| 1. |
- Eriksson, Mikael, 1977-
(författare)
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The complex internationalization process unfolded : The case of Atlas Copco’s entry into the Chinese mid-market
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Despite its contemporary relevance, we still have limited empirical knowledge about the forces underlying complex internationalization processes as when multinational corporations (MNCs) seek to enter new growing markets. Based on a real-time process study comprising ninety interviews and two hundred hours of observation made between 2009 and 2012, Atlas Copco’s entry into the Chinese mid-market was investigated. The intra-organizational analysis showed that three inter-related processes were underlying Atlas’ market entry and the results suggest that multiple interrelated motors may drive many contemporary internationalization processes. The processes identified are a sequential strategy process, an evolutionary process which shows that routines changed, and a political process. A somewhat surprising finding is that the main driver of internationalization according to received theory, the firm’s accumulated experiences, not only can drive internationalization, but may also hamper MNC managers’ possibilities to enter many of today’s new and growing markets. The findings add to our knowledge of the internationalization process in an increasingly complex international business setting, and especially highlight the need to distinguish between the sequential strategy process – more in line with received theory – and the other processes, in order to get a more full-fledged picture of what internationalization in large MNCs is all about.
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| 2. |
- Figueira de Lemos, Francisco, 1968-
(författare)
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A Political View on the Internationalization Process
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The role of governments in the internationalization of the firm had early recognition in prominent seminal studies in international business, such as Hymer’s thesis or the Uppsala Model, though the interaction between multinationals and governments has attracted scarce attention. As such, the main stream of economics and management studies have focused on internationalization essentially as an issue of the firm, wherein the multinationals’ interaction with the environment is limited to a business-industrial scope of suppliers, clients, and competitors.In a different direction, this thesis includes the political setting and studies the beneficial side of governments in the internationalization process of the firm. With this purpose, the present dissertation proposes a conceptual framework based on Johanson and Vahlne’s (1977) internationalization process model, complemented with Williamson’s (1975) Transaction Costs Economics, and encompassed by conceptual insights from institutional studies related to international business. Specifically, the role of governments in the internationalization process is examined through the variances of the relation between knowledge and commitment at the micro, meso, and macro level.The structure of the thesis reflects the multilevel approach, integrating one conceptual and three empirical papers, each of which dealing with a particular level of analysis. Through the aggregation of each paper’s intrinsic contribution, the dissertation’s summary offers a wide view on the internationalization phenomena, adding the political elements to the industrial-business elements of the environment. Overall, internationalization is conceptualized as a process of interaction with the business environment, whereas the public nature of political elements induces the compromise of combining activities between firms and governments. Evidence gives the ground to conclude that internationalization is not a game played just between firms, or, even, between firms and markets, but also with and within governments.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Kang, Olivia H., 1970-
(författare)
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The Advantage Paradox : Managing Innovation Processes in the Multinational Corporation
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Two important ways that a subsidiary can contribute to the multinational corporation’s (MNC) competitive advantage are innovation development and transfer activities. However ‘the advantage paradox of the MNC’ calls into question a subsidiary’s ability to effectively and efficiently carry out both innovation development and transfer activities. This thesis investigates the validity of existence of ‘the advantage paradox of the MNC’ and explores possible solutions for overcoming it. This is done by conducting research around four questions: 1) In what circumstance can a subsidiary develop novel innovations? 2) In what circumstance can an innovation add value to an innovation developing subsidiary and what kind of value can the innovation add? 3) What are the factors that hinder innovation transfer and what kind of mechanisms are needed to overcome these hindrances? 4) Does innovation developed internally at an MNC transfer better within the MNC, compared to innovation developed externally to an MNC?The outcome of this thesis shows that the subsidiary faces a dilemma when managing innovation activities which is connected to ‘the advantage paradox of the MNC.’ The dilemma comes from tradeoffs that exist due to the subsidiary’s duties within the MNC and its involvement with external business counterparts. The studies in this thesis confirm that the subsidiary’s business contexts leads to novel innovations but innovation developed with external business partners are more difficult to exploit on a more general basis within the MNC. Although there are solutions to overcome the ‘advantage paradox of the MNC,’ by remedying transfer barriers, the solutions are complex processes and in many cases subsidiaries face predicament of having to choose one benefit over another.
