NAVIGATING CHINA SPEED - A 'Scania-Centric' Managerial Configuration within a Western Industrial Greenfield in China

Sammanfattning

This thesis explores the strategic logic behind managerial staffing decisions as a Western manufacturing Multinational Enterprise (Scania) establishes its first Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise (WFOE) in the Chinese heavy vehicle industry. Following recent regulatory shifts, the firm faces a dual challenge: protecting its centralized modular system while achieving local institutional legitimacy under the intense market velocity known as "China Speed". Through an abductive, qualitative case study based on ten multi-hub interviews, the research investigates how international staffing configurations are utilized to resolve this tension between global integration and local responsiveness. As the very first Western pioneer in its sector to establish a WFOE, Scania utilizes a unique "Scania-centric" managerial configuration, where internal corporate culture and values entirely supersede national origin. Crucially, the study identifies a regiocentric anomaly: the firm compresses its localization timeline to a five-year window by bypassing regional integration in Asia. Instead, it deploys an institutional mentorship loop that utilizes experienced Third-Country Nationals from Brazil as relational accelerators to bridge cultural distance and accelerate knowledge transfer. Ultimately, the thesis illustrates how contemporary manufacturing MNEs leverage global knowledge loops to maintain strategic control in volatile host environments.