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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between employees’ knowledge and organisational performance.

Using a structural equation model, feedback received from 237 blue-collar workers from multinational high-tech manufacturing enterprises in Italy was studied to understand, from a dynamic capabilities perspective, the role of soft skills in the career success of production workers.

The results of the analysis indicate a positive relationship between workers’ commitment to develop their soft skills and their career success, as well as a positive relationship between an organisation’s approach to both knowledge exploration and knowledge exploitation and the prospects for career success of blue-collar workers.

The research has both theoretical and practical implications, as any efforts by researchers and practitioners to find effective ways to motivate the workforce will be likely to lead to a positive attitude towards learning and, ultimately, to improved business performance.

The originality of the paper is the focus on the personality and interpersonal attributes of workforce – blue-collar workers – and how they can affect business performance in highly innovative contexts.

This paper investigates the role of individuals' competence‐based trust and organizational identification (OI) in employees' continuous improvement efforts. The data were collected in a high‐tech multinational joint venture company with a sample of over 490 shop floor workers. The results show that trust is positively related to continuous improvement efforts when employees strongly identify with the organization. For individuals whose OI is weaker, however, trust is not positively related to continuous improvement. OI, on the other hand, not only moderated the relationship between trust and continuous improvement efforts, but also had a strong and positive impact on employees' continuous improvement efforts. Managerial implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework of total acquisition cost of overseas outsourcing/sourcing in manufacturing industry. This framework contains categorized cost items that may occur during the overseas outsourcing/sourcing process. The framework was tested by a case study to establish both its feasibility and usability.

First, interviews were carried out with practitioners who have the experience of overseas outsourcing/sourcing in order to obtain inputs from industry. The framework was then built up based on combined inputs from literature and from practitioners. Finally, the framework was tested by a case study in a multinational high‐tech manufacturer to establish both its feasibility and usability.

A practical barrier for implementing this framework is shortage of information. The predictability of the cost items in the framework varies. How to deal with the trade off between accuracy and applicability is a problem needed to be solved in the future research.

There are always limitations to the generalizations that can be made from just one case. However, despite these limitations, this case study is believed to have shown the general requirement of modeling the uncertainty and dealing with the dilemma between accuracy and applicability in practice.

This paper intends to further understanding of the world marketplace by examining the procurement practices of high‐tech suppliers across several countries in Central and Eastern Europe and in the USA. In particular, this examination will focus on the extent to which the smaller and less developed countries of Eastern Europe utilize IT procurement as an integral part of their purchasing strategy.

Exploratory qualitative interviews conducted with purchasing decision makers across various high‐tech industries in Eastern Europe are compared with those in Central Europe and the USA.

The findings suggest that information technology is perceived as being less valuable by European firms and is utilized to a lesser degree. In addition, multinational companies operating in Eastern Europe appear to be focused on developing the product quality and operational efficiency of local Eastern European suppliers and less concerned about facilitating their adoption of IT procurement systems.

The findings are consistent with past research and theory development in the area of relationship marketing. Although one can argue with whether buyer perceptions of electronic procurement are accurate, their reasons for adopting or not adopting this technology center on reducing transaction costs, reducing uncertainty, and trust concerns. Interestingly, findings suggest that within the high‐tech sectors in Eastern Europe very little commerce is taking place electronically.

The findings suggest that organizations buying globally need to pay close attention to the business culture from which they intend to source. This is important for a large number of well‐researched reasons; however, the study expands on these by suggesting that various markets have differing exposure, knowledge, and comfort levels with electronic procurement.

As with most qualitative studies, evidence was found that supports many of the established and evolving theories of buyer‐seller relationships as well as a few more surprising insights. For example, the prevalence of the desire for local suppliers by global multinationals and the extent to which they were “developing” these suppliers form an interesting area deserving further research attention. The lack of interest in IT procurement systems among the firms interviewed was also surprising.

Examines the competitive position of countries in Southern Europe in attracting multinational corporations (MNCs) through direct foreign investments (DFIs). Articulates the primary factors considered by multinational corporations when setting up activities through foreign direct investments. Develops techniques that are based on the perceptions of MNCs to help policymakers make their nations more appealing for direct foreign investments. Utilizes positioning mapping techniques to map manager perceptions of various Southern European countries (i.e. France, Spain, Greece and Italy). Finds the competitive positioning of the four countries. Estimates the ideal mix for a combination of the two most important factors involved when MNCs evaluate a country. Provides mappings of countries to evaluate their position in terms of attractiveness for MNC activities as an independent evaluation, or as part of a competitive assessment. Discusses actions that may be taken by a specific country to position itself favorably for DFIs.

The purpose of this paper is to present, analyze and discuss the case of AT&S, Europe's largest and most technologically advanced producer of printed circuit boards and one of the most successful Austrian‐based global players..

The paper focuses on the company's strategy and its global integration, its structure in terms of decentralisation, its organizational culture, and how the corporate approach towards knowledge management and cross‐site knowledge transfer is attuned to these premises. The paper encoded nine qualitative, semi‐structured interviews with top managers of the Austrian headquarters and two subsidiaries in Asia according to a system of categories and integrated the results for three interviews per site to an assessment on unit level. Then the three units were again merged and combined to an analysis on the company level.

