The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to a sharp increase in online trade. This article examines the impact of the pandemic on online grocery retail in Germany. Here we follow and refine the multi‐level perspective by Geels, and examine to what extent and why the online grocery retail expanded during the pandemic. A particular focus is on the spatial expansion into rural areas. The study shows a general upswing in the grocery trade and disproportionately high growth in online grocery trade and identifies driving and limiting factors. While COVID‐19 has opened a window of opportunity, our results indicate little transition of grocery to e‐grocery. This finding can be explained by the sudden and temporary constellation at the level of the socio‐technical regime during the pandemic. As a result, we argue for a rethinking the temporality of windows of opportunities and the related vulnerability of the innovations which need them.

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Purpose This paper aims to examine multinational companies’ (MNCs) international transfer strategies of German vocational education and training (VET) and examines the dynamics in the subsidiaries. Design/methodology/approach Methodologically, the study is based on expert interviews conducted in German headquarters. To complete the picture, the study also includes insights from expert interviews in subsidiaries in Mexico, India and China. Findings There is a mix of country-of-origin and geocentric strategic orientation. VET is “boiled down” and adapted in its contents, but headquarters and expats maintain the spirit of VET, i.e. its national agenda of technical hands-on competencies and pedagogical competencies. To achieve this MNCs introduce general guidelines. Convincing takes place by means of role models. Research limitations/implications The effects in the emerging economies differ regionally; these regional differences are not the subject of this contribution. Practical implications VET transfer comprises the implementation of its core spirit which produces participatory and emancipatory dynamics. Social implications Intercultural learning has to be sensitive to such dynamics. Originality/value The study contributes to research on international strategies of MNCs, focussing on skill development of the blue-collar study.

IntroductionThe commercial property industry is going international. New, professional investors are appearing in the markets which are turning their attention to novel, far-away, and even opaque market regions. It is these new investors in particular which seek à rational' foundation for their decisions, based on key performance indicators and financial ratios. Their decision making is based on a systematic procedure which is methodologically founded in neoclassical models of rational choice. Systematic algebraic calculations lead to results that are as representative as possible and thus inform transparent solutions and optimum investment choices. However, investors not only rely on rational modelling, but also on path-dependent knowledge, which is at least partially vague, not systematically generated, and not methodologically reliable.Our purpose in this paper is to show how new investors in the commercial property market attempt to introduce rational decision making, but stick to path dependencies at the same time. They therefore use a combination of rational and path-dependent decision making. As we show, investors still fill some central gaps in their rational knowledge with path-dependent knowledge öa situation that can be ascribed to the opaqueness of the new local markets. But although some path dependencies are likely to remain in the future, there is a strong tendency to replace them with rational models of decision making. Hence, we speak of rational decision versus path dependency.We begin with a theoretical^conceptual part (section 2) in which we discuss rationality and path dependency. After some methodological notes (section 3), some comments on new local market entry (section 4), and the actors in the property sector (section 5), we present our empirical evidence (section 6) which then leads to our final conclusions (section 7). Rationality and path dependencyIn the context of the financial sphere and the property markets, economic geographers have focused primarily on financially driven shifts in socioeconomic space (for example,

While labour geography notes that subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs) exploit workers, studies in vocational education show that the international subsidiaries perform education and training. Often, the latter strand of literature relates to cases of MNCs from countries with ‘dual’ apprenticeships that combine comprehensive vocational education and training (VET) of vocational schools/universities and companies. This is how VET is practiced in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The VET literature also explores how transfer of ‘dual’ practices from these countries of origin can contribute to skilling employees in the host countries. Starting from these conceptual approaches, this paper takes a different perspective. It asks how training activities of MNCs with headquarters in countries where companies hardly combine their in‐house trainings with vocational schools, perform training activities in Germany where ‘dual’ apprenticeship is the prevalent institutional environment. Besides ‘dual’ VET, the study also includes MNCs’ ‘dually’ coordinated training activities with universities. The topic of MNCs’ training activities in such complex structured institutional environments has hardly been researched until now. Methodologically, the study is based on case studies and uses qualitative research approaches for the evaluation of interviews. The results illustrate a spectrum of different kinds of training by presenting three case studies and show how they relate to the particular institutional context in Germany. The discussion and conclusion integrate the results in further findings of the study and literature.