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| 5. |
- Lindbergh, Jessica
(författare)
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Overcoming Cultural Ignorance : Institutional Knowledge Development in the Internationalizing Firm
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies how experiences influence the development of institutional knowledge within business relationships. It contributes to international business research by clarifying how experience develops the institutional knowledge of firms and what outcome such knowledge development has on firms’ internationalizations. The thesis identifies a need to distinguish between different types of experiences when investigating institutional knowledge development. In addition, the thesis compares different types of knowledge with institutional knowledge as to understand how firms learn to overcome cultural ignorance.The empirical setting consists of quantitative research of small- and medium sized firms. The findings show that market-specific experiences increases a firm’s institutional knowledge whereas experiences of multiple markets contribute to the firm’s perception of a greater need of institutional knowledge when conducting business with their specific partner. However, these experience effects are influenced by firms’ mode of operation (export vs. subsidiaries) in the international markets and mediated by cultural distance. Furthermore, the results show that despite the increased complexity that experiences of multiple markets lead to, such experiences increase a firm’s competence in foreign institutional environments. In addition, the findings show that firms lacking in ability to adapt their business also perceives a lack of knowledge about a country’s institutions and the customer.
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| 6. |
- Bladh, Elisabeth, 1975-
(författare)
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La Bible traduite en français contemporain : forme, signification et sens
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation analyses seven modern Bible translations in French with respect to their renderings of Koine Greek participles. The sample consists of the Passion Story from the four Gospels (Matt 26-28, Mark 14-16, Luke 22-24 and John 18-21), and is comprised of 603 Hellenistic participles in all. The participle forms are studied in six categories according to their syntactic function. The comparison focuses on differences in translation strategy, i.e. formal equivalence, omission and different kinds of transpositions, with special attention given to the choice of verb form. There is a discussion of the adequacy of contemporary, explicative theories of systemic differences between the passé simple/passé composé and the imparfait. A large number of examples are analysed in detail. The results of the survey show that the most prominent differences in translation strategies concern the predicative participle. Furthermore, this was the category that occurred most frequently in the sample. The Catholic scientific and literary translation La Bible de Jérusalem (1998) is the most literal of the seven versions. A high level of formal equivalence is also registered in the other scientific translation, La Traduction Œcuménique de la Bible (1988), even though application of this strategy outweighs the use of finite verbs, that is to say, the most common transposition. La Bible en français courant (1996) is the least literal: generally, it transposes the participle of the source text with a finite verb. This transposition is also very frequent in the literary La Bible de la Pléiade (1971). Most of the omissions are recorded in the recent literary La Bible, Nouvelle traduction (2001), which is shown to be the most divergent translation. Omissions are also frequent in the pastoral La Bible des moines de Maredsous (1968) and the liturgical La Traduction liturgique de la Bible (1977). When translated in conjunction with an element comprising a verb in one of the non-indicative moods (infinitive, imperative, participle and subjunctive), both the present and the aorist predicative participles are, to a large extent, rendered by a simple form, expressing non-accomplishment. However, the Bible de Jérusalem stands out with its greater use of compound present participles than any other version. When the predicative participle of the source text is transposed with a verb in the indicative mood, the passé simple is generally used to render the aorist; for the present participle, the imparfait is more frequent than the passé simple. Nevertheless, here too the passé simple accounts for a significant portion of the equivalents, especially in the two translations where transpositions formed by finite verbs are particularly important. There exist a few cases where some translators chose to use the passé simple/passé compose, while others chose the imparfait. The various details, tables and linguistic analyses in this dissertation provide a solid basis for accurately characterizing the various modern attempts made at reproduce this ancient text – a text so often translated, paraphrased, interpreted and deeply integrated in our cultural heritage.
