and localized way according to different social and cultural context, and adopt appropriate crisis communication strategies. While dealing with a complex cultural environment, avoiding cultural conflicts is an effective choice.

In this thesis it is suggested that the local context and culture has a large impact on how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is perceived and worked with. Previous research shows that it is important for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) to govern their CSR with respect to the local context to be trusted and run their business in a ‘good’ (what is socially perceived as good) way. The aim of this study is to examine how MNCs that are founded in Sweden and in some ways have established in China, perceive CSR and how they work with it in respect to the global- and the local context. The thesis further studies what approaches, and drivers lies behind the engagement in CSR-related activities. The thesis is based on a qualitative approach with six semi-structured interviews, that makes up the empirical material. The interviews were conducted with participants in leading positions in Swedish MNCs located in Shanghai, China. The results show that a global perspective is perceived as important for MNCs to work with, and that they in many ways adapt their global practises with respect to local culture. Furthermore, the approaches used when working with CSR are in many ways strategic and has an ethical and philanthropical drive behind them.

Esta pesquisa descreve e analisa a padronização de informações gerenciais em sistemas de informações de uma empresa multinacional. A estratégia de pesquisa adotada foi um estudo de caso único que contou com a triangulação de diversas fontes de evidência: arquivos, documentos, entrevistas e observação direta e participante. O referencial teórico aborda estudos antecedentes ao tema, conceitos sobre empresas internacionalizadas, informações gerenciais, Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP) e Business Intelligence (BI). A migração para um sistema global está contextualizada num cenário de globalização em que está presente a intensificação das transações entre países em termos de investimentos, mercadorias e serviços, entre outras características. Neste cenário, observa-se maior demanda por informações padronizadas e comparáveis tanto para usuários externos quanto internos às organizações. Os avanços na tecnologia de informação, por exemplo, em bancos de dados e comunicação em redes viabilizou as iniciativas das empresas para implementação de sistemas compartilhados por diversos países. Assim como outras empresas na década de 90, as subsidiárias da empresa em estudo adotaram soluções locais de ERP. Já no ano 2000, durante o planejamento de longo prazo, decidiu-se que seria melhor partir para uma solução global de ERP e de BI em vez de prosseguir com melhorias em cada um dos sistemas locais. Em 2001, iniciou-se o projeto global com a primeira implementação e em 2011 o sistema é utilizado em aproximadamente 25 países. O suporte da alta gestão e participação dos usuários mostraram-se relevantes no que se refere a \"implementar com\" em vez de \"implementar para\" os usuários. Com relação à utilização das informações, os relatórios mais acessados no BI são relacionados a vendas e margens, controladoria, contabilidade e ordens de produção. No entanto, os relatórios de vendas e margens não foram os mais padronizados, pois embora as fontes dos dados sejam globais, os relatórios e consultas às informações são predominantemente locais devido à ausência de uma estrutura organizacional de vendas em nível mundial e ao fato de que a maioria dos usuários somente tem permissão de acesso aos dados de suas respectivas regiões. Já os relatórios de controladoria, contabilidade e compras apresentaram maior aderência aos relatórios globais, uma vez que estas áreas possuem responsáveis em nível global que fomentaram o uso e desenvolvimento de informações mundialmente padronizadas. No caso da empresa deste estudo, observa-se que, enquanto o ERP foi mais direcionado à consistência dos processos e com poucos relatórios pré-formatados, o BI foi direcionado aos relatórios e consultas de informações com a flexibilidade da análise multidimensional. Os benefícios identificados do sistema de BI global foram: consolidação de informações das subsidiárias; comparabilidade das informações entre subsidiárias; flexibilidade do BI para conversão de moedas; rastreabilidade e maior controle sobre a qualidade dos dados. Já as principais limitações do BI global foram: adaptação ao fuso horário dos países; equilibrar a necessidade de rapidez nas consultas com o nível de detalhe e o volume de dados armazenado; pouca flexibilidade para modificações das estruturas de dados já criadas; dificuldade de manter um catálogo de relatórios globais para todos os usuários e concentração da utilização dos relatórios para análises de informações passadas em vez de análises preditivas. A partir das evidências empíricas desta pesquisa, conclui-se que não há o cenário em que o ideal seria tudo sob um padrão mundial ou deixar tudo local, pois as necessidades em nível global e local são ajustadas de forma dinâmica, conforme as características da organização e perspectivas de negócio. / This research describes and analyzes the management information standardization in the information systems of a multinational company. The research strategy adopted was a single case study which involved