Problem: Volvo CE is on a global level responsible to issue the warranty user manual with
terms & conditions (from here on referred to as T&C) for the Volvo CE group.
There are regional deviations to the global T&C in order to fulfil legal or
commercial requirements in respective region. Volvo CE on the global level are
authorised to manage that decided processes and T&C are followed and if not drive
actions to close the gap between global and regional deviations. Volvo CE would
like to examine the possibility to have one source of document describing the T&C,
all regional documents should direct back to this source which means that the global
document must cover regional deviations to the global T&C. Today there is no
control on the information available in the different regions.
Purpose: Examine the coherence between Volvo CE T&C documentation on global level and
the regional level. By this study we aim to contribute to the research on
international MNCs by elucidating the efficiency by which such a firm can handle
knowledge flows between the headquarter its subsidiaries and dealers.
Method: The report is based on secondary data research and empirical studies conducted via
qualitative interviews with key persons in the Volvo group and mapping current
document situation both on global and regional level. The starting point for this
paper is an interview with Volvo CE and Manager Global Warranty Common Lynn
Edberg.
Conclusion: We have found that Volvo CE utilizes a lot of modern technique to spread explicit
knowledge within the organization and out to dealers. The Achilles heel is that there
is no consolidated information base including both global and regional T&C for
easy internal access. To also increase efficiency on ontological knowledge sharing,
regions and global need to meet in committees just as being done for global T&C
updates.
2010. , p. 45