corporate social responsibility and different stages of economic development singapore turkey and ethiopia the u s and u k models of corporate social responsibility csr are relatively well defined as the phenomenon of csr establishes itself more globally the question arises as to the nature of csr in other countries is a universal model of csr applicable across countries or is csr specific to country context this article uses integrative social contracts theory isct and four institutional factors firm ownership structure corporate governance openness of the economy to international investment and the role of civil society to examine csr in singapore turkey and ethiopia field research results illustrate variation across the institutional factors and suggest that csr is responsive to country differences research findings have implications for consideration of the tradeoff between global and local csr priorities and practices

the fairwear campaign an ethical network in the australian garment industry in many parts of the world homework is a form of labour characterised by precariousness lack of regulation and invisibility and lack of protection of the workers who are often amongst the world s poorest and most exploited homework is spreading due to firm practices such as outsourcing the analysis and understanding of complex corporate networks may assist with the identification and protection of those most at risk within the supply chain network it can also expose some of the key ethical issues and dilemmas of supply chain management and corporate social responsibility csr based on a case study of the australian fairwear campaign fwc this article identifies an ethical network that aims to increase corporate accountability ca via greater transparency in corporate supply chains and improve work conditions for homeworkers and increase their recognition in the supply chain

when in rome how non domestic companies listed in the uk may not comply with accepted norms and principles of good corporate governance does home market culture explain these corporate behaviours and attitudes to compliance non domestic companies are increasingly present on the london stock exchange such companies have specific governance requirements they may seek to access capital in a more liquid market and to diversify ownership the reputational bonding coffee northwest univ law rev 93 641 708 1999 columbia law rev 102 1757 1831 2002 to a prestigious exchange should be a statement to the market of a propensity to disclosure and a willingness to protect minority shareholders yet many non domestic companies retain tightly controlled shareholding structures and are based in emerging regions where national culture norms differ to the uk we hypothesise that non domestic companies are likely to be less compliant with the principles of the uk corporate governance code and suggest a correlation between lower levels of compliance and non domestic companies from countries that demonstrate high power distance in the hofstede culture s consequences international differences in work related values 1980a cultural value framework we find some encouraging signs of compliance with the reigning governance code principles in board structures however we find only partial compliance in leadership and board effectiveness measures in those companies from cultures high on the power distance scale further we include analysis into ownership characteristics and find companies from emerging markets are dominated by a single or controlling group of shareholders which is likely to impact on attitudes to compliance and is particularly evidenced in terms of board structures with no executive directors or led by an executive chairman much of the prior research effort into the levels of compliance with the uk s comply or explain approach to governance has produced mixed results and focused on all companies in our exploratory approach to analysing only the non domestic subsample we report some evidence linking cultural distance to lower levels of compliance with the uk standards we develop a framework to guide future research into the context and cultural underpinnings of this sub sample of companies hypothesising that frequent market capitalisation induced index changes may divert attention away from any potential compliance issues on the one hand our evidence is encouraging for governance regimes based on voluntary compliance disclosures such as the uk and similar european and international markets as we report partial compliance with the principles of the current governance code our research may however be helpful in guiding future versions of the uk governance framework and other international governance regimes adopting the comply or explain approach and in setting policy to improve disclosure it contributes to the understanding of the specific context of non domestic companies and any cultural tendencies to non compliance by demonstrating evidence of lower levels of compliance with key principles of the code by non domestic companies we present a framework enabling lawmakers to further improve corporate governance codes

racing to the bottom and racing to the top the crucial role of firm characteristics in foreign direct investment choices this study builds on the pollution haven and induced innovation arguments as explanations for firm behavior with regard to international environmental management and argues both need to be integrated this implies that foreign direct investment is capable of facilitating a race to the bottom and a race to the top simultaneously using novel and detailed data we test whether environmental capabilities and weaknesses and other characteristics affect us firms foreign direct investment choices in chinese provinces with more or less stringent environmental regulation this enables a more detailed analysis by allowing country regulation to vary spatially and over time our study finds that heterogeneity in capabilities and firm size jointly determine foreign direct investment and in doing so shows the simultaneity of a race to the bottom and to the top specifically firms with environmental capabilities invest in more stringently regulated regions and firms with weaknesses are less likely to target such regions these diverging effects are both moderated by firm size which further amplifies each of them our findings underscore the need to integrate pollution haven and induced innovation arguments in a joint analysis they furthermore show the relevance of methodological choices when testing hypotheses integrating the above arguments empirically

