A Not So Painless Journey : A qualitative case study investigating the complexity with best practice transfer from Sweden to China

Abstract: The research regarding best practice transfer complexity is limited and mainly focused on a Western perspective. Thereby, it overlooks the emerging market context. Further, previous research has not examined the constraints affecting the transfer success from several dimensions. Therefore, this thesis aims at answering what the main constraints are to a successful best practice transfer from a Swedish multinational corporation headquarter to a Chinese subsidiary. Additionally, this thesis aims to examine how these constraints affect the transfer success from both a process and outcome perspective. In order to investigate this, the theoretical framework explains the potential internal and external constraints that can affect the transfer and defines success. This study was conducted through a qualitative case study based on a Swedish regional HQ’s transfer to its Chinese subsidiary. The data was mainly collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from both Sweden and China. Conclusively, the findings showed that relational, organizational and contextual constraints were present. However, the qualitative research showed that there are often trade-offs between constraints and their effect on success, which previously have not been shown in quantitative research. In addition, the results suggest that the context is important to acknowledge when transferring best practices.