multiple sources of evidence including: files, documents, interviews, and direct and participant observation. The literature review covers prior studies related to this subject, concepts about international companies, management information, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Intelligence (BI) systems. The migration to a global system is part of the overall globalization scenario with an ever increasing number of transactions between countries in terms of both investments and goods and services. In this context, there is a higher demand for standardized information to external and internal users. The breakthroughs in information technology, for example data bases and network communications, make possible corporate initiatives to have systems shared by subsidiaries located in several countries. Like other companies in the nineties, the subsidiaries of the studied company adopted their local ERP solutions. In the year 2000, during the five-year plan, it was determined that a global ERP and BI solution would be better than to continue improving each of the local systems. 2001 was the first roll-out toward the global system and now in 2011 the system is used in approximately 25 countries. The support from top management and involvement from business users was relevant to the success in implementing a global system (\"implement with\" instead of \"implement to\" the users). An analysis of information usage in the BI system showed that, the most accessed reports were related to sales and margins, controlling, accounting and production. However, reports about sales and margins are not standardized across the globe despite sharing the same data sources. These reports are mostly local due to the fact that there is no organization structure in charge of global sales and most importantly that users only have security authorization to their local information. The reports about controlling, accounting and purchasing presented a higher standardization once these areas had a global management structure that fostered the use and development of global reports. In this studied company, it was noticed that the ERP and BI complement each other. While the ERP system was focused on providing and enforcing consistent processes with only a few pre-formatted reports, the BI was focused on giving users the flexibility to retrieve information from reports. The benefits identified from a global BI were: consolidation of subsidiaries data, comparable information between subsidiaries, flexibility to handle currency conversions and better tracking and control over data quality. On the other hand, the main limitations identified were: inability to adapt to different time zones, a challenge in balancing between quicker response time and level of detail and volume of data necessary, little flexibility for changes in the current data storage models and in the creation of new ones, difficulties in the maintenance of a global catalogue of reports available for all users, and that reports are mostly used for analysis of past data and not predictive analysis. From the empirical evidences of this research, the conclusion indicates that there is not a scenario in which the ideal is all management information under a global standard or under a local requirement, because the needs at global and local levels are adjusted dynamically according to the company characteristics and business perspectives.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-04-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:27:08Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ruppert_las_me_arafcl.pdf: 924784 bytes, checksum: 412c3938ee0364e93aec67d9e4532404 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar o processo de internacionalização via investimento direto externo (IDE) das empresas espanholas e coreanas a partir dos anos 90. Para isso, será feita uma revisão das abordagens não convencionais da lógica do investimento direto externo e de seus condicionantes. Ademais, serão tratadas as mudanças nos ambientes macroeconômicos e institucionais desde o pós-guerra e seus impactos sobre as estratégias de concorrência das corporações e dos movimentos de IDE. É a partir deste mapeamento global do IDE que se dará o estudo dos determinantes, das características e da evolução do investimento direto externo das empresas espanholas e coreanas nas décadas de 1990 e 2000 / This dissertation aims to analyze the internationalization process through foreign direct investment (FDI) of Spanish and Korean companies since the 90's. For that, it will be made a review of unconventional approaches about the logic of foreign direct investment and its limitations. Moreover, it will be explicited the changes in macroeconomic and institutional environments in the post-war and its impact on the competitive strategies of corporations and FDI flows. It is from this FDI global mapping that it will be studied the determinants, characteristics and evolution of foreign direct investment of Spanish companies and Korea in the past two decades

