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In Sweden, gender mainstreaming policies have a long political history. As part of the national gender equality strategy of the Swedish forest industry, the ten largest forestry companies committed themselves to gender mainstream their policies. Limiting the impact of policies and the agency of change, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the varied and conflicting meanings and constitution of the concepts, the problem and, in extent, the organisational realities of gender mainstreaming.

In both, implementation and practice, gender mainstreaming posse challenges on various levels and by analysing these documents as practical texts from the WPR-approach. This paper explores constructions of gender and gender equality and their implications on the practice and the political of gender mainstreaming in a male-dominated primary industry.

The results show that the organisations themselves were not constituted as the subject of the policy but instead some of the individuals (women). The subject position of women represented in company policy was one of lacking skills and competences and in the need of help. Not only men and the masculine norms but organisational processes and structures were also generally invisible in the material. Power and conflict were mainly absent from the understanding of gender equality. Instead, consenting ideas of gender equality were the focus. Such conceptualisations of gender equality are beneficial for all risk concealing power structures and thereby limit the political space for change.

By highlighting the scale of policy and the significance of organisational contexts, the results indicate how gender and gender equality are constitutive through the governing technologies of neoliberal and market-oriented ideologies in policy – emphasising the further limiting of space for structural change and politicalization within the male-dominated organisations of Swedish forest industry.

The agricultural sector has undergone extensive changes in the 20-30 years since the peak academic debate on family farming. Still today, the understanding and concept of family farming has political implications in the processes of rural and agricultural policy. The purpose of this paper is to study the development of agrarian structure by analysing the gendered and family relations of family farming.

This paper examines the concept of the family farm and its utilisation and diversity in the current Swedish agricultural sector from a gender perspective, using empirical data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network. The paper operationalises a situated agrarian typology and examines the gendered position and temporalities of family farms in Sweden, based on patterns of labour use.

A workable, fruitful typology of the agrarian structure suitable for future comparative studies is revealed. It also demonstrates the gendered time in the farm labour process, the different temporalities involved and their interconnection between gender, family and various spheres. The spatial and geographical implications, as well as the increased dependence on family and hired labour in different farm types, are emphasised.

The focus of this study contributes to the understanding of spatial-temporal relations of family farm business and organisation in general and in Sweden particularly. It also provides empirical basis for developing and gender mainstreaming rural and agricultural policies.

With considerable attention paid to the motives and process of idiosyncratic internationalization trajectory of multinationals from emerging economies (EMNCs), little is known on whether, and if so how, new competitive advantages of EMNCs are created and accumulated over time. MNC and EMNC literature agrees on the importance of external and internal knowledge linkages in technological competence creation. By building upon this framework, this paper aims to evaluate EMNCs’ external and internal knowledge flow patterns by benchmarking their counterparts from mature industrialized countries (MMNCs).

This study analyzes US patents granted between 2000 and 2014 to leading innovation-oriented EMNCs from China and India, and their matched MMNCs. Being the first to use the US patent and citation data in studying leading innovation-oriented EMNCs, the authors use a descriptive statistical method.

The findings offer empirical insights of the scale, scope and quality of EMNC technological competence creation. Moreover, in contrast to existing EMNC literature, it is found that EMNC parents have been the most important center of EMNC technological knowledge generation. The matched group comparisons of external and internal knowledge flows further reveal detailed similarities and differences of competence creation between EMNCs and MMNCs, and among EMNCs.

This study represents one of the first attempts to investigate the post-internationalization technological competence creation of EMNCs by using a novel data source. This study sets the foundation to deepen the understanding of EMNC technological competence creation. The findings suggest interesting propositions and offer important implications for future researches.

This paper applies systems thinking modelling to enhance the dynamic understanding of how to nurture an innovative culture in healthcare organisations to develop the innovation system in practice and speed up the innovative work. The model aims to provide a holistic view of a studied healthcare organisation's innovation processes, ranging from managerial values to its manifestation in improved results.

The study is based on empirical material from a healthcare unit that, within a few years, changed from having no innovations to repeatedly generating innovations. The study uses the modelling language of causal loop diagrams (CLDs) in the system dynamics methodology to identify the key important aspects found in the empirical material.

The proposed model, based on the stories of the interviewees, explores the dynamics of inertia when nurturing an innovative culture, identifying delays attributed to the internal change processes and system relationships. These findings underscored the need for perseverance when developing an innovative culture in the entrepreneurial phases.

The approach of using systems thinking to make empirical healthcare research results more tangible through the visual notations of CLDs and mental simulations is believed to support exploring complex phenomena to induce and nurture both individual and organisational learning.

The results from this approach provide deepened analysis and provoke the systems view to explain how the nurturing of the culture can accelerate the innovation processes, which helps practitioners and researchers to further expand their understanding of their healthcare contexts.

The current literature lacks discussion on the effects of synergy among multiple factors at different levels on foreign subsidiary performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore the configuration of factors affecting foreign subsidiary performance.

The methodology adopted in this paper is the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The data are obtained from 125 foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNCs through questionnaire surveys and secondary data.

The research results reveal that five configurations of antecedent conditions predict high foreign subsidiary performance, and the other two configurations predict not-high performance.

This paper’s main limitation is its only focus on foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNCs, which means that the findings should be generalized with precaution. The most valuable implication is to identify the configurations that lead to high and not-high foreign subsidiary performance.

This paper addresses the question of how interdependent factors at the national and corporate level are beneficial to foreign subsidiaries’ performance.