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| 7. |
- Lindqvist, Karin, 1975-
(författare)
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Les appositions adnominales en français et en suédois écrits : Étude contrastive des prédications secondes détachées dans une perspective quantitative et informationnelle
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates differences in the use of the “apposition”, in French and Swedish formal, written language. The apposition is defined as a secondary predication, detached from the rest of the sentence by, for instance, commas, and determining a noun phrase. The apposition can take on the following forms: noun phrase, prepositional phrase, adjective phrase, past and present participle phrase and the so-called absolute construction. The corpus consists of parts of 20 French and 20 Swedish texts, fiction and non-fiction, and translations into the other language.In the first part of the analysis, the quantitative use of appositions in the two languages is studied. The results show that the apposition is considerably more frequent in the French texts than in the Swedish texts. Also, the relation between the form of the apposition and its correspondence in the other language is examined. For example, it is shown that the French NP apposition often corresponds to an apposition in Swedish, whereas the French present participle apposition rarely does so. It is also shown that when an apposition is used in the French text, the Swedish text often contains a finite clause or a structure where the commas have been omitted: a pre- or postposed modifier. These differences can partly be explained by the fact that French is a noun-oriented language, whereas Swedish is verb-oriented. There also seems to be a norm according to which commas are used more frequently in French.In the second part of the study, the differences in the use of appositions are studied in an informational perspective. The apposition is described as a unit associated with a low degree of “communicative dynamism” in the sentence, expressing for instance explanations, descriptions or examples. The analysis demonstrates that in French, information is often hierarchically structured in different units, whereas in Swedish, this information structure is often implicit, to be worked out by the reader.
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| 8. |
- Olsson Lönn, Eva M., 1967-
(författare)
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Thérèse Raquin d’Émile Zola : Répétitions lexicales, réseaux sémantiques et leurs traductions suédoises
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The subject of this thesis is Emile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin (1867). The principal aim is to examine lexical repetitions and their importance for semantic networks. The thesis studies the use of the noun cou and certain of its co-occurrences, as well as the use of colours and their derivatives. Employing the methods of Greimas and Rastier, the study is based upon two analyses, one narratological and the other thematic, an approach which allows us not only to study the importance of lexical repetitions, but also to study another aspect of the writing, Zola’s various sources of inspiration. This approach aids in showing the stylistic profile of the novel from a new perspective. Our second aim concerns the Swedish translations of the text. The degree of equivalence of lexical repetitions and their transmission has been studied in three versions (Wilson, 1884, Bjurman, 1911, and Bouleau, 1953). Our analysis draws on Berman’s and Heldner’s ideas about the critical evaluation of translated literary texts.The results of this thesis show that Zola, in Thérèse Raquin, uses lexical repetitions to create a stylistic effect that not only draws inspiration from literary and artistic sources, but that is also inspired by real events of the time. These stylistic properties, such as the system of colour leitmotivs, must be conveyed in a translation that is to be considered faithful to the original. The findings of this study suggest that there is a dependency between two of the examined versions and that it would be desirable to produce a new Swedish translation of the novel, equivalent to Zola’s text.
