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The birth of the African Capacity Building Foundation on February 9, 1991, was the culmination of intense efforts and groundbreaking commitment to capacity building in Africa by Africa Governors of the World Bank, the Bank itself and the cofounding Institutions ‐ the African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program, as well as numerous other individuals. The successes chalked by ACBF towards attainment of its objectives have vindicated those who held the view that establishing an indigenous African institution, with focus on and commitment to the course of Africa’s development was the right course of action at the time. Twenty years on, ACBF has supported nearly 250 projects and programs in 44 African countries and committed more than US$400 million to build capacity on the continent. Projects and programs supported by the Foundation have drawn synergy with and complemented countless other activities of various development institutions operating on the Continent. ACBF’s support has been crucial in the building of development capacity in Africa, whether in ministries of finance and economic planning or central banks. For many among us who dedicated to this initiative and worked towards its realization, we remain humbled by the opportunity to witness the twentieth anniversary of ACBF.

Strategizing in a multinational corporation requires balancing global and local strategy. The purpose of this paper is to provide some insights into how multinational corporations succeed in this endeavor.

The authors conducted a detailed qualitative investigation of the strategy-development processes at Gamma – a European multinational corporation in the materials industry. Specifically, the authors investigated strategy development in the DACH region (i.e., for the German, Austrian and Swiss subsidiaries). To collect data, they conducted interviews with key informants at the corporate headquarters and the subsidiaries and collected archival data.

The data revealed that Gamma had found an approach to strategy development that balanced its global strategy with local conditions, finding a suitable way to align its global and local strategies. The authors therefore unravel three key insights revolving around subsidiaries’ unique interpretations of the basic idea of global strategy, idiosyncratic strategy development processes in subsidiaries and globally and locally synchronized temporal structures.

Knowing how to balance the strategic needs of headquarters and subsidiaries allows multinational corporations to follow a general strategy while simultaneously developing a local market strategy responsive to the individual market requirements.

The paper aims to analyze collective bargaining in the facility management business of these six countries to explore similarities and differences between them. The analysis serves to test the differential impact of the national institutional setting on the protection provided by collective agreements to facility management workers.

The paper adopts a case study methodology to approach a facility management multinational company providing services in six European countries (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK) that represent different industrial relations systems with variance in key dimensions of collective bargaining, including its structure, coverage and extension of agreements.

The extension of the facility management business model has not always adopted a high-road strategy aimed at enhancing the quality and efficiency through the integrated management and delivery of services, which is expected to positively impact employment conditions. Rather, it has, in many cases, been a deliberate, low-road attempt to undercut working standards, taking advantage of the multiple services provided by the company in a context of growing de-centralization in collective bargaining. The results point to an important role of industrial relations institutions in shaping facility management strategies and outcomes.

Similar to other forms of outsourcing, facility management leads to fragmented employment relations. However, the concentration of outsourced workers under the same supplier organization introduces opportunities to ensure the protection of workers, depending on the adoption of a high- or low-road competitive strategy. This paper provides for the first time comparative evidence about industrial relations in facility management businesses, a largely under-researched area.

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 purpose of this paper is to extend management innovation theory and research by going beyond analysis at a single level. Focussing on management innovation at the lower level in the organizational hierarchy, the authors develop a multilevel framework; in doing so, the authors answer earlier calls for a study of the effects of multilevel transformational leadership (TFL) on management innovation and innovation in general.

This study collected multisource and multilevel data from 169 managers, 423 employees of 141 units from 21 banking service firms in an emerging economy.

The results from hierarchial linear modeling analysis reveal that unit-level TFL was positively related to unit-level management innovation. Furthermore, firm-level TFL was positively associated with firm-level empowerment climate, which in turn enhanced unit-level management innovation. In addition, firm-level empowerment climate strengthened the relationship between unit-level TFL and unit-level management innovation. Finally, the unit-level trust mediates the relationship between firm-level empowerment climate and unit-level management innovation.

Firms operate more effectively when they generate management innovation. To help ensure the effectiveness of management innovation, it is essential that firms, especially those from the banking sector, encourage their managers to engage in TFL behaviors. The managers must consider how to utilize their TFL behaviors to create trusting relationships in order to achieve the organizational goals. Firms can also take steps to develop a supportive climate of higher levels of autonomy, delegation, freedom and task accountability, in order to promote higher levels of trust at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy.

The current study develops and tests a mediation model that links firm-level TFL to unit-level management innovation, and identifies unit-level trust as the intermediate outcome. With this theorizing and the findings, the authors deepen the current knowledge regarding the organizational implications of TFL behaviors for management innovation.