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The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope for action of local human resource managers, who are employed in foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs), for implementing training activities. These managers are situated in relationships to headquarters and the local environment. Related to this is the question whether MNCs contribute to the local skill base by implementing training activities or whether they exploit the existing skill formation system.

This study focusses on German subsidiaries of MNCs with headquarters in the USA and the UK, France, China and Japan. The study is based on 107 expert interviews with subsidiary managers and representatives of local stakeholder organisations, such as educational organisations, chambers, economic promotion agencies and governmental bodies in Germany.

The study reveals that headquarters introduce general schemes for training. In addition to these MNC-internal trainings, local managers use their information advantage over headquarters to implement dual training activities.

The training activities of subsidiaries are dependent on the institutional settings of the host country.

Albeit dual training activities are laborious and tie the local managers down for the medium and long term, the future need of the subsidiary for adequately skilled workforce prompts local managers’ engagement in implementing dual training activities.

Subsidiaries contribute to the local skill base and do not act in a free-rider position, at least in the German variety of capitalism.

The study deepens insights on distanced relations within and how subsidiaries generate scope for action by using this kind of relationships.

This paper aims to examine multinational companies’ (MNCs) international transfer strategies of German vocational education and training (VET) and examines the dynamics in the subsidiaries.

Methodologically, the study is based on expert interviews conducted in German headquarters. To complete the picture, the study also includes insights from expert interviews in subsidiaries in Mexico, India and China.

There is a mix of country-of-origin and geocentric strategic orientation. VET is “boiled down” and adapted in its contents, but headquarters and expats maintain the spirit of VET, i.e. its national agenda of technical hands-on competencies and pedagogical competencies. To achieve this MNCs introduce general guidelines. Convincing takes place by means of role models.

The effects in the emerging economies differ regionally; these regional differences are not the subject of this contribution.

VET transfer comprises the implementation of its core spirit which produces participatory and emancipatory dynamics.

Intercultural learning has to be sensitive to such dynamics.

The study contributes to research on international strategies of MNCs, focussing on skill development of the blue-collar study.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the qualification measures of 12 German multi-national companies (MNCs), all of which are present in China, India and Mexico. In particular, the transfer of dual initial training practices and further training measures are investigated. It examines the impact consistent training strategies across national borders have emerged in German companies or local arrangements have developed despite identical internal influencing factors.

Because of its design, the focus is on the external factors that influence the companies’ training measures. However, an exploratory approach was followed. To pursue the research question face-to-face expert interviews were conducted with 46 training managers in 12 active companies in all 3 countries. The interviews were completely transcribed and evaluated using qualitative methods.

The analysis shows that it is not internal company factors but country-specific contextual factors that influence training measures and that companies cannot act in the same way worldwide.

The study is based on 12 MNC and only analyses the blue-collar area. Therefore, it would have to be evaluated whether a similar analysis would result from a survey of other companies in different sectors or whether the differences in terms of training and further training measures would then be even greater.

The study supports the internationalization strategies of MNC by providing first-hand empirical results concerning recruitment and training of blue colour workers on an intermediate skill level. It gives evidence on the need of national adaptation in the process of transferring training cultures from countries of origin into the host countries. More attention must, therefore, be paid to external factors when developing and implementing training measures.

The economic development in many countries includes an expansion of foreign investments. MNC provides employment and income for workers and their families. However, successful foreign investments also include sustainable recruitment and training strategies of the local workforce. The results of the study support policymakers to guide and support foreign companies to develop successful Human Resource Management strategies in the host countries.

This paper is original because due to the research design the internal factors are kept largely constant and the external influencing factors are singularly focused in detail. Therefore, this procedure makes it possible to investigate whether consistency training strategies across national borders have emerged in German companies or local arrangements have developed despite identical internal influencing factors.

As the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has stated in their original definition of quality (ISO 8402:1994), quality is “the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.” The authors consequently believe that not only learning from challenges – the relevant entity – should be intended as a task aimed to satisfy the needs of both challenged learners and challenged businesses, but also that not all the entity's needs are stated from the beginning of the process.

These were the methodological assumptions of a workshop on destination management held from October 2020 to February 2021 in the frame of tourism studies at the University of Bergamo. Though the workshop was entirely run through digital channels in a time of pandemic, it successfully provided five destination management organizations (DMOs) and an association among hosts in the Bergamo Alps with a variety of digital communication products.

The workshop was special in terms of satisfaction expressed by participants as well as the involved DMOs. The participants' deliveries became active components of the destinations' policies. A professional video came as a welcome addition.

Implied needs which the workshop came across – namely, doubts on the reliability of tourism data, cooperation among local actors, prerequisites in building a new website, the role of food and recipes in promoting a destination identity, best practices in guiding guests through planned itineraries, and the role of a city administration in controlling overtourism – were identified while researching and producing.

Formidable social-cultural and legal challenges face trans athletes, particularly trans girls and women, at the global, national and local levels. Two underlying and mutually reinforcing themes are in evidence throughout these analyses: the principle of sport exceptionalism, and the power of the media to shape trans-related discourse.

The longstanding concept of ‘sport exceptionalism’ is routinely invoked to justify trans girls' and women's exclusion: that is, rules applying to other social contexts and workplaces must be suspended in relation to sport, so that women's ‘safety’ and ‘fairness’ may be guaranteed.

