<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>

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”. 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. 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.

This study focuses attention on the multinational organization, an emerging phenomenon, in which people from different cultural backgrounds work together to produce a product or render a service. The purpose of this study is to enhance the available information about the potential for increasing productivity through the use of participatory programs, such as Quality Control Circles, in multinational organizations, especially those operating in Saudi Arabia.

The procurement of agricultural commodities by multinational organizations has been identified as a leverage point for moving the global agricultural system towards sustainability. This study focuses on how multinational organizations can improve their capacities to procure more sustainably grown agriculture commodities. Using the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) to create a theoretical ‘Ideal Case’ for procurement practices, this study analyzes the key strengths and weaknesses of existing practices surrounding the procurement of agricultural commodities in order to determine how they can improve. Interviews with four multinational corporations, one INGO and several experts in the field showed various weaknesses, including a lack of whole-system perspectives, inadequate definitions of sustainability, and weak strategies and tools to support organizations’ movements towards sustainability. Using these findings, recommendations were created to provide procurers, sourcing managers, supply chain managers, and sustainability managers with the necessary guidance to create conditions enabling the procurement of more sustainably grown agricultural commodities. The recommendations call for multi-stakeholder cooperation, increased use of impact assessments, long-term sustainability goals, and credible certification systems.

Syftet med kandidatuppsaten är att skapa en större förståelse för hur Talent Management tillämpas hos svenska verkstadsindustrier. Fokuset ligger på hur verkstadsindustrier definierar både begreppen Talent Management och talang. Resultatet visar att deltagande organisationer har spridda definitioner av både Talent Management och talang. Dock finns det likheter mellan alla organisationers definitioner. Vidare fastställer resultatet att organisationer sällan arbetar med Talent Management efter enbart ett synsätt och dess praxis, utan arbetssätten sträcker sig ofta över ett flertal synsätt. För att förklara skillnaderna i definitionsvariationen tillämpas till stor del tidigare forskning inom området. Ett flertal teorier om varierande perspektiv på synsätt används som ett teoretiskt verktyg i studien. Studien genomförs med en kvalitativ forskning där sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med Talent Management-utövare från svenska verkstadsindustrier representeras. Resultatet från intervjuerna jämförs sedan med den tidigare forskningen i en analysdel där ett flertal ämnen mynnar ut diskussionsmaterial som presenteras i uppsatsens avslutande del. Faktorer till vad en talang representeras av bekräftar tidigare forskning likväl som ytterligare faktorer framförs som avgörande. Organisationers hantering av medarbetare med hjälp av Talent Management beror till stor del av organisationernas egna unika kulturer och värderingar, vilket till stor del bekräftar den tidigare forskningen inom ämnet. Genom detta kan resultatet av denna kandidatuppsats verka som ett komplement till den tidigare forskningen inom den svenska kontexten. Vidare kan även uppsatsen användas som ett underlag till praktikersamhället inom Talent Management-området gällande aktuella konkurrensfördelar, utmaningar och prioriteringar för verkstadsindustrier. / The purpose of the study was to form a greater understanding how Talent Management is implemented in Swedish engineering industries. Focusing on how the engineering industries define both the concepts of Talent Management and Talent. The result shows that the participating organizations have diverse definitions for both concepts, however, there are similarities found in all organizations definitions. Furthermore, the result states that organizations rarely work with Talent Management based on only one approach and practice, instead the working methods often extend over several approaches. To explain the differences for the definitions, an extensive application to previous research was applied. Several theories on the different perspectives on practices are used in the study. The study was conducted using qualitative research, which consisted of six semi-structured interviews with Talent Management-coworkers from Swedish engineering industries. The results from the interviews were compared with previous research and after analysis, several topics were presented in the discussion and conclusion. The research confirmed previous determined factors as well as additional ones. Organizations' management of employees with Talent Management, strongly depends on the organizations' own unique cultures and values, which essentially confirms previous research in the subject. Through this, the results of this study complement the previous research but now in Swedish context. Furthermore, the study can also be used as a basis for the practicing community within the Talent Management area to face current competitive advantages, challenges, and priorities for engineering industries.

