Cosmopolitanism is widely debated in the literature of business and management and social sciences. It is often seen as a solution to the problem of international employees' maladjustment. The literature has predominantly examined the experiences of labour migrants and expatriates. In recent years, self-initiated foreign work experiences (SFE) have gained more relevance. Demographically, economically, socially and culturally, SFEs are situated in the 'middle' between labour migrants and expatriates. Yet, concomitant discussions of a 'middle' of cosmopolitanism and the exploration of everyday life of this middle cosmopolitanism have been rare. Conceptualising SFE processes is vital for a more holistic and effective understanding of international adjustment and cosmopolitanism. To this end, the study provides an ethnography of SFEs' everyday lives. In particular, it examines the backgrounds and current experiences of international employees (IEs) in India's knowledge process offshoring (KPO) industry at work, at home and outside their homes. At work, IEs displayed and created attachments to their work, India and the local through their colleagues and friends. At home, IEs in different company apartments demonstrated various processes of sharing and learning despite cultural and linguistic differences. Outside their homes, IEs engaged in numerous leisure activities revealing IEs' motivations and ways in which IEs adjusted. The study offers two findings. Throughout their activities at work, homes and in India, IEs balanced emotions and reasons, negotiated the global and local and self-flexibility and externally required flexibility. IEs also engaged in friendships to various degrees. Both findings of IEs' activities reveal complex dynamics of SFE adjustment and cosmopolitanism. The findings built the foundation for a new framework to understand SFE cosmopolitanism and international adjustment.

Práce analyzuje nové trendy v mezinárodních strategiích firem, rozebírá jejich motivaci k přemísťování svých aktivit a zejména popisuje srovnávací analýzu potenciálních destinací vhodných pro offshoring. Práce uvádí srovnávací analýzu čtyř zemí, Polska, Maďarska, Rumunska a Bulharska z hlediska vhodnosti umístění centra sdílených služeb.

Off-shoring is a wide-spread instrument for strategic management of companies. According to OECD, 60% of global trade is carried out among subsidiaries of multinational companies. This thesis describes possibilities and methods of using off-shoring which are supported by examples of real companies. The thesis does not deal with off-shoring in the form of production transfer to another state, but with off-shoring in the form of earmarking certain activities, such as purchasing, sale, financing, intellectual property, which are the ways to real cost reduction by means of tax optimisation. Tax savings can thus be used for reducing direct production costs in situations when the production cannot be transferred or when investment costs of such transfer would be too high. It can be also used for off-shoring the production activity.

Captive offshoring innebär en förflyttning av utvalda aktiviteter till ett annat land där företaget som genomför förflyttningen också äger anläggningen och driver processen i egen regi. Att transferera produktionsprocesser till en ny plats kan innebära såväl positiva ekonomiska effekter som oväntad problematik kring allt från lokala lagar till kommunikationssvårigheter. Följande uppsats syftar till att studera captive offshoring inom tillverkande industrier och därigenom kartlägga vilka för- och nackdelar som kan uppstå i samband med en sådan omlokalisering. Studien syftar också till att undersöka hur företag hanterar de nackdelar som kan uppstå i samband med captive offshoring. I uppsatsen ingår även en fallstudie på Seco Tools AB i Fagersta, som i drygt 80 år har levererat verktyg för fräsning, svarvning, hålbearbetning och verktygssystem. Fallstudien fokuserar på relationen mellan företagets produktionsanläggning i Indien och huvudanläggningen i Fagersta. Datainsamling har skett i form av en inledande litteraturstudie, samt genom ett antal intervjuer och kvantitativ datainsamling i fallstudien. Resultatet av studien visar att kostnadsbesparingar är den främsta fördelen med captive offshoring och den primära anledningen till att företag väljer att använda den typen av strategi. Den ökade distansen som förflyttningen innebär skapar dock en ökad komplexitet i försörjningskedjan som kan medföra problematik inom områden som exempelvis kvalitet och kommunikation. För att hantera dessa risker är planering och förebyggande arbete innan transferering betydelsefulla faktorer. Erfarenhet har även visat sig ha en inverkan på hur företag hanterar de risker som kan uppstå. / Captive offshoring can be referred to as the transfer of selected processes, in which the company in charge of the transfer owns the facility abroad and remains in control over the processes in the host country. The transfer of production processes can lead to both positive economic effects as well as unexpected problems regarding anything from local laws to communication problems. The following thesis aims to study captive offshoring within manufacturing companies and thereby identify the advantages and disadvantages that may occur in that kind of transfer. The purpose is also to study how companies can deal with the disadvantages that may arise from captive offshoring. This thesis also includes a case study at Seco Tools AB in Fagersta, Sweden, a company which has supplied comprehensive metal cutting solutions for milling, stationary tools, hole making and tooling systems for over 80 years. The case study focuses on the relationship between the company’s production plant in India and the main plant in Fagersta. Data has been collected through an initial literature study, as well as through interviews and quantitative data in the case study. The results indicate that cost reduction is the main advantage for captive offshoring, and the primary reason for adapting this type of strategy. However, the increase in distance between production plants leads to an increase in complexity in the supply chain, which can create problems within areas such as quality and communication. Planning and preventive work before transfer are important factors to manage these risks. The study also shows that experience in captive offshoring has an impact on how companies deal with risks that may arise.