Mainstream and social media contribute to trans exclusionary attitudes, by spreading misinformation and promoting a moral panic over the spectre of trans women taking over girls' and women's sport. Detailed analyses of media treatment of trans athletes Laurel Hubbard and Lia Thomas demonstrate these trends. Moreover, media play a significant role when they are reporting on global, national and local developments in sport policies and practices, with media distortion of scientific findings exacerbating these problems.

An examination of conceptual and applied responses to these challenges provides the context for exploring the way forward: new ways of imagining sport that are inclusive and just.

This study aims to explore the hospitality and religious experience of Israeli travelers visiting the globally prevalent Jewish Orthodox Chabad Houses that provide religious, spiritual, educational and hospitality havens in their locales, regardless of the degree of observance.

Using Schmitt’s (1999b) experiential consumption dimensions of Sense, Feel, Think, Relate and Act, this study measured the various visitors’ experiences, satisfaction and loyalty using a sample of 488 Israeli travelers obtained from online social media sites, popular with Israeli travelers.

The findings reveal that Israeli visits to Chabad Houses were primarily characterized by Act, Feel and Relate experiences like meeting fellow Israeli travelers, a sense of togetherness and a feeling of belonging. In predicting satisfaction and loyalty, the visitors’ religious experience did not play a major role, but rather the actual hospitality extended by their religious hosts, like a home-like feeling, comfort, tasty food and a sense of togetherness did.

Collecting data from an online sample might yield results that would not be applicable to the typical Chabad House visitor. Due to the Chabad Houses’ global presence, their visitors’ experiences may vary from one house to another and the findings may not represent an accurate picture of the typical Chabad House visit.

To continue its hospitality brand, the Chabad movement’s decision-makers should continue focusing on innovative visitor experiences and balance the religious and secular components of their hospitality, as well as consider carefully how to direct their marketing and operational budgets.

Adding to the body of literature on travelers’ experience at religious sites, this research is a pioneering attempt to study and explore visitors’ religious and hospitality experiences while visiting small non-conspicuous religious centers that extend their global hospitality brand to travelers.

This study aims to explore passionate labour in the fashion blogosphere and addresses two research questions: How does passion animate passionate labour? How does the emotion of passions and the discipline of labour fuse within passionate labour?

This study presents a three-year netnographic fieldwork of replikate fashion blogger-preneurs. Data are based on in-depth interviews, blogs, social media posts and informed by the relationships developed across these platforms.

Throughout the findings, this study unpacks the “little passions” that animate the passionate labour of blogger-preneurs. Passions include: passion for performing the royal lifestyle, the mobilisation of passion within strategic sociality and transformation and self-renewal through blogging. Lastly, the cycle of passion illustrates how passions can be recycled into new passionate projects.

This study offers insight on how passionate labour requires the negotiation and mobilisation of emotion alongside a calculated understanding of market logics.

This study raises implications for aspiring blogger-preneurs, luxury brand managers and organisations beyond the blogging context.

The contribution of this study lies in the cultural understanding of passion as a form of labour where passion has become a way of life. The theorisation of passionate labour contributes to existing research in three ways. First, this study identifies social mimesis as a driver of passionate labour and its links to class distinction. Second, it offers insight on how passionate labour requires the negotiation and mobilisation of emotion alongside a calculated understanding of market logics. Third, it advances critical debate around exploitation and inequality within digital labour by demonstrating how passion is unequally distributed.

Knowledge and technology transfer (KTT) and particularly academic entrepreneurship (Klofsten and Jones-Evans, 2000) are indispensable for economic growth and wealth creation. In many European countries including Germany, substantially fewer women than men participate in KTT. Recently, decision makers from scientific, political, and commercial organisations have increased their attention to the gender dimension (e.g. Moser, 2007; Schiebinger, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate in what ways and to what degree gender is currently integrated in German KTT.

By following an abductive approach (Suddaby, 2006) and building upon existing models (Klofsten and Jones-Evans, 2000; Carlsson et al., 2002; Lundvall, 2010), the authors developed an analytical framework for evaluating the position of the gender dimension in KTT, conducted a comprehensive literature review, and 22 key informant interviews.

The findings indicate that the gender dimension is barely integrated in German KTT, which particularly manifests itself through the fact that there are fewer than 10 per cent women among academic entrepreneurs. Current organisational practices and attitudes of decision makers continue to reinforce traditional gender roles and “typically male” approaches and behaviours (Connell, 2005; Redien-Collot, 2009).

The authors were the first to synthesise a variety of sources into one unified framework and to rigorously analyse the gender dimension in German KTT – both quantitatively and qualitatively and on different levels. This framework can help decisions makers, both in- and outside of Germany, re-envision KTT practices, and create new opportunities for its diverse participants.

Social media pose serious challenges to information evaluation, which can make credibility evaluation more difficult compared to other information resources. As a result, this paper aims to explore related challenges and research directions to put forth a set of criteria practical for actual users in their decision-making.

Related literature in such disciplines as information, communication and media sciences were carefully searched and assessed. Once challenges and research directions were identified, a literature coding approach was considered to design a conceptual framework incorporating the main criteria used for evaluating information found from social media.

Some areas of consideration such as political concerns, health information, organizational issues and purchasing behavior are among the main challenges inevitable in evaluating current social media information. The relative importance of credibility criteria varies from study to study depending on factors such as the characteristics of the participants, the type of the source and the type of information.

A conceptual framework developed including four main dimensions of the information source, information presentation, information credibility and decision-related issues as a set of criteria useful for the decision-making of social media users when evaluating information.

The literature review and the conceptual framework incorporate a set of most important criteria for exploring the credibility evaluation of social media information, which are also useful for future related studies.