Discussing the knowledge flows among the three sites and also the mechanisms of knowledge transfer across organizational and national borders at AT&S, the paper concludes that high‐tech companies do not need knowledge management to be successful.

Path dependencies of international case studies might reduce transferability of results to other industries or national cultures.

A focus on centralized product development and a supportive management information system guarantees global leadership and the capturing of benefits from subsidiaries in different markets.

This comprehensive case study shows that high‐tech companies do not necessarily require an elaborate knowledge management system, because the expertise transferred is built in the products.

What core strategic capabilities should multinational and domestic firms possess to create competitive organization in Russia? In this chapter, we try to answer this question with our pilot case study of six firms operating in the Russian high-tech, low-tech, and services markets – four global companies and two Russian firms. Our research shows that customer orientation is the crucial strategic capability, highlighted by all of the firms involved in the research. For multinational and high-tech players, this is followed by research and development, mentioned by two-thirds of the respondents. Moreover, the four multinational companies leverage their strategic capabilities of cross-cultural management and general sales capabilities as keys for their success in Russia. Russian firms emphasize importance of entrepreneurship, understanding local customer needs, and an engaged team as strategic capabilities that particularly differentiate them from the multinational players in the Russian market.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically examine the effects of outward FDI on domestic aggregate productivity and welfare.

This paper develops a North-South general equilibrium model in which firms' technology adoption and workers’ skill-technology matching are endogenous. Technologically heterogeneous firms in the North make explicit delocalization decisions to the South through FDI and heterogeneous workers endogenously sort into different technologies according to their respective comparative advantages.

This paper highlights how globalization-induced technology-upgrading mechanisms of firms and workers increase aggregate productivity and welfare, though at the cost of increased income inequalities. The model shows also that the same technological shock (favoring high-tech firms) leads to different results in closed and open economy: both technology up- and downgrading occur in closed economy, while technology upgrading prevails in open economy.

By modeling and exploring the technology-skill links in a North-South setting, this paper provides richer predictions on the implications of outward FDI. In particular, the model highlights that the initial openness degree of the economy matters: the more open the country initially, the more technology upgrading as globalization proceeds, leading to higher aggregate productivity and welfare gains.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a country’s change readiness impacts international mergers and acquisitions (M&A) capital flows on a national level toward host countries. The authors unpack the construct of change readiness and identify how its different dimensions impact international M&As (IMA). The authors provide a theoretical framework based on the resource-based view to facilitate an understanding of this concept.

The authors used a fixed-effect analysis to study a sample of 2,970 IMAs announced by publicly traded US companies during 2013–2017.

The authors propose that higher levels of change readiness would help foreign firms to cope with risks and uncertainties generated by the changes and shocks in the environment of a host country. The authors find support for their hypotheses showing that higher levels of change readiness increase the number of IMAs that a country receives every year. This characteristic of the host country shows a significant influence, especially in technology-intensive IMA flows.

This study provides implications for business executives and policymakers both in terms of risk mitigation strategies and investment attraction. Understanding the fact that when it comes to foreign investment in the form of IMAs business executives are aware of the importance of change readiness in host countries might lead to motivate the governments and host country officials to provide better infrastructure to boost the change readiness in their economy.

Overall, this study improves our knowledge about mechanisms through which change readiness of host countries might impact firms' strategies for international expansion. As we are indeed living in the era of global disruptions and strong shocks caused by political turmoil, climate change and the spread of new diseases, this study contributes to the literature on risk mitigation in international business and is one of the first to look closely at the role of host countries' change readiness and the effect it might have on attracting international M&As.

Since the late 1980s, the concepts of organizational learning (OL) and learning organization (LO) has prospered and been advocated as an effective strategy for organizational excellence. However, there was a lack of systematic documentation or cases reported proving the sustaining effect of OL. The purpose of this paper is to present a successful 15-year OL case in China, with which to prove PAL is a sustainable vehicle for OL.

This study documents a 15-year successful journey of a project-based action learning (PAL) driven OL setting in a multinational high-tech manufacturing company in China. The case study has been focusing on the progress of the four pillars in the PAL framework (i.e. policy and strategy; learning facilitation; resources and technology; and performance management) throughout the 15-year journey. Besides secondary data collection, on-site interviews with participants and the management of the company were carried out.

From this longitudinal case study, it can be seen that the four pillars form a very robust infrastructure supporting PAL for driving OL within the company. Each pillar is indispensable and evolves according to the needs of the others. Both management and learning team members perceived that PAL is an effective tool to drive OL within the case company.

This paper presents a unique15-year longitudinal examination of a successful OL story in a high-tech company in China, through the adoption of the PAL driven framework and the evolutionary road of the associated parts. While successful, this paper is considered as a “stage” summary of the long range road of OL adoption, with PAL proven to be a sustainable OL vehicle.