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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the evolution in the local, global and multinational network embeddedness of foreign subsidiaries in China

Methodology – The study focuses on Sino-Belgian subsidiaries in China. Factor analysis was used to determine the local responsiveness, global integration and multinational network embeddedness of firms. Next cluster analysis was carried out to classify groups of subsidiaries, while ANOVA analysis assessed their different characteristics.

Findings – Although most firms remain the same type of subsidiary throughout the period of 1995–2005, the most prevalent trajectory of strategic evolution by multinational subsidiaries in China is by increasing the integration in the multinational network before gaining more local embeddedness towards a more active role within the multinational network.

Research implications – Changes in the strategic setting and operations of MNEs occur over time because of the dynamic patterns and changing interactions of firm- and country-related factors and policies, especially when the host economy is involved in a rapid transformation process, such as China. Further research could focus on the determinants of strategic evolution.

Originality – This is one of the first chapters to analyse the changing roles of subsidiaries, in particular in an emerging economy.

The country of Cambodia is vulnerable to climate variability and climate change (MoE, 2005). Flood and drought are common in Cambodia, and their impacts include the yearly destruction of infrastructure, property, crops, and livestock, and the loss of lives. Cambodia's adaptive capacity for flood and drought is poorly developed (NAPA, 2006). Cambodia receives most of its rainfall from the southwest monsoon, which occurs from mid-May through November. The coastal regions receive the highest rainfall amounts, about 3,000mm/year, while the highlands and lowlands receive 2,500mm/year and 1,400mm/year, respectively. The monthly distribution of rainfall results in a wet season extending from May through December and a dry season from December through April. On average, the annual rainfall in Cambodia is a bit higher than that of other countries in the region. Although the rainfall distribution in the country is high, drought has still occurred in recent years (MoE, 2005).

The rise of the Internet has facilitated net activism among many virtual gay communities in Taiwan. The communication role that the Internet plays is in particular vital, because homosexuality is still considered a taboo in Taiwan's society. Cyberspace created by the Internet forms a unique “space” where local homosexuals can share their experience of being gays with each other. The purposes of this chapter are intended to examine how the Internet facilitated the formation, promotion, and success of gay rights movements among homosexual communities in Taiwan. This chapter uses the Chang-Der Street Police Harassment Incident as a case study to elaborate the Internet's communication role in mobilizing local gay populations to pursue their gay rights. It also investigates the Internet's strategic role as a communication medium in gay rights movements. The case analysis and in-depth interviews help identify several key functions that the Internet can play: to exchange and share information, to organize and coordinate gay rights movements, to record and store historical information, and to lead social and value changes in the future. This chapter explores the potential of the Internet in online community mobilization, an early look at virtual community and net activism.

The intention of this article is to show possible contributions of the concept of autonomous cooperation to enable complex adaptive logistics systems (CALS) to cope with increasing complexity and dynamics and therefore to increase the systems' information-processing capacity by implementing autopoietic characteristics. In order to reach this target, the concepts of CALS and autopoietic systems will be introduced and connected. The underlying aim is to use the concept of self-organization as one of their essential similarities to lead over to the concept of autonomous cooperation as the most narrow view on self-organizing systems, which is discussed as a possible approach to enable systems to handle an increasing quantity of information. This will be analyzed from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view.

This chapter explores how technology availability and costs influence public opinion, vehicle ownership decisions, travel, and location choices. Attitudes towards electric vehicles (EVs) are considered within the broader context of other linked technological trends affecting automobility, with a particular focus on the shift to (electric powertrain) autonomous vehicles (AVs).

This chapter draws upon modelling of quantitative survey data from 1,426 Americans, which employed regression analysis to predict and understand variables linked to the preference for an AV over a human driver, percentage of trips taken by an AV, percentage of trips using dynamic ride-sharing (DRS) inside a shared autonomous vehicle (SAV), and factors affecting EV charging access in home and at work/school.

The findings show that full EV charging times significantly affect decisions for next household vehicle purchase. A lack of charging ability at home appears to be a significantly greater hindrance to respondents’ willingness to purchase full EVs than does a lack of charging ability at work. And home location choice impacts of AVs are not expected to be substantial. Considering future EV/AV ride-sharing (an important component of sustainable future mobility systems), DRS may ease congestion if SAV riders widely adopt DRS for work and school trips; however, sharing with strangers may not be popular in practice.

This chapter is useful to manufacturers and fleet operators for pricing and marketing decisions, and public transit authorities/providers can benefit from understanding evolving travel choices and land use patterns to craft equitable policies, and model future transportation demand to help plan services and infrastructure projects.

This chapter addresses an unresolved theoretical issue in international business: the impact of existing, committed assets in a host location on parent and subsidiary decisions regarding the configuration of future value-adding activities for the location. We develop a measure of investment committedness, or the degree of flexibility versus specificity of existing assets in a host location, to explore this issue. The measure assesses whether assets, such as brands, human capital, process technologies, and supplier relations, retain only scrap value outside their current application or they can be redeployed to alternative value-adding activities in the host location or shifted offshore, either within the multinational enterprise (MNE) or to another user. The measure is a key step in developing a model of strategic choice for the future configuration of value-adding activities by MNEs in host locations. Drawing on firm-specific data from 237 MNE subsidiaries operating in Australia, we first present a traditional integration-responsiveness classification of subsidiary activities. This static snapshot of the subsidiaries’ current profiles is then compared with the measure's preliminary findings on the levels of investment committedness and strategic flexibility available to the sample MNEs and how this may shape strategic allocation decisions, including divestment and withdrawal.