Researchers often face challenges in locating and obtaining relevant and meaningful information during qualitative International Business (IB) field research in other countries. This process constitutes an immensely critical phase, which determines the success or failure of the research endeavour. This article discusses 'access' as a multidimensional and contestable concept, that poses particular challenges in international and multicultural research contexts. Design/methodology/approach This article builds on our experience as field researchers in China/Hong Kong (120 in-depth interviews) and the need to disseminate acquired field experiences, in particular concerning 'access'. The multifaceted issue of 'access' is rarely featured on the IB methodological agenda, and has become a silent feature of qualitative IB research. Findings This article is devoted to this nexus: the lack of focus on 'access' issues, and the rich sources of acquired, but mostly veiled, field experiences that feature in both international business and management research programmes. A plausible explanation for this circumstance relates to the influence of mainstream positivist and objectivist paradigms in which researchers are not recognised as having an impact on research processes, hence taking this silent feature for granted. Originality/value By viewing the multiple dimensions of 'access', we move beyond the mainstream understanding that merely relates it to the question of gaining access to a physical site and/or the time of an individual, and in which 'access' is only an enterprise of securing pre-existing, tangible information. Drawing upon specific international fieldresearch experiences, this article contributes to the methodological debate concerning 'access'-beyond 'technicality' and towards a concept of socio-cultural and multidimensional research practice.

Knowledge management and manufacturing relocation have been treated as independent spheres. However, for a relocation to be fruitful, knowledge management needs to be incorporated. The purpose of this research is to shed light on the lack of knowledge management in dynamic manufacturing relocation. In particular, the research focuses on the ability to change, adapt and revert manufacturing relocation decisions, that is, the dynamic nature (or use) of the concept. A Swedish company was used as a case study. Nine in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants at the company's headquarters in Sweden and its factory in China to capture a dyadic perspective. The findings demonstrate that: (1) knowledge transfer is crucial to create/sustain competitive advantage in the offshoring and reshoring phase; (2) lack of knowledge transfer results in limited learning outcomes with operational and strategic consequences in the relocation; (3) resistance to knowledge transfer in the offshoring creates a knowledge gap that consequently leads to relocation ambiguity in the reshoring phase; and (4) companies need to develop knowledge management strategies to promote knowledge transfer and learn from their international relocation, to cope with relocation ambiguity. Our theoretical contribution introduces the knowledge ambiguity framework, which is a result of insufficient knowledge transfer in the dynamic manufacturing relocation. Even if an organization relocates efficiently, it can fail to take advantage of knowledge transfer and development as potential learning for the organization.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to arrive at a different understanding of reshoring in Asia vis-à-vis the Western context of competitiveness, through a case study of the Swedish company FM Mattsson. Design/methodology/approach Empirical studies with semi-structured interviews have been conducted both in Sweden and China to gain an in-depth understanding of the case company’s reshoring activities. Findings The findings point at reshoring as a competitive means to respond to the dynamics of internal (firm-specific) and external (country-specific) factors. Reshoring comes as a dynamic process by reshuffling resources inside and outside of the firm that strives for continuous competitiveness. Organizations need to meet the challenges of changing environment, especially the dynamic business competition in Asia, and reshoring is a way. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature by perceiving reshoring as a dynamic process of competitiveness development. Reshoring is not seen as one-off short-term decision-making on cost and location but as a long-term process in response to the dynamic internal and external challenges ahead.

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Extant research on knowledge transfer within multinational corporations has increasingly focused on knowledge flow, but ignored the process of knowledge translation. Building on translation theory, this article seeks to explain how the translation of relational practices by local Chinese managers occurs in a Swedish multinational corporation subsidiary in China. The findings show that middle managers in the subsidiary adopt three different translation strategies: symmetrical, asymmetrical and substitutive. These strategies and their key drivers, and implications for further research, are discussed.