the ethical challenges of the un s clean development mechanism this paper examines the ethical implications of the clean development mechanism cdm the united nation s climate change initiative that provides incentives to countries and firms in developed countries to motivate investments in greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing countries using the tenets of agency theory we present a solid waste management project in el salvador as an illustrative example of how the cdm can produce a disproportionately high social cost for the most marginalized populations in the developing world we suggest that the un needs to reformulate the cdm so that it more effectively aligns the divergent goals of multiple actors and upholds the un s principles for sustainable development including ethical firm level behavior by providing incentives for environmental economic and social value creation the cdm would not only promote ethical norms for profit seeking firms that participate in the program but also reinforce the un s twin pro poor and environmental objectives

location and the multinational enterprise john dunning s thoughts on receiving the journal of international business studies 2008 decade award a retrospective by john h dunning on location and the mne written in the form of responses to questions posed by rajneesh narula in an interview recorded at the university of reading which was shown at the jibs decade award session at the aib annual meetings in milan june 2008

competition and corporate governance in transition this paper examines the elements of institutional development critical to the enhancement of company performance in transition economies this includes initial conditions forms of privatization institutional frameworks and the competitiveness of markets comparing empirical evidence the paper concludes that there is a clear distinction in effectiveness of policies followed and their impact between central europe and cis countries this divergence is attributed to fundamentally different political attitudes toward reform the need of cis governments to gain political support for reform and as a consequence of the desire of central european countries to join european union

entry mode organizational learning and r d in foreign affiliates evidence from japanese firms this paper develops hypotheses concerning the role of entry mode and experience based organizational learning as determinants of the r d intensity of foreign affiliates and tests these hypotheses on a sample of 420 japanese manufacturing affiliates abroad entry mode has a major impact on r d activities the r d intensities of acquired affiliates substantially exceed those in wholly owned greenfield affiliates while the r d intensities of minority owned ventures are higher if japanese parent firms lack strong r d capabilities at home for greenfield operations support is found for an incremental growth pattern of foreign r d as a function of organizational learning and affiliate capability building the results are consistent with the view that part of the explanation for japanese firms relative lack of involvement in overseas r d must be sought in their status as latecomers in the establishment of overseas manufacturing networks at the same time a number of japanese firms have actively used foreign acquisitions and joint ventures to gain access to overseas technology and to establish overseas r d capabilities at a faster pace copyright 2002 john wiley sons ltd

corporate social responsibility and worker rights institutionalizing social dialogue through international framework agreements international framework agreements ifas represent a new generation of transnational agreements between multinational companies and global trade union federations this paper analyzes the impact of such an agreement on a successful union organizing campaign in colombia in 2012 we argue that management strategies towards corporate social responsibility and social dialogue influence the impact of ifas on worker rights however this relationship is mediated by the capacity of managers and worker representatives at multiple levels to mobilize their capabilities the results highlight the importance of institutionalized dialogue between managers and worker representatives of the dissemination of capabilities across multilevel coordination structures and most importantly of their complementarities at various levels

being good while being bad social responsibility and the international diversification of us firms this paper contributes to the discussion on international diversification and corporate social responsibility csr by suggesting that firms can be simultaneously socially responsible and socially irresponsible to test our assertions we analyze data from 222 publicly traded us firms from 1993 to 2003 the findings support our hypotheses and have significant implications for the way in which we conceptualize csr

corporate social responsibility in transnational spaces exploring influences of varieties of capitalism on expressions of corporate codes of conduct in nigeria drawing from the varieties of capitalism theoretical framework the study explores the home country influences of multinational corporations mncs on their corporate social responsibility csr practices when they operate outside their national regional institutional contexts the study focusses on a particular csr practice i e corporate expressions of code of conducts of seven mncs from three varieties of capitalism coordinated 2 mixed 2 and liberal 3 market economies operating in the oil and gas sector of the nigerian economy the study concludes that the corporate codes of conduct of these mncs operating in nigeria to a large extent reflect the characteristics of their home countries model of capitalism respectively albeit with certain degree of modifications the home countries model of capitalism is also found to have implications for the degree of adaptability of these mncs csr practices to the nigerian institutional context with the mixed market economy model of capitalism adapting more flexibly than the liberal and coordinated market economies respectively the findings of this study will contribute to the emerging literature on the institutional embeddedness of csr practices in transnational social spaces understanding of varieties of capitalism and csr in developing economies

