Corporate social responsibility is a well-discussed phenomenon where existing researchers within the field of MNEs have found an increased interest in the CSR topic. Existing research between the two topics is still at an early stage where the main reason is the complexity of defining the CSR concept, as well as the MNEs cross-border operations in multiple contexts. Further, the fast fashion industry is generally characterized by frequent production and squeezed margins to maximize profit. CSR is significantly important for MNEs operating in the fast fashion industry due to their environmental and social impact, where they have to reconsider the impact of their actions. This thesis will examine two MNEs originated from Sweden and Spain to understand the differences and similarities of the selected MNEs strategic CSR focus and actions. Further, a qualitative research method has been conducted in order to fulfill the purpose of this thesis, where the empirical data has been conducted through secondary data. The common findings of this thesis indicate that both MNEs engage in multiple CSR activities, where the strategy mainly focus on environmental and social aspects. Further, the findings illustrated a clear connection to Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR where all responsibilities were included in the strategies. The outcome of the thesis indicates that both MNEs strategies involves actions to take responsibility for global and local issues.

Background: From digitalization acceleration, digital disruptions such as edge-cutting technologies, have caused challenges and changes to business’ natures in terms of value, structures, and strategies. No industry nor organization is immune to these impacts, especially multinational enterprises in the information technology industry, whereas these businesses have started to overlook and disregard traditional ways of working to enhance these impacts. Agility has become a new vital dynamic capability in today’s environment, whereas organizational agility is argued to support businesses to cope with this turbulent era of increased competition, globalization, and digitalization. Although, to enhance this, traditional business processes and operations must be rethought and extended to a digital context.  Purpose: As digital disruptions have become a threat to businesses' values and operations, it has gained increased attention in both practice and research. Organizational agility is raised as a tool and response to cope with these new digital threats and changes to fundamental business values, however, this has also increased pressure on managers to create and maintain cohesion and motivation when change is imposed. Nonetheless, how this is managed and experienced within local subsidiaries of multinational enterprises lacks both exploration and understanding, and thus, suggesting that there is much left to uncover. This, especially on how to maintain local responsiveness while enhancing global fundamental values when introducing organization agility to cope with changes and digital disruptions.   Method: With a relativism ontology, interpretivism epistemology, and inductive research approach, this research studied how to be organizationally agile under digital disruptions, from a subsidiary perspective in an IT multinational enterprise. Through a qualitative explorative research and multiple-case study design, the empirical data was gathered from 12 semi-structured in-depth interviewees and observations, where the employee perspective set the foundation of how organizational agility and digital disruptions are managed and experienced within their local subsidiaries. The data were analyzed through a thematic analysis, including separate within-case analyzes, a cross-case analysis, and lastly, a comparison with existing literature.  Conclusion: The findings show how multinational enterprises in the information technology industry could manage organizational agility when digital disruptions occur and how this is experienced amongst employees. Subsidiary Management is vital for coping with digital disruptions whereas Strategic Decision-Making for responding to the same, fundamentally relying on the Organizational Culture with the six key factors of Ownership, Learning, Diversity, Inclusion, Trust, and Mindset. Moreover, organizational agility could cause a negative tradeoff of work-life balance and a negative tradeoff between increased workload and individual growth, whereas increased autonomy creates a tradeoff between local independence and global cohesiveness. This, however, was experienced as both positive and negative. Being organizationally agile is vital on both global and local levels to utilize efficiency, flexibility, and be locally responsive to regional market demands where the attention must be given to people rather than structures to be agile and digitally responsive.

No / Drawing on regional strategy theory we complement the core effect of firm-specific advantages on the performance of multinational enterprises with an analysis of the performance consequences of home region concentration on firm performance. We also develop hypotheses regarding the effect of foreign entry timing, internationalization speed and international experience on the performance effect of home region concentration. We test our hypotheses against unique longitudinal data from a panel of 128 multinational enterprises in the retail sector whose geographical spread of international activities we traced between 1995 and 2010. Our findings support the predictions of regional strategy theory and highlight the importance of foreign entry timing and internationalization speed in strengthening the positive effect of home region concentration on the performance of multinational enterprises.

Yes / From a perspective of the resource-based view, this paper analyses the inter-connection between technology adoption and creation in affiliates of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in an emerging economy. Operating below the international technological frontier, multinational affiliates are more motivated to adopt technologies already existent from their MNEs than create new technologies, as the former already gives them competitive advantages over local firms. When technology creation is required, multinational affiliates will adopt further technology-based resources from their MNEs as they are unavailable in an emerging economy. As a result, technology adoption is a necessary but not sufficient condition for multinational affiliates to conduct technology creation. Given that networks are particularly important for working around institutional voids in the context of an emerging economy, this paper also investigates the different roles of R&D support from internal and external networks of multinational affiliates in technology adoption and creation. Hypotheses are tested and partially supported based on unique data from 465 multinational affiliates in China.