This study makes the following contributions to current theories: It provides (1) new insights for understanding the complex causality between antecedent conditions and foreign subsidiary performance and (2) a practical reference for the multinational operations of foreign subsidiaries.

While going through a revival in sociology and business studies, the concept of communities, as used in those disciplines, appears to confront, in an unresolved tension, the development of differentiated and transnationally interconnected modern societies. We argue that there is a need not only to “rediscover” but in fact also to “renew” the notion of community. Building on insights from classical sociology, we propose a definition of transnational communities as social groups emerging from mutual interaction across national boundaries, oriented around a common project or “imagined” identity. Transnational communities are not static structures but fluid and dynamic processes. They are constructed through symbolic or “imagined” proximity rather than through physical propinquity. More often than not, they are “communities of limited liability” rather than the expression of permanent ascriptive markers. Finally, transnational communities go well beyond the provision of local protection and solidarities as they engage in different kinds of transnational activism. This chapter compares bottom-up and top-down patterns of transnational community development, exploring in both cases the role of those communities in the dynamics of transnational governance. We propose that transnational communities impact cross-border governance in at least six different ways. They contribute to the framing of a governance problem space. They allow the mobilization of collective action while also serving as public arenas. They foster preference transformation. They directly participate in rule-setting while also playing a key role when it comes to monitoring and control. In conclusion, we identify key directions for further research.

Offshoring has been studied widely in the literature on strategic management and international business. However, apart from its consideration as an administrative activity, scant attention has been paid to the offshoring of the human resource (HR) function. Research in this regard has instead focussed on outsourcing (Reichel and Lazarova, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to achieve a better understanding of companies’ decisions to offshore HR activities. It adapts the outsourcing model of Baron and Kreps (1999) by including the HR offshoring phenomenon and a dynamic perspective.

While the analysis is mostly conceptual, the authors ground the author’s arguments in offshoring data from the Offshoring Research Network, to explore whether the drivers for offshoring HR differ from the drivers for offshoring other administrative activities. The idiosyncrasy of the HR function is supported by the authors’ exploratory analysis and also by the descriptive case of a multinational and its experience with offshoring.

A coevolutionary model is proposed for understanding the behaviour of companies offshoring their HR activities. This study contends that companies should address their decision to offshore HR activities from a dynamic perspective, being aware of three processes that are in constant change: the evolution of the HR function, the evolution of service providers, and the evolution of offshoring decisions.

This study seeks to make a threefold contribution to the international business, strategy, and HR management disciplines.

This paper aims to illustrate the usefulness of stakeholder analysis for managing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) projects effectively.

This research is based on an LSS case study that was initiated in a New Zealand public sector organisation.

A ten-step stakeholder analysis framework was applied to a public sector organisation in New Zealand. This analysis identified the stakeholders and their stakes, analysed the efficiency of their stakeholder management processes and evaluated the effectiveness of transactions between the stakeholders and the LSS project management. It also captured the changing salience of stakeholders during an LSS project.

The stakeholder analysis framework illustrated in this paper provides a practical toolset for managers involved in LSS projects.

Although some LSS experts have conducted a preliminary stakeholder analysis, the LSS literature lacks concrete examples of a thorough stakeholder analysis. This study tries to address this research gap by illustrating a stakeholder analysis framework for a New Zealand-based LSS project.

This study aims to analyze the subsequent investment success of EMNCs after their strategic asset-seeking foreign direct investments (FDIs), while internationalization trajectories of multinational corporations from emerging economies (EMNCs) have been extensively studied, Post-internationalization investment success of EMNCs is defined as extensive technological knowledge access and transfer for knowledge combination. This paper focuses on EMNC explicit knowledge access and transfer.

This study analyzes US patents granted between 2000 and 2014 to leading innovation-oriented EMNCs from China and India as well as to their key competitors from mature industrialized countries (MMNCs). Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test is used to compare the explicit technological knowledge access and transfer patterns of EMNCs and MMNCs. With MMNCs as the benchmark, the comparison allows to imply the patterns and extent of technological knowledge access and transfer of EMNCs.

While subsidiary reverse knowledge transfer is largely missing, EMNCs adopt a parent-centric approach in which the parent directly accesses and transfers explicit knowledge from the external environment of host locations. In doing so, EMNCs at least partially achieve the knowledge access and transfer goals of strategic asset-seeking FDIs.

This study contributes to an in-depth understanding of EMNCs by empirically testing key predictions in extant EMNC literature, namely, the strategic asset-seeking in host locations and the systematic integration of accessed knowledge and resources with home country activities. This study also pioneers the use of the US patent and citation data to empirically study EMNCs.

Purpose – This chapter explains what is known about international homicide trends, highlights gaps in existing literature, and proposes avenues for future research that will expand understanding about international homicide.

Design/methodology/approach – We review extant literature on international homicide trends, and draw on data from the World Health Organization from 1990 to 2015 to identify patterns in contemporary international homicide trends.

Findings – We demonstrate evidence of an international homicide drop across most regions around the world. Nonetheless, the homicide decline is not a global event as several countries – particularly countries with high homicide rates – did not experience reductions in homicide during this period. The key question remains as to what the causes of changes in international homicide rates are and why many countries experience very similar reductions in homicide while a few experienced increasing violence. We propose potential explanations and suggest areas for future research.

Originality/value – This chapter documents an international homicide decline occurring between 1990 and 2015. We also demonstrate that homicide trends are likely influenced by factors beyond local phenomena and domestic policies since homicide rates largely track together for regions throughout the world. Accordingly, the chapter suggests potential avenues for future research that can help better explain this trend.