seeking legitimacy through csr institutional pressures and corporate responses of multinationals in sri lanka arguably the corporate social responsibility csr practices of multinational enterprises mnes are influenced by a wide range of both internal and external factors perhaps most critical among the exogenous forces operating on mnes are those exerted by state and other key institutional actors in host countries crucially academic research conducted to date offers little data about how mnes use their csr activities to strategically manage their relationship with those actors in order to gain legitimisation advantages in host countries this paper addresses that gap by exploring interactions between external institutional pressures and firm level csr activities which take the form of community initiatives to examine how mnes develop their legitimacy seeking policies and practices in focusing on a developing country sri lanka this paper provides valuable insights into how mnes instrumentally utilise community initiatives in a country where relationship building with governmental and other powerful non governmental actors can be vitally important for the long term viability of the business drawing on neo institutional theory and csr literature this paper examines and contributes to the embryonic but emerging debate about the instrumental and political implications of csr the evidence presented and discussed here reveals the extent to which and the reasons why mnes engage in complex legitimacy seeking relationships with sri lankan host institutions

confronting the environmental kuznets curve t he environmental kuznets curve posits an inverted u relationship between pollution and economic development kuznets s name was apparently attached to the curve by grossman and krueger 1993 who noted its resemblance to kuznets s inverted u relationship between income inequality and development in the first stage of industrialization pollution in the environmental kuznets curve world grows rapidly because people are more interested in jobs and income than clean air and water communities are too poor to pay for abatement and environmental regulation is correspondingly weak the balance shifts as income rises leading industrial sectors become cleaner people value the environment more highly and regulatory institutions become more effective along the curve pollution levels off in the middle income range and then falls toward pre industrial levels in wealthy societies the environmental kuznets curve model has elicited conflicting reactions from researchers and policymakers applied econometricians have generally accepted the basic tenets of the model and focused on measuring its parameters their regressions typically fitted to cross sectional observations across countries or regions suggest that air and water pollution increase with development until per capita income reaches a range of 5000 to 8000 when income rises beyond that level pollution starts to decline as shown in the conventional ekc line in figure 1 in developing countries some policymakers have interpreted such results as conveying a message about priorities grow first then clean up numerous critics have challenged the conventional environmental kuznets curve both as a representation of what actually happens in the development process and as a policy prescription some pessimistic critics argue that crosssectional evidence for the environmental kuznets curve is nothing more than a

multinationality and corporate ethics codes of conduct in the sporting goods industry the international operations of firms have substantial impact on the formulation and implementation of business ethical principles such as codes of conduct the international sporting goods industry has been a pioneer in setting up codes and thus provides much relevant experience different sourcing strategies degrees of multinationality and national backgrounds affect the contents of codes moreover international non governmental organizations prove equally effective in triggering sophisticated codes

mnc strategy and social adaptation in emerging markets emerging markets experience institutional and social changes over time that present different stakeholder expectations for multinational corporations mncs mncs are often accused of social misdeeds and experience public crises during the changes leaving questions on how they adapt to the local social transition to sustain operations conventional adaptation strategies put too much emphasis on maximizing economic returns by arbitraging national differences and catering to local market and consumer characteristics the economic orientation may fail to address evolving and diverse stakeholder expectations easily leading to public crises this study conceptualizes economic adaptation and social adaptation as two sets of knowledge and capabilities that would have equally important impacts on mncs sustainable operations in emerging markets the empirical testing examines consumer rights related public crises experienced by 180 mncs in china the results suggest that mncs social adaptation activities have significantly positive effects in mitigating public crises while certain aspects of economic adaption such as early entry into china reliance on local leadership and speedy expansion of local employees lead to public crises the significant interaction effects confirm that mncs need to follow a balanced approach paying attention to both economic and social components to avoid public crises and sustain growth in emerging markets