Yes / Little research has been done on female board representation in emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Our paper considers the role of female board representation and its impact on open innovation (OI) in the unique context of emerging markets. We draw on upper echelons and institutional theories to understand how female board representation and cross-country institutional contexts influence coupled OI. Combining a 10-year (2009-2019) dataset with a rich in-depth content analysis of 183 (EMNEs) engaged in OI, our results reveal a significant positive association between female board representation and a firm’s commitment to coupled OI initiatives. We also find that country-level institutional factors affect and positively moderate the relationship between female board representation and coupled OI. In emerging market environments where managerial perception and cultural beliefs sometimes hinder the promotion of females into top positions, our work has implications for EMNEs regarding how they harness diversity. We contribute to the OI literature by showing that female board representation enhances corporate OI investment within EMNEs.

Yes / Purpose – Previous scholars have assumed that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can reduce the liability of foreignness and increase profitability by investing in corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, empirical validation of this assumption has rarely been attempted. This study provides empirical evidence that the adoption of multi-stakeholder initiatives, which are globally recognized as signals of CSR, helps MNEs increase profits from internationalization. Design/methodology/approach – Fixed effect models, which address model misspecification problems, and instrumental variable estimation, which controls for the endogeneity in firms’ choice of internationalization, offer empirical evidence supporting the moderating effects of global multi-stakeholder initiatives on the relationship between internationalization and firm performance. Findings – This study examines the moderating role of multi-stakeholder initiatives in the relationship between internationalization and firm performance, drawing on signaling and stakeholder theories. The results suggest that the signaling effect of multi-stakeholder initiatives can help MNEs overcome the liability of foreignness and, therefore, profit from overseas markets. Originality/value – Although the internationalization–firm performance relationship has been a subject of debate in the field of international business, the role of firms’ stakeholder engagement in this relationship has been largely overlooked in previous studies. In this study, we explore the impact of multi-stakeholder initiatives on the internationalization–firm performance relationship. Our primary contention is that multi-stakeholder initiatives have moderating effects on this relationship by reducing the liability of foreignness experienced by MNEs in host countries. Furthermore, our findings suggest that active engagement in multi-stakeholder initiatives significantly contributes to the financial success of MNEs as they internationalize.

Yes / Corporate Social Innovation (CSI) has emerged as a research priority for multinational enterprises (MNEs) due to the increasing popularity of sustainable development solutions addressing wicked problems in the 21st century. Although most studies on CSI have focused on data from developed economies, emphasising the younger generation's forward-looking, sustainable, and environmentally friendly attitudes, there exists a gap in our understanding of the attitude of the older generation towards CSI practices of MNEs operating in emerging economies. The UN's SDG 3 advocates for the well-being of all at all ages. Despite this, healthcare outcomes in global-south countries fall below standard. Therefore, we conducted an in-depth critical analysis of textual data concerning CSI practices of 115 healthcare MNEs operating in 13 emerging economies. We quantified the number of CSI practices in their annual reports and operationalised the dependent variable using an entropy index to calculate the density and percentage score of CSI. Drawing on Upper Echelons, our analysis revealed that older CEOs are likelier to promote, initiate, and implement CSI in greater depth and breadth. These findings present a compelling case supporting the argument that CEOs and board members tend to contribute more to society as they age. We offer empirical evidence supporting the strengthening roles of senior board members and female board chairs. Our findings complement existing CSI studies from developed countries and illustrate how CEO and board characteristics influence the depth and breadth of CSI in emerging economies. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo, 12 months after publication.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Organizational structures are surrounding the entire businesses and are essential for the functionality of an organization. The importance of a structure that satisfies and encourages the staff in the success of the organization to do a god job reflects on the organization’s success.</p><p>There are many different kinds of people and behaviours in the world, which makes the world we live in very complex and diversified. The perceptions of one human being, living in Europe, most likely aren’t the same as the perceptions of one person living on the other side of the globe. This difference between people all over the world also diversifies the organizations, which consists of these people. Different behaviour and organization structures are preferred by different organizations. This fact makes it difficult to operate an organization that is expanding to operate between national boarders.</p><p>The difficulties in moving to new nations and meeting new cultures leads to many problems. How will an organization that operates over national boarders adopt to the different countries involved? This thesis will examine the difficulties for these kinds of problems and how they should minimize possible problems that might occur through internationalization. The main question in this thesis will look at exactly how the transformation to go from one organizational structure to another in a Multinational corporations.</p><p>For a further analyse of the problem, one organization in an expanding situation will be examined. The organization that will be analysed is LG Electronics, which is a Multinational Enterprise organization that operates in several countries. The LG Electronics is an organization from South Korea which in Sweden has an IT-division that has worked as an experiment, in an attempt to minimize the problems that might occur when different organization cultures starts to work with each other.</p><p>The thesis will be strengthened mainly through background and organizational preferences information about differences between nations and the nations that act as the host and the home country for the organization, the two different structures involved and a list of different types of Multinational organizations. To examine the situation in LG Electronics interviews with two different purposes will be done, one with investigational purpose and one with informational purpose.</p><p>Keywords</p><p>Culture, Organization structure, Multinational Enterprises, Matrix structure, Hierarchical structure, Organizational change, Transformation, Host country, Home country</p>