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| 9. |
- Roitman, Malin, 1968-
(författare)
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Polyphonie argumentative : Étude de la négation dans des éditoriaux du Figaro, de Libération et du Monde
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with the polyphonic and argumentative functions of the French negation marker, ne, in editorial texts from the daily press. The concept ‘polyphony’ relates to the presence of multiple voices within one and the same utterance. According to this view, negation triggers a subdivision of an utterance in two points of view. Thus the sentence Sweden will not be a part of the monetary union can be divided in two points of view, the underlying ‘Sweden will be a part of the monetary union’, and the explicit ‘Sweden will not be a part of the monetary union’.First, I study the polyphonic structure of negative utterances, notably their division in two points of view, by taking into account their specific linguistic features. This is done so as to identify the relevant linguistic criteria that determine the polyphonic interpretation of the negation. The study demonstrates that contextual elements, including pragmatic connectors, presuppositions contrastive elements, and several other devices constitute the primary source of polyphonic markers.Negation is furthermore approached from a textual perspective. I explore how the two opposite points of view that are associated with negation form polyphonic sequences with other points of view carrying the same semantic content, and how these dynamic points of view are associated to the different discourse beings that are found in the newspaper article. I found that these sequences often embrace the central polemic theme of the article and, also, that the polyphonic function is not restricted to the negative utterance but constitutes an element that ensures textual and argumentative coherence. These two analyses are carried out within Jean-Claude Anscombre’s and Oswald Ducrot’s Theory of Structural Argumentation, which has recently been formalised by Kjersti Fløttum, Coco Norén and Henning Nølke.Finally in this thesis, I analyse the relation between the discourse beings associated with the negative utterance and real beings that exist outside the text, and then consider what rhetorical implications that correspondence or no correspondence has on the polyphonic interpretation of the negation. I also examine whether polyphonic negation can be considered to be a feature of newspaper editorials that identifies these texts as a genre. This study shows that the locuteur, the discourse being responsible for the enunciation of the negative utterance on a textual level, links to the real being, the editorial writer, who then refutes points of view associated to other discourse beings, often by use of nominalizations that refer to community voices. The locuteur also intrudes into an argument or claim, and refutes it in the name of a community or an authority.By defining genre, as does the media researcher Patrick Charaudeau, as a correspondence between the constraints imposed by the discursive situation and the constraints imposed by the discursive features, and by considering that one of the editorial’s constraints is to persuade its readers, this study shows that the phrasal negation ne in its polyphonic function, constitutes a distinguishing feature in the genre of editorials. The refutations that are made by an editor constitute a distinctive argumentative strategy since it permits the editorial writer to present external points of view in order to refute them and thereby impose his or her own, subjective point of view.
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| 10. |
- Rosenberg, Maria, 1971-
(författare)
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La formation agentive en français : les composés [VN/A/Adv/P]N/A et les dérivés V-ant, V-eur et V-oir(e)
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study addresses the French morphological construction [VN/A/Adv/P]N/A. The main objectives are to posit a single rule for its formation and to question the implications of the agent polysemy. The theoretical framework is lexeme-based morphology, which adheres to weak lexicalism.The first part of our analysis is qualitative and concerns the availability aspect of productivity. The method is introspective. The internal semantic patterns of the French construction are examined. Our results give evidence for the claim that a single morphological construction rule, [VN/A/Adv/P]N/A, is responsible for the cases where the first constituent is a verb stem, and the second constituent may correspond to an internal argument, an external argument or a semantic adjunct. All cases manifest the same patterns, which are related to the denotative meanings included in the agent polysemy: Agent, Instrument, Locative, Action, Result and Cause. Our contrastive analysis shows that the same patterns are found in the four Swedish agentive formations, [N/A/Adv/PV-are]N, [N/A/Adv/PV]N, [N/A/Adv/PV-a]N and [VN]N, which correspond to the French [VN/A/Adv/P]N/A construction and which also contain a verbal constituent and its internal or external argument, or an adjunct.The second part of our analysis is quantitative and concerns the profitability aspect of productivity. The method is inductive. The aim is to explore the polysemy of agent and its assumed hierarchical structure, in synchrony and diachrony. Four French agentive formations, [VN/A/Adv/P]N/A compounds and V-ant, V-eur and V-oir(e) derivations, are included in order to examine semantic competition and blocking effects. Our results give evidence for the existence of an agent polysemy but deny that it has a hierarchical structure valid for every agentive formation. The meanings in the agent polysemy are more or less profitable according to formation type: blocking effects could explain this behaviour.
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