corporate social responsibility theories mapping the territory the corporate social responsibility csr field presents not only a landscape of theories but also a proliferation of approaches which are controversial complex and unclear this article tries to clarify the sit uation mapping the territory by classifying the main csr theories and related approaches in four groups 1 instrumental theories in which the corporation is seen as only an instrument for wealth creation and its social activities are only a means to achieve economic results 2 political theories which concern themselves with the power of corporations in society and a responsible use of this power in the political arena 3 integrative theories in which the corporation is focused on the satisfaction of social demands and 4 ethical theories based on ethical responsibilities of corporations to society in practice each csr theory presents four dimensions related to profits political performance social demands and ethical values the findings suggest the necessity to develop a new theory on the business and society relationship which should integrate these four dimensions

shareholder value stakeholder management and social issues what s the bottom line we test the relationship between shareholder value stakeholder management and social issue participation building better relations with primary stakeholders like employees customers suppliers and communities could lead to increased shareholder wealth by helping firms develop intangible valuable assets which can be sources of competitive advantage on the other hand using corporate resources for social issues not related to primary stakeholders may not create value for shareholders we test these propositions with data from s p 500 firms and find evidence that stakeholder management leads to improved shareholder value while social issue participation is negatively associated with shareholder value copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

multinationals and corporate social responsibility in host countries does distance matter prior studies have found that foreign affiliates of multinational enterprises mnes suffer from liability of foreignness lof foreign affiliates may be able to improve their social legitimacy and overcome lof by demonstrating social commitment to host country constituents through corporate social responsibility csr if lof is positively related to the distance between the home and host countries and csr activities confer social legitimacy benefits on foreign affiliates we should expect csr activities and distance to be positively related however we argue that despite this potential motivation foreign affiliates from more distant home countries are in fact less likely to engage in host country csr our argument focuses on the ways in which distance affects the mne s willingness and ability to engage in csr abroad we also predict that host country csr reputation negatively moderates this relationship using community reinvestment act data for foreign bank affiliates from 32 countries in the united states over 1990 2007 we find strong support for our hypotheses the paper enriches our understanding of csr practices in mnes and of when and how mnes try to overcome legitimacy issues in host countries

an empirical analysis and extension of the bartlett and ghoshal typology of multinational companies this study offers an empirical test and extension of the bartlett and ghoshal typology of multinational companies mncs a three fold typology of multinational companies global multidomestic and transnational is developed from the literature this typology is tested using data from 166 subsidiaries of 37 mncs headquartered in 9 different countries subsidiaries in the three types of mncs are shown to differ significantly in aspects of interdependence and local responsiveness

why and how might firms respond strategically to violent conflict the aim of this study is to investigate factors specifically stakeholder pressures that may affect the likelihood that firms will respond to violent conflict survey and archival data on respondents from 471 multinational and local firms operating in 80 countries were used to explore these issues key findings include 1 local stakeholder pressure is associated with the likelihood that firms will respond directly to violent conflict collaborating with other organizations or working alone when doing so and 2 international stakeholder pressure is associated with the likelihood that firms will respond indirectly to violent conflict collaborating with other organizations or working alone

lifetime earnings and the vietnam era draft lottery evidence from social security administrative records errata the randomly assigned risk of induction generated by the draft lottery is used to construct estimates of the effect of veteran status on civilian earnings these estimates are not biased by the fact that certain types of men are more likely than others to service in the military social security administrative records indicate that in the early 1980s long after their service in vietnam had ended the earnings of white veterans were approximately 15 percent less than the earnings of comparable nonveterans copyright 1990 by american economic association

benchmarking tendencies in managerial mindsets prioritizing stockholders and stakeholders in peru south africa and the united states managers in peru south africa and the united states were classified into four groups along singhapakdi et al j bus ethics 15 1131 1140 1996 perceived role of ethics and social responsibility presor scale in peru and the united states individuals in the ethics and social responsibility first category reported greater satisfaction with organizational performance than did those in the profits first category moral capitalists individuals who report high emphases on both social responsibility and profits reported the highest satisfaction with performance in the united states managers in the united states are more likely than their counterparts in peru and south africa to reject the mutual exclusivity of prioritizing social responsibility and profits simultaneously directions for future research are outlined