Syftet med denna studie är att förstå hur organisationskulturen är uppbyggd i en globaliserad organisation med olika nationella kulturer och vidare hur motståndskraftig organisationskulturen är mot förändringar i en extern kris, för att svara på det framställdes två frågor. En fallstudie gjordes på ett globaliserat företag inom mjukvaruutvecklingsbranschen, stationerat i Sverige, USA och Singapore. Metoden som användes var semistrukturerade intervjuer, gjorda digitalt över Zoom med sex anställda från organisationen, två från varje land. De semistrukturerade intervjuernas struktur baserades på en semistrukturerad intervjuguide och det empiriska materialet kategoriserades senare genom en tematisk innehållsanalys. För att analysera det empiriska materialet användes två modeller från två olika forskare, Hofstedes kulturdimensioner för att jämföra de nationella kulturerna och Scheins isbergsmodell för att identifiera organisationens kultur. Resultaten visade att det fanns skillnader mellan de nationella kulturerna som påverkade organisationens kultur, men på organisationsnivån var man medveten om skillnaderna och arbetade proaktivt med frågan. Däremot hade inte coronapandemin någon påtaglig påverkan på organisationskulturen , trots de restriktioner som tvingade de anställda att arbeta hemifrån. En förklaring kan vara att organisationen redan innan pandemin använde digital kommunikation i stor skala och därför var förändringen inte lika omvälvande. / The aim of this study is to understand how organizational culture is structured in a globalized organization with different national culture and further how resistant the organizational culture is to changes in an external crisis. In order to answer that, two issues were raised. A case study was done at a globalized company within the software development industry, stationed in Sweden, USA and Singapore. The method used is semi structured interviews conducted digitally by Zoom with six participants from the organization, two from each country. The structure of the interviews was based on a semi structured interview guide and the empirical material was later categorized through a thematic content analysis. To analyze the empirical material, two models from two different researchers were used, Hofstedes cultural dimension to compare the national cultures and Scheins iceberg model to identify the organization's culture. The results show that there were differences between the national cultures that affected the culture of the organization, however at an organizational level one was aware of the differences and worked proactively with the matter. However, the corona pandemic did not have a significant impact on organizational culture, despite the restrictions which forced the employees to work from home. One explanation can be that the organization already used digital communication on a large scale before the pandemic and therefore the change wasn't as significant.

This research is concerned with possible applications of e-Learning as an alternative to onsite training sessions when supporting the integration of machine learning into the product development process. Mainly, its aim was to study if e-learning approaches are viable for laying a foundation for making machine learning more accessible in integrated product development processes. This topic presents itself as interesting as advances in the general understanding of it enable better remote learning as well as general scalability of knowledge transfer. To achieve this two groups of employees belonging to the same corporate group but working in two very different geographical regions where asked to participate in a set of training session created by the authors. One group received the content via in-person workshops whereas the other was invited to a series of remote tele-conferences. After both groups had participated in the sessions, some member where asked to be interviewed. Additionally. The authors also arranged for interviews with some of the participants’ direct managers and project leaders to compare the participants’ responses with some stakeholders not participating in the workshops. A combination of a qualitative theoretical analysis together with the interview responses was used as the base for the presented results. Respondents indicated that they preferred the onsite training approach, however, further coding of interview responses showed that there was little difference in the participants ability to obtain knowledge. Interestingly, while results point towards e-learning as a technology with many benefits, it seems as though other shortcomings, mainly concerning the human interaction between learners, may hold back its full potential and thereby hinder its integration into product development processes. / Detta forskningsarbete fokuserar på tillämpningar av elektroniska utlärningsmetoder som alternativ till lokala lektioner vid integrering av maskininlärning i produktutvecklingsprocessen. Framförallt är syftet att undersöka om det går att använda elektroniska utlärningsmetoder för att göra maskininlärning mer tillgänglig i produktutvecklingsprocessen. Detta ämne presenterar sig som intressant då en djupare förståelse kring detta banar väg för att effektivisera lärande på distans samt skalbarheten av kunskapsspridning. För att uppnå detta bads två grupper av anställda hos samma företagsgrupp, men tillhörande olika geografiska områden att ta del i ett upplägg av lektioner som författarna hade tagit fram. En grupp fick ta del av materialet genom seminarier, medan den andra bjöds in till att delta i en serie tele-lektioner. När båda deltagargrupper hade genomgått lektionerna fick några deltagare förfrågningar om att bli intervjuade. Några av deltagarnas direkta chefer och projektledare intervjuades även för att kunna jämföra deltagarnas åsikter med icke-deltagande intressenter. En kombination av en kvalitativ teoretisk analys tillsammans med svaren från intervjuerna användes som bas för de presenterade resultaten. Svarande indikerade att de föredrog träningarna som hölls på plats, men vidare kodning av intervjusvaren visade på undervisningsmetoden inte hade större påverkningar på deltagarnas förmåga att ta till sig materialet. Trots att resultatet pekar på att elektroniskt lärande är en teknik med många fördelar verkar det som att brister i teknikens förmåga att integrera mänsklig interaktion hindrar den från att nå sitt fulla potential och därigenom även hindrar dess integration i produktutvecklingsprocessen.

Todays’ organizations are facing low levels of employee engagement, with a tendency to decrease evenfurther. Sustainability has been found to positively affect employee engagement as it providesemployees with a higher purpose in their work. Therefore, this research study reveals leaders’perception on the contribution of sustainability towards employee engagement, with a focus onmultinational organizations in the Öresund region. This qualitative study combines Herzberg´s “Two-Factor Theory” and transformational leadership to analyze the research findings with a theoreticalframework. The results display that sustainability has a significant influence on the level of employeeengagement and various activities of organizations and leaders contribute towards this. The researchalso underlines that there is a potential for organizations to implement further strategies in this regardand thereby not only strengthen the satisfaction and loyalty of their current workforce, but also gain acompetitive advantage in the future for attracting new talents.