The International Business unit of Aalto University School of Business has been collecting data from foreign-owned subsidiaries in Finland since the early 1990s. Now in 2020, it is time for our next data collection effort to observe how their international management responsibilities have evolved during the past three decades. We also want to identify what types kinds of responsibilities they have at the moment.
We conduct a survey among the entire population of 4382 foreign-owned subsidiaries in Finland1. In the beginning of the survey, the respondent is asked for an active consent, by which the respondent agrees to participate in this research. After receiving consent, the given survey answers may be used for research purposes, even if the respondent would choose to discontinue the survey by closing the browser.
Our survey focuses on three key areas to understand what kinds of operations and international management responsibilities foreign-owned subsidiaries have in Finland and why.
I. Background information and your subsidiary’s operations in Finland;
II. Your subsidiary’s role and autonomy within the corporation;
III. Your subsidiary’s international management responsibilities outside of Finland.
We are mainly focusing on subsidiaries’ activities and international management responsibilities before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic but at the same time, we also seek to understand how the pandemic has affected them.
The data collected with the survey is, after codification and ensuring for data quality, combined with micro-data from public sources, such as from Statistics Finland. This helps us to get a comprehensive understanding of the foreign-owned subsidiaries’ activities and managerial responsibilities, and which factors may be associated with the changes in these responsibilities.
Please see the Privacy Notice below for more information on how we handle personal data in this project.
1Source: Statistics Finland
A three-decade longitudinal analysis on the headquarters (HQ) dynamics in Finland contributing to the discussion on what makes Finland an attractive location for HQ responsibilities.
This research is one part of the HQ Location Research Project conducted at the International Business (IB) Unit of Aalto University School of Business.
The shifting meaning of firm location: From a physical setting to a perceptual sense of place.
A firm’s choice to relocate its headquarters depends on the interplay between physical and social aspects and together these can create a firm’s sense of place.
The multiple meanings of location affect not only the organizational arrangements of international firms, but also the way policymakers treat these firms. This calls for a more nuanced understanding of the meaning of headquarters (HQ) location.