This thesis analyzes the concept of corporate residence, with particular reference to the law in the UK and Canada. It explores why corporate residence is relevant in tax policy, how corporate residence is understood in law, and how revenue authorities respond to the use and alleged 'abuse' of residence rules. Part I argues that the residence of taxpayers generally (individual or corporate) remains a relevant factor in international tax design, that taxation of corporations on the basis of residence has some justification, but that there is a disjunction between meaningful residence-based taxation and current definitions of corporate residence in domestic law and tax treaties. The formulations of residence based on incorporation, central management and control, and place of effective management, particularly as applied to multinational enterprises, are considered and are found to be deficient. Part II critically analyzes the major policy responses of the UK and Canadian governments to the exploitation of corporate residence. It argues that key legislative and administrative responses to international tax avoidance activities, for both outbound and inbound investment, are purportedly based on the acceptance of formal corporate residence yet undermine that concept in an effort to impose tax or refuse treaty relief based on where economic interests actually exist. The responses considered are the application of controlled foreign companies legislation to offshore subsidiaries, the invocation of treaty anti-abuse rules with respect to offshore intermediaries, and the use of overarching general anti-avoidance measures to challenge varied structures that rely on offshore entities. These haphazard anti-avoidance rules are overlaid with revenue authorities' indignation at the motivations that underlie many corporate relocations. It is argued that a more coherent approach would be to focus on the objective reality or unreality of corporate establishment, by reformulating corporate residence in domestic law and tax treaties.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce (specialising in Taxation). / There has been significant advances in the international arena with regards to global economic growth and trade, as well as enormous competition by countries to attract inward foreign direct investment from multinational enterprises (MNEs) to ensure the sustainability of their own economies. Fundamentally the contentious issue is the possibility of double taxation (DT), due to the dual residency of the MNE. The MNE operates in various markets which results in cross-border transactions, whether physical or electronic, and this ultimately means that different tax jurisdictions will become applicable and enforceable by each relevant country. These dual resident MNEs could be seen as a tax resident in both countries and thus be liable for tax obligations in both of these countries. This would therefore lead to the same income incurring DT or double non-taxation (DNT), which would have a devastating impact on that MNE. This lead to the establishment of double taxation treaties, agreements and conventions (DTA’s), between various countries which are aimed at addressing this imbalance. As technology advances at an alarming rate, so too does the possibility of abuse of tax treaties. Two important criteria are ‘the place of effective management’ (POEM) and the ‘permanent establishment’ (PE), which are critical to the determination of the correct tax jurisdiction where the dual resident MNE will incur various tax liabilities. These concepts, POEM and PE, can be confusing but are imperative, in order to prevent DT, and which could prejudice the relevant fiscus, as well as an attempt to avoid any conflict between the taxing regimes. An interesting facet of the POEM and PE conundrum is the interpretation by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (’the OECD’) Model Tax Convention (MTC) compared to the interpretations by the South African Revenue Service (SARS). Another area of contention for MNEs is the current enormous global focus on the concept of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), which is under great scrutiny, and is of great concern for the majority of revenue authorities. These authorities are intensifying their focus on improving and enforcing anti-avoidance provisions to prevent taxation leakage in their respective tax jurisdictions. This shift in priorities opposes one of a MNE’s main business objectives which is to maximize profits, by either diverting, extracting and/or distributing profits out of a high tax paying jurisdiction into a lower tax paying jurisdiction. This will consequently create an additional business risk which emphasises the need for international tax expertise. The international tax expert is a valuable business team member, as their knowledge and expertise is imperative for the mitigation of possible tax risks, correct interpretation and application of the relevant tax legislation on the business flows of the MNEs as a result of operational expansion or any cross-border transactions or activities. Key Words: Taxation, Tax Treaties, Agreements, BEPS, Conventions; Cross-border, Double Taxation; Dual Residency; International tax, Multinational enterprises; Permanent Establishment, Place of Effective Management; OECD Model Tax Convention; Tax Intelligence, Tax Jurisdictions