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Multinational business deliver value via multiple sites with similar operational capacities. The age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) delivers significant opportunities for the deployment of digital tools for business optimization. Therefore, this study aims to study the Industry 4.0 implementation for multinationals.

The key objective of this research is multi-site systems integration using a reproducible, modular and standardized “Cyber Physical System (CPS) as-a-Service”.

A best practice reference architecture is adopted to guide the design and delivery of a pioneering CPS multi-site deployment. The CPS deployed is a cloud-based platform adopted to enable all manufacturing areas within a multinational energy and petrochemical company. A methodology is developed to quantify the system environmental and sustainability benefits focusing on reduced carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and energy consumption. These results demonstrate the benefits of standardization, replication and digital enablement for multinational businesses.

The research illustrates the ability to design a single system, reproducible for multiple sites. This research also illustrates the beneficial impact of system reuse due to reduced environmental impact from lower CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. The paper assists organizations in deploying complex systems while addressing multinational systems implementation constraints and standardization.

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.

In this exploratory multiple case study, we aim to compare the internationalization of two state-owned enterprises (SOEs) owned by subnational governments with three owned by central governments in Latin America. This study provides a contextualized answer to the question: What are the differences in the internationalization of subnationally owned SOEs compared to central SOEs? This study finds that the speed and diversification of these two types of SOEs’ internationalization differ because they have a different expansion logic. Subnationally owned SOEs have a gradual and diversified expansion following market rules. Central government’s SOEs are specialized and take more drastic steps in their internationalization, which relates to non-market factors.

This study builds an exploratory qualitative comparative case analysis that uses multiple sources of data and information to develop a comprehensive understanding of SOEs through process tracing.

The study posits some assumptions that are confirmed in the case analysis. This study finds relevant differences between sub-national (SSOEs) and central authority (CSOEs’) strategies. SSOEs’ fewer resources and needs to increase income push them to follow a gradual market-driven internationalization and to diversify abroad. CSOEs non-gradual growth is justified by non-market factors (i.e. national politics). CSOEs do not diversify abroad due to the broader set of constituencies they have to face.

Given the exploratory comparative case study of this research, the findings are bounded by the particularities of the cases and their region (Latin America). This paper and its findings can be useful for theory building but it does not claim any generalization capacity.

This study adds complexity into the SOEs phenomenon by distinguishing between different types of SOEs. This paper contributes to the study of subnational phenomena and its effect in SOEs’ internationalization process, which is an understudied topic. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is among the first studies that explore subnational SOEs in Latin America.

The authors’ contention in this paper is that the expression of subsidiary strategy in IB literature has become fragmented and incomplete. Therefore, this study aims to propose a rethink on how IB scholarship approaches the important issue of subsidiary strategy by holistically examining the discrete and integrated set of activities, choices and decisions that constitute the subsidiary strategy process for, in this context, assuming a competence-creating role within the multinational enterprise (MNE).

A conceptual model is designed to illustrate the holistic process of subsidiary strategy from assigned to assumed role and how a subsidiary can navigate a pathway to elevated performance and survival.

The paper identifies the key integrated elements that constitute a holistic strategic process that can enhance a subsidiary’s standing within the MNE and maximise its survival prospects.

Particular focus is placed on subsidiaries that strategise to advance their internal corporate role to competence creator via upgraded knowledge capabilities.

This paper offers a roadmap for IB scholars to contribute to a future discourse around the subsidiary strategy process for assuming a competence-creating role.

In the mainstream international business literature on multinational corporations (MNCs), an authoritative central headquarter (HQ) that transfers standardised practices to its subsidiaries remains the norm. This study aims to explore how MNCs coordinate their management practices through principles.

The paper draws on empirical findings from a qualitative in-depth single case study based on evidence-rich qualitative data including observations from how a high-tech MNC headquartered in Sweden coordinates its development practices.

An alternative informal coordination approach (i.e. coordination by principles) is identified. Additionally, antecedents and implications of the approach are presented.

Coordination by Principles may facilitate the internalisation of practices and be a feasible compromise between context adaptation and traditional standardisation, particularly for MNCs with highly heterogeneous research and development operations.

This paper highlights the importance of acknowledging that firm practices often are based on management ideas that HQs adopt to prevent loss of legitimacy. As such, this study contributes to the scarce literature that critically questions the assumption that HQs solely transfer practices to subsidiaries to improve subsidiary efficiency and performance.

This paper aims to contribute to the multinational company (MNC) literature by studying the diffusion of a management idea within an MNC and its interaction with the MNC’s corporate immune system (CIS).