economic status and health in childhood the origins of the gradient the well known positive association between health and income in adulthood has antecedents in childhood not only is children s health positively related to household income but the relationship between household income and children s health becomes more pronounced as children age part of the relationship can be explained by the arrival and impact of chronic conditions children from lower income households with chronic conditions have worse health than do those from higher income households the adverse health effects of lower income accumulate over children s lives part of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status may work through the impact of parents income on children s health

the future of the multinational enterprise in retrospect and in prospect we are sometimes asked how the future of the multinational enterprise came to be written and whether we think that a similar book could be written today it is always difficult to be objective about your own work but we doubt that a similar book could appear today this is not because there is a dearth of talent or because all the important issues have been resolved it is simply that the academic environment in which research in international businesses is carried out has fundamentally changed political salience the future was written at a time of great debates in international political economy multinationals stood accused of global hegemony there were strident calls for the american challenge to european industry to be repelled servan schreiber 1968 foreign investment in third world countries was leading to uneven development technology was overpriced a conspiracy of oligopolistic firms was holding consumers and workers to ransom what nonsense you might say but the united nations took it seriously enough and set up a committee of eminent persons to consider a possible code of conduct for multinationals a process that led to the formation of the un centre on transnational corporations in this heady atmosphere separating fact from fiction was crucial a lot of good statistical work was being done indeed it is probable that more was known about patterns of foreign direct investment than about any other aspect of industrial economics at the time us bureau of commerce the harvard project led by raymond vernon but how could the statistics be interpreted general equilibrium theory did not seem to be up to the task a new framework was needed that would allow the statistics to reveal the underlying dynamics of multinational behaviour with the right theory it would be possible to use the statistics to pass judgement on competing views positivism political salience prompted many scholars to write about multinationals the future was distinguished by its strongly positivist stance the book began by summarizing the stylized facts revealed by the published statistics the well known distinction between direct and indirect investment was carefully examined journal of international business studies 2003 34 219 222 2003 palgrave macmillan ltd all rights reserved 0047 2506 25 00

corporate social responsibility and multinational corporation identity norwegian strategies in the chilean aquaculture industry this study brings an organizational identity perspective to the debate regarding corporate social responsibility csr and multinational corporations mncs the basic proposition is that organizational identities warrant closer attention since they influence csr strategies it is further argued that a more explicit distinction between principles and practices or between being and doing is needed when debating whether multiple organizational identities are required for mncs operating in locations characterized by different stakeholder demands in terms of identity construction two translation processes are suggested to be pertinent from hypernorms to organizational principles and the translation of organizational principles to practices the first translation is relevant since hypernorms alone do not create the distinctiveness needed for an organizational identity to develop and the second translation helps in explaining the ability to endorse local contracts

do codes of conduct improve worker rights in supply chains a study of fair wear foundation the rise of private regulation of sustainability in global production networks has led to intensive debates about the impact of this regulation at the point of production yet few empirical studies have systematically examined this impact in practice based on multiple factory audits of 43 garment factories conducted by the multi stakeholder initiative fair wear foundation we show that codes of conduct improve although marginally worker rights on an overall level but that few significant results are found for specific worker rights our findings also lend support to the widespread argument that codes have uneven impact furthermore we show that even rigorous multi stakeholder factory audits seldom are able to identify process rights violations such as those affecting freedom of association and discrimination and that auditing is thus is more fundamentally flawed than assumed in previous research given companies extensive investments in private regulation of worker rights the findings have important implications for both scholars and managers

which hedonic models can we trust to recover the marginal willingness to pay for environmental amenities abstract the hedonic property value model is among our foremost tools for evaluating the economic consequences of policies that target the supply of local public goods environmental services and urban amenities we design a theoretically consistent and empirically realistic monte carlo study of whether omitted variables seriously undermine the method s ability to accurately identify economic values our results suggest that large gains in accuracy can be realized by moving from the standard linear specifications for the price function to a more flexible framework that uses a combination of spatial fixed effects quasi experimental identification and temporal controls for housing market adjustment

