Les entreprises multinationales et les politiques publiques ; enquête sur leur engagement institutionnel au Canada
This thesis participates in a wide reflection on the interaction between government and multinational companies that is required in the current context of an accelerated globalization of the capitalist economy. We approach this issue by focusing on the institutional engagement of multinationals within different organizations, associations, forums or networks related to various development, innovation or labor market policies. What are the different dimensions of the institutionnal engagement of canadian subsidiary of multinationals ? How are those behaviors influenced by the various characteristics and strategies of these companies ? A comprehensive theoretical model, borrowing from many approaches used to understand the general behaviors of multinationals, is verified by quantitative analysis using original data obtained through the author’s participation in the Multinationals in Canada survey associated with the global INTREPID research initiative.   By highlighting the different facet of institutional engagement of the firm, this thesis establishes a more accurate operationalization of the broad concept of the “embeddedness”. Doing so, it put in question the essentially positive interpretation of the lather. The results reaffirm the relevance of various economics approach, but question the centrality of macro-intuitionalist approaches, particularly the Varieties of capitalism paradigm. Our analysis also illustrates the relevance of the Resource dependence theory and the impact of the presence in a firm of a structured actor able to counterbalance managers. Despite our theoretical venture, we were unable to observe a moderator effect of autonomy or power of the subsidiary on the country of origin influence on its institutional engagement behaviors.  This thesis provides some insight for better targeting institutional and economical interventions that seek to ‘embed’ multinationals and their capital inside the Canadian economy. It also draws light to the contributions of different stakeholder in the consolidation of the institutional engagement of multinationals, especially unions for training forums or employers networks.
Public policies Economic development theory Institutional embeddedness Varieties of capitalism