The qualitative single case study draws on evidence of how a management idea augments within an MNC and changes its development practice.

The study identifies four phases of the diffusion process and presents the interaction between the management idea and the CIS in each phase.

The more subsidiaries within an MNC that take the initiative to adopt a management idea, the harder will it become for the headquarters (HQ) to reject it. Thus, to ensure that changes in management practices are based on informed and, ideally, deliberate decisions, managers should critically evaluate management ideas immediately at inception.

The study breaks new ground by explaining how the CIS reacts to the diffusion of management ideas in MNCs.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for the transformation from a second-generation university to an entrepreneurial university. The work is practical and innovative, which provides the foundation for further work in this field.

Based on a systematic review of relevant studies on entrepreneurial universities, this paper proposed an evaluation framework with clear logic and practicability. This paper also provided a basis for further research. The restrictions of each factor were defined by the readiness framework, and the consequences of entrepreneurial activities on local economic development were analyzed by using the proposed model. The proposed conceptual framework aided policymakers in completing a much-needed assessment of the impact of organizational policies, practices and structures on the entrepreneurial activities and transformation from second-generation universities to third-generation organizations.

The proposed readiness framework led to the development of organizational interventions that facilitated successful entrepreneurial activities. The quantitative indicators of different university types were demonstrated in this study. The quantitative validation of the integrated framework suggested that university heads and policymakers can encourage and develop academic entrepreneurship by using a comprehensive systems approach for the identification, protection and commercialization of university’s intellectual property.

This paper provides a framework for policymakers or decision makers to better understand whether a local university is ready for entrepreneurship. This framework also provides a direction for future quantitative research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity management theory (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005).

The research uses qualitative semi-structured interviews on 18 targeted relationships with customers from another culture conducted with business-to-business salespeople.

The findings indicate that our respondents' relationships moved from trial toward enmeshment and on occasion toward the renegotiation phase, as described in IMT. In the case of low cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships reached the trial and enmeshment phase. In the case of high cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships on occasion evolved toward the renegotiation phase. Salespeople's cultural intelligence (CQ) facilitates the development of interpersonal, intercultural salesperson–customer relationships.

The authors transfer IMT from the personal relationship development arena to B2B intercultural, interpersonal relationships, address a gap in the literature in the understanding of salesperson–customer interpersonal relationships in different contexts and develop a theoretical model to understand intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationship development across different levels of cultural diversity.

In the age of digital media, customers have access to vast digital information sources, within and outside a company's direct control. Yet managers lack a metric to capture customers' cross-media exposure and its ramifications for individual customer journeys. To solve this issue, this article introduces media entropy as a new metric for assessing cross-media exposure on the individual customer level and illustrates its effect on consumers' purchase decisions.

Building on information and signalling theory, this study proposes the entropy of company-controlled and peer-driven media sources as a measure of cross-media exposure. A probit model analyses individual-level customer journey data across more than 25,000 digital and traditional media touchpoints.

Cross-media exposure, measured as the entropy of information sources in a customer journey, drives purchase decisions. The positive effect is particularly pronounced for (1) digital (online) versus traditional (offline) media environments, (2) customers who currently do not own the brand and (3) brands that customers perceive as weak.

The proposed metric of cross-media exposure can help managers understand customers' information structures in pre-purchase phases. Assessing the consequences of customers' cross-media exposure is especially relevant for service companies that seek to support customers' information search efforts. Marketing agencies, consultancies and platform providers also need actionable customer journey metrics, particularly in early stages of the journey.

Service managers and marketers can integrate the media entropy metric into their marketing dashboards and use it to steer their investments in different media types. Researchers can include the metric in empirical models to explore customers' omni-channel journeys.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the influence of corruption distance (CD) on foreign direct investment (FDI) with the characteristics of the value function from the Prospect Theory (PT) such as loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity.

Data are derived from Transparency International and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and tested on the countries China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Spain and the UK and are analysed with a natural log (LN) regression model.

The findings indicate a negative asymmetric relationship for China, Germany, Korea, Spain and Russia. This means that negative performance on CD will not have greater impact on FDI outflows than positive performance on CD in the same country. Loss aversion, as well as diminishing sensitivity, as suggested by the PT, cannot be supported with the empirical results.

Its originality lies in contributing and extending knowledge on CD on FDI in several ways. First, it analyses the data of emerging and industrialized countries, namely, Russia, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain and the UK. Second, a potential asymmetric impact is explained by the characteristics of the hypothetical value function of the PT. Third, it seeks empirical evidence by applying an econometric model developed to analyse the variables CD and FDI.