what do unions and employers negotiate under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility comparative evidence from the italian metal and chemical industries the corporate social responsibility csr and industrial relations ir studies have evolved mostly in parallel in this paper we integrate the ir with the csr perspective highlighting their similarities and differences in particular the study adopts a framework which includes a wide set of csr related issues to explore what unions and companies negotiate under the umbrella of csr it analyses and compares the national sectoral agreements of two key industries in the italian economy i e metal and chemical we find that these two sectors exhibit differences because the csr related issues covered by the two contracts are formally labelled as csr in the chemical contract and not labelled as csr in the metal contract we also find similarities regarding the csr related issues covered and not covered by the national contracts and the binding processes centrally negotiated for their implementation we interpret the similarities in light of the specificities of the italian ir system and the differences in light of the negotiation traditions of the two sectors under study which induce the actors in the metal sector traditionally with more conflictual ir relations to focus more on what differentiates the csr and ir perspectives and the actors in the chemical sector traditionally with more cooperative ir relations to focus more on what the csr and ir perspectives share

government intervention peers giving and corporate philanthropy evidence from chinese private smes institutional and resource dependence theories point at the roles of government and peers behavior as determinants of firms social behavior this is tested in this research with important implications for both theory and practice using data from a national survey of chinese private small and medium sized enterprises smes in 2008 this paper examines the role of government intervention in corporate philanthropy cp as well as the moderation effect of peers giving both industry and community peers giving results show that government intervention when using a marketization index as a measure increases cp both giving probability and amount in addition the community peers giving enhances the positive effect of government intervention on smes giving but the moderation effect of industry peers giving is generally not supported except when cp is measured as giving to sales in general community peers appear to be a clear reference for smes and in relation to government intervention exert a dominant isomorphic influence the findings provide strong support to the neo institutional theory perspective on philanthropy important theoretical and practical implications are suggested

environmental justice in the oil refinery industry a panel analysis across united states counties abstract environmental injustice due to economic inequality and its correlates and consequences has been a focus for researchers and policy makers alike over many years with much of that research focusing on race as the major determinant of inequality in this paper we extend this literature by focussing on emissions from the oil refinery industry at the community level in particular based on the use of panel data we analyse econometrically how the environmental performance of individual petroleum refineries emissions of benzene and toluene to the atmosphere associates with determinants of economic inequality at the micro level in terms of average per capita income at the level of united states counties as well as average county level unemployment rates the paper finds evidence of environmental injustice as a result of unemployment levels in areas around refineries and to a slightly lesser extent as a result of income inequality it discusses these results in a wider context referring amongst other things to the role of county level community characteristics and the potential for private firms to substitute for the intervention of public institutions if these are lacking

the role of path dependency and managerial intentionality a perspective on international business research several decades of research in the field of international business have advanced various theories and studies on the internationalization of firms our assessment of the literature on internationalization shows that the focus has been primarily on path dependency and learning based aspects of internationalization while managerial intentionality and the possibility of managers making deliberate strategic choices towards further internationalization have not been very prominent in the ib literature we argue that internationalization paths and processes should be approached as a joint outcome of management intentionality and experience based learning in other words managers are assumed to have the ability and the intention to influence the evolutionary paths of the firm we derive a future research agenda that calls for the pursuit of this promising and emergent research stream moreover we develop a model integrating managerial intentionality knowledge experience and other factors institutional and selection forces to explain heterogeneous outcomes of internationalization positions paths and processes

do private standards benefit workers in horticultural export chains in peru private standards are spreading rapidly in international food production and trade and are moving beyond food quality and safety aspect to address environmental and social concerns we examine how effective private standards are in improving employment conditions in global food supply chains using panel data from own company and worker surveys and different econometric techniques we analyze how the adoption of a variety of private standards that differ with respect to their focus on labor influences employment conditions in production processing and exporting companies in the horticultural export chain in peru we find that workers employed in companies adopting private labor standards are more likely to be paid a minimum wage to have a contract and to receive training but there is no effect of private standards on the level of the wage and on the employment period we conclude that labor standards are most effective in reinforcing the respect of national labor laws and when there exists a clear cut definition on the employment requirements they push forward despite the existence of labor regulations at the national level and the wide spread use of private labor standards ethical labor concerns do remain an issue in the peruvian horticultural export sector