Companies that engage in captive offshoring activities as part of their strategic decisions, experience “known and unknown” hidden costs during its implementation influencing a firm’s performance. In this sense, analyzing the hidden costs of the knowledge transfer from different managerial levels and perspectives contributes to conceptualize and enrich the OS literature from the experience of a case study. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the hidden costs in the knowledge transfer as part of the OS implementation from a multi-level managerial perspective. This research has a qualitative methodology and as a research strategy the authors choose interviews that were performed online. The interviews consists of 8 managers from different levels. The findings show that managers from different levels have identified key aspects of the “known and unknown” hidden costs in the knowledge transfer within the micro-level during the OS implementation towards improving outcomes expectations. Communication has been found as a critical factor for the knowledge flow representing the main constraint of an efficient transfer of tacit knowledge in which international projects are influenced by high cultural, language gaps, and geographical distance. Unknown hidden cost was reflected in an unexpected high turnover and limited time frame.

Outsourcing is a trend that has penetrated many industries over the last years taking the form of offshore outsourcing in many cases. However the location decision that follows the offshore outsourcing or the offshoring decision is quite complex and almost impossible to be answered through a linear model. A series of frameworks have been developed attempting to facilitate the process above.The focus of this work is the analysis of the location decision making through the reflection of the existing literature and the example of a specific country, Greece. Greece is chosen as a dynamic environment where the recent economic crisis has provoked structural reforms at the country, affecting the attractiveness of the location. The analysis of country is based on an OECD recent survey while the comparison is made with the assistance of a specific location decision model.Based on the findings of this study, it can be claimed that the case of Greece is quite different compared to other countries at the past which have faced similar situations. Further the reforms that take place need more time in order to be projected and trigger the attractiveness of the location.

Background It is evident that due to the globalization, offshoring and cross-national collaboration has become a natural evolution for many companies which have created the virtual world. The virtual world has many advantages, but when this is put into practice it turns out that there are also some disadvantages that affect the teams that are working with different sites. Teams face big challenges in communication and collaboration due to the physical distance, cultural differences and time zones. While believing that the work becomes more efficient, this process is at the same time slowed down due to the challenges that arise that affects the performance which in turn affects the costs. Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding about whether or not there are differences in globally distributed teams and co-located teams in terms of soft factors, team performance and cost efficiency. The projects that will be studied are global software development projects where the teams are either located in Sweden or in India. Method This study is a case study at Ericsson that operates in many distributed software development projects where team members are located all over the world. 11 projects were selected and compared. Two surveys were made in order to collect data from developers who worked with the different projects that were selected. Furthermore, internal data about the performance for each project were collected and used in the statistical tests together with data from the survey in SPSS. The performance data was also used in order to calculate the performance deviations from the expected performance and in order to calculate the associated costs. Results There is a statistically significant difference in communication efficiency, shared identity, trust and cultural clashes between co-located and distributed teams. These soft factors are strongly related to the team performance. The co-located teams perform better than expected while distributed teams perform worse than expected which also increase the extra costs in the project. Conclusion The communication efficiency, shared identity and trust are higher in co-located teams, and the values of cultural clashes are lower than in distributed teams. Co-located teams perform better than distributed teams and the performance in co-located teams leads to cost savings while the performance in distributed teams leads to cost losses.

Background: Historically, industrial revolutions enabled societal shifts in conjunction with technological advancements. The currently ongoing industrial revolution is the fourth, namely Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 related technologies require a high level of integration to improve processes and yield more efficient flows of information, physical and financial assets. This integration happens within and between GPNs, which comprise of globally fragmented points of economic activities, including manufacturing activities. New technologies advance these GPNs, causing a qualitative shift, meaning where and how production and consumption activities are changing. The idea of Industry 4.0 is still within its infancy, where the study of Industry 4.0 drivers and barriers for MNEs remains unexplored. Industry 4.0 is in the process of transforming how industries operate with access to new advanced technologies. These technologies can affect GPNs and potentially influence related business decisions regarding offshoring and reshoring decisions in their globalisation strategies. In relation to Industry 4.0 drivers and barriers, this was already investigated for SMEs, leading to the purpose of this study. Purpose: This study investigates the influence of Industry 4.0 on the motivation of MNEs regarding offshoring and reshoring strategies within a global supply chain context. Method: This is a qualitative study, that explores this field through the experiences of industry experts of MNEs. Hence, the study takes a relativistic and social constructionist stance in terms of ontology and epistemology, to inquire into this topic through gathering and comparing in depth experiences. Furthermore, gathered data was analysed through a thematic analysis approach. Conclusion: The result of the study shows that Industry 4.0 is emerging as a comprehensive concept that goes beyond just the technologies, drivers, and barriers. Based on our findings, this is referred to as a value network, replacing the contemporary view on GPNs. Hence, this value network is emerging as its own globalisation strategy that directly influences the motivations for MNEs to offshore and reshore.

To improve our understanding of offshoring and how it is evolving, salient ideas from both institutional and prospect theories are utilized to build a more descriptive model of how decisions are made to (re)direct foreign investment into offshored activities. Careful examinations of the offshoring programs in India and Mexico reveal that they took different investment trajectories during the past decade that can be aptly explained by this integrative model. The primary information used to measure the population trends of offshoring firms in India and Mexico comes from proprietary data sources for each country that issue annual reports on the number of operators in their respective offshoring sectors, that is, services and manufacturing.

To improve our understanding of offshoring and how it is evolving, salient ideas from both institutional and prospect theories are utilized to build a more descriptive model of how decisions are made to (re)direct foreign investment into offshored activities. Careful examinations of the offshoring programs in India and Mexico reveal that they took different investment trajectories during the past decade that can be aptly explained by this integrative model. The primary information used to measure the population trends of offshoring firms in India and Mexico comes from proprietary data sources for each country that issue annual reports on the number of operators in their respective offshoring sectors, that is, services and manufacturing.