The companie s organizational culture have been studied by many areas such as: Antropology, Sociology and Psychology. The importance of this subject has increased from the eighties and many researches were developed in order to help its understanding and construction of consistant theorical-empirical method. Companie s organizational culture is a system of values and practices shared by the members of a organization and different between them. The theorical references are based in studies of Geert Hofstede, who has studied the employees of IBM s branches in 53 countries and also the GLOBE Project (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness), managed by Robert House and great team of researchers that studied about leadership s characteristics and organizational culture in 62 countries. This main purpose of this research was to identify the existence of differences in the organizational culture perception among the employees of three multinational companies of the industrial sector established in the Triangulo Mineiro area. These companies original headquarter are Israel, North America-USA and France and the studied sample contemplate the total of 89 workers of different areas in the company. The instruments and tools used to collect the data base were: a personal and professional data base questionnaire, plus a company questionnaire and a Inventory of Organizational Culture Factors (IMEFACO), with 59 items to check 4 factors; Indicator for the Hierarquical Distance (IDH), the level of Individual/Team work (IND), Orientation for the Future (OFUT) and Orientation for Achievement (OREA), validated in Brazil by Dela Coleta & Dela Coleta. The descriptives analysis (frequencies, comparisons between averages and correlations) showed the existence of significant differences in the employees perception related to training opportunities, career development opportunities, salary opportunity and company s working facilities. In fact the multinational north American company was the one who had the best results in the items mentioned above. Regarding the organizational culture factors the results indicated significant different averages in the 4 factors: in IDH the multinational French company presented the lowest average, demonstrating a great difference compared to the results shown in the Hosfstede studies and GLOBE Project. The Israeli company presented low indicators for IDH and this result matched the Hofstede studies and GLOBE Project and from this we reach to a average indicator in this study. The American multinational company was the one that presented the best results in IDH. In IND the Israeli company presented the highest averages, the French company presented the lowest average. In OFUT and OREA the French company presented the highest averages, and compared to the French company, the north American and Israeli companies presented lower averages. These results are quite different from the ones presented by Hofstede studies and GLOBE Project. / A cultura organizacional tem sido objeto de estudo de diversas áreas do conhecimento: Antropologia, Sociologia e Psicologia. O interesse pelo tema se acentuou a partir da década de oitenta e várias pesquisas têm sido conduzidas objetivando a sua compreensão e a construção de um corpo teórico-empírico consistente. Cultura organizacional refere-se a um conjunto de valores e práticas compartilhadas pelos membros de uma organização e que a difere das outras. Os referenciais teóricos deste estudo se fundamentam nos estudos de Geert Hofstede, cuja amostra se constituiu de funcionários da IBM em 53 países e no Projeto GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness), conduzido por Robert House e uma grande equipe de pesquisadores que estudaram características de liderança e da cultura em organizações de 62 países. Este trabalho buscou identificar a existência de diferenças de percepção de cultura organizacional por parte dos funcionários de três filiais de empresas multinacionais do ramo industrial situadas no Triângulo Mineiro. As três organizações possuem origem israelense, estadunidense e francesa e a amostra constituiuse de 89 trabalhadores de diferentes áreas destas empresas. Os instrumentos utilizados para a coleta de dados foram: um questionário de dados pessoais, profissionais e da empresa e o Inventário para Medida de Fatores da Cultura Organizacional (IMEFACO), composto por 59 itens que avaliaram 4 fatores: Índice de Distância Hierárquica (IDH), Grau de Individualismo/Coletivismo (IND), Orientação para o Futuro (OFUT) e Orientação para a Realização (OREA), validado no Brasil por Dela Coleta e Dela Coleta. As análises descritivas (freqüências, comparações entre médias, correlações) revelaram a existência de diferenças significativas na percepção dos funcionários no que se refere à oportunidade de treinamento, oportunidade de melhorar de função, de melhoria de salário e qualidade das instalações, sendo que a filial da multinacional de origem estadunidense se destacou, sendo avaliada mais positivamente nestes itens. Em relação aos fatores da cultura organizacional, os resultados indicaram médias significativamente diferentes nos quatro fatores pesquisados: no IDH a filial francesa obteve a média mais baixa, diferentemente dos resultados obtidos nos estudos de Hofstede e no Projeto GLOBE; Israel obteve índices baixos de IDH tanto nos estudos de Hofstede quanto no Projeto GLOBE, e um índice mediano foi obtido neste estudo. A filial da multinacional estadunidense foi a que obteve maiores níveis de IDH. No IND, a empresa israelense apresentou as maiores médias e a francesa as menores médias nesta variável. Em OFUT e OREA a empresa francesa se destacou com maiores índices, seguida pela estadunidense e pela israelense, com menores médias comparativamente. Estes resultados apontam para diferenças daqueles encontrados anteriormente nos estudos de Hofstede e no Projeto GLOBE. / Mestre em Psicologia Aplicada