responsibility boundaries in global value chains supplier audit prioritizations and moral disengagement among swedish firms to address substandard working conditions in global value chains companies have adopted private regulatory systems governing worker rights scholars agree that without onsite factory audits this private regulation has limited impact at the point of production companies however audit only a subset of their suppliers severely restricting their private regulatory attempts despite the significance of the placement of suppliers inside or outside firms responsibility boundaries and despite scholars having called for more research into how firms prioritize what suppliers to audit few if any systematic studies have examined the topic this is problematic as the placement of firms responsibility boundaries determines what suppliers and workers are included in firms private regulatory attempts based on a study of 12 swedish firms and the theory of moral disengagement this paper starts to fill this research gap by exploring how firms responsibility boundaries are placed the paper illustrates how firms responsibility boundary placement is best described as a patchwork with firms defining and delimiting their responsibilities differently the paper also demonstrates that three supplier types i e the worst morally justified and immediate suppliers are particularly likely to be placed inside firms responsibility boundaries while a fourth type i e disregarded suppliers is likely be placed outside

revisiting supplier compliance with mnc codes of conduct recoupling policy and practice at chinese toy suppliers does private regulation of workers rights in global value chains improve working conditions on the factory floor drawing on one of the first systematic longitudinal studies of supplier compliance with multinational corporation mnc codes of conduct this paper finds in contrast to previous research substantial improvements over time while in 2004 the four examined chinese toy suppliers violated most of the evaluated code of conduct criteria and consciously decoupled the code of conduct policy from actual practices by 2009 they had recoupled policy and practice and complied with nearly all examined criteria except working hours the paper contributes to the private regulation literature by challenging previous research claims identifying factors that could make private regulation effective and outlining a research method for empirically studying the effects of codes of conduct over time the paper also contributes to new institutional theory by discussing how recoupling could be influenced by two factors not identified in previous research i trusting relationships between the organization and the stakeholder exerting pressure and ii factors unrelated to main external pressures leading to accidental recoupling

the long run labor market consequences of civil war evidence from the shining path in peru abstractthis study exploits district level variation in the timing and intensity of civil war violence to investigate whether early life exposure to civil wars affects labor market outcomes later in life in particular we examine the impacts of armed conflict in peru a country that experienced the actions of a tenacious brutally effective war machine the shining path between 1980 and 1995 this study finds that the most sensitive period to early life exposure to civil war violence is the first 36 months of life a 1 standard deviation increase in civil war exposure leads to a 5 fall in adult monthly earnings 3 5 reduction in the probability of working in formal jobs and 6 reduction in the probability of working in large firms substantial heterogeneity in the earnings impacts emerges when considering variation in the type of civil war violence overall forced disappearances emerge as the most hurtful measure of violence in the long run sexual violations disproportionately affected the wages of

a perspective on multinational enterprises and climate change learning from an inconvenient truth this paper explores whether and how an important environmental issue such as climate change can not only give multinational enterprises the opportunity to develop green firm specific advantages fsas but also help reconfigure key fsas that are viewed as the main sources of firms profitability growth and survival we examine the nature and geography of such fsa development and develop two organizing frameworks which are subsequently applied to climate change using information from global 500 firms implications and future directions for international business research are indicated

do corporate global environmental standards create or destroy market value arguments can be made on both sides of the question of whether a stringent global corporate environmental standard represents a competitive asset or liability for multinational enterprises mnes investing in emerging and developing markets analyzing the global environmental standards of a sample of u s based mnes in relation to their stock market performance we find that firms adopting a single stringent global environmental standard have much higher market values as measured by tobin sq than firms defaulting to less stringent or poorly enforced host country standards thus developing countries that use lax environmental regulations to attract foreign direct investment may end up attracting poorer quality and perhaps less competitive firms our results also suggest that externalities are incorporated to a significant extent in firm valuation we discuss plausible reasons for this observation

civil conflict and human capital accumulation the long term effects of political violence in peru this paper provides empirical evidence of the persistent effect of exposure to political violence on human capital accumulation i exploit the variation in conflict location and birth cohorts to identify the long and short term effects of the civil war on educational attainment conditional on being exposed to violence the average person accumulates 0 31 less years of education as an adult in the short term the effects are stronger than in the long run these results hold when comparing children within the same household further exposure to violence during early childhood leads to permanent losses i also explore the potential causal mechanisms

from resistance to opportunity seeking strategic responses to institutional pressures for corporate social responsibility in the nordic fashion industry using survey responses from 400 fashion companies in denmark norway sweden finland and iceland we examine the diversity of strategic responses to institutional pressures for corporate social responsibility csr within the nordic fashion industry we also develop and test a new model of strategic responses to institutional pressures that encompasses both resistance and opportunity seeking behaviour our results suggest that it is inconsistent pressures within rather than between stakeholder groups that shape strategic responses to csr pressures and that increasing pressures stimulates opportunity seeking at the expense of compliance

corporate social responsibility in the multinational enterprise strategic and institutional approaches what is the relationship of global and local country specific corporate social responsibility csr to international organizational strategy applying the strategic logic of the bartlett and ghoshal typology to the realm of csr multinational firms should respond to pressures for integration and responsiveness from salient stakeholders however an institutional logic would suggest that multinational firms will simply replicate the existing product market organizational strategy multidomestic transnational global in their management of csr these alternative approaches are tested with a survey instrument sent to mnes operating in mexico the results of this study are consistent with the proposition that institutional pressures rather than strategic analysis of social issues and stakeholders are guiding decision making with respect to csr we develop implications for mne management and research as well as public policy

suppliers compliance with mncs codes of conduct behind the scenes at chinese toy suppliers despite increased academic and practitioner interest in codes of conduct there has been little research into the actual compliance of suppliers in developing countries with the codes of conduct of multinational corporations mncs this paper addresses this lack by analysing chinese suppliers level of compliance with swedish toy retailers codes of conduct based on unannounced and unofficial interviews with employees of chinese suppliers the study shows that all of the nine studied suppliers breached some of the standards in the toy retailers codes with over two thirds of the suppliers not complying with the majority of the studied standards while there are different explanations of this lack of compliance the main explanation seems to be that chinese suppliers successfully deceive toy retailers monitoring organisations by decoupling the formal monitored part of their organisation from the actual operational part of their organisation the paper concludes with a discussion of how to increase compliance with mncs codes of conduct

the evolution of intracorporate domains divisional charter losses in high technology multidivisional corporations modern corporations have become synonymous with the multidivisional form of organization variously interdependent divisions are chartered to look after one or more business areas in effect defining the turf of the division and its purpose within the corporation and collectively defining the corporate domain however once created these divisional charters should not be regarded as rigid they are susceptible to change particularly in fast paced environments such as in high technology industries divisional charters are liable to change as divisions add or subtract businesses to their charter responsibilities these charter changes are seen as an adaptive device for large multidivisional corporations in fast paced environments this paper presents a process model of how divisions change their domains in hypercompetitive contexts focusing on the specific question of how divisions lose all or portions of their business charters the paper is based on a larger inductive study of charter changes in

knowledge transfer capacity and its implications for the theory of the multinational corporation this study updates and extends research on foreign entry modes by examining the impacts of knowledge transfer capacity and knowledge tacitness research on international corporate expansion has long emphasized that deploying intangible knowledge based assets is required for successful international expansion more recently research from a knowledge based perspective has addressed the role of tacitness in constraining a firm s ability to transfer knowledge internationally we combine these perspectives to describe how knowledge tacitness affects the relative suitability of four archetypal entry modes exporting licensing establishing an alliance and wholly owned entry we then examine and develop conceptually a seldom studied firm characteristic knowledge transfer capacity we offer predictions that describe the combined effects of knowledge tacitness and transfer capacity on entry mode choice we distinguish between the transfer capacity of the organization that develops knowledge source transfer capacity and that of the organization that seeks to access that knowledge recipient transfer capacity the discussion addresses how our model generalizes to knowledge seeking strategies and to the study of ongoing multinational networks the study enriches and reconciles multiple theoretical perspectives on entry strategy it brings together the study of knowledge characteristics and firm heterogeneity in the theory of the multinational corporation and in international and strategic management more generally journal of international business studies 2003 34 356 373 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400037

women workers industrialization global supply chains and corporate codes of conduct the restructured globalized economy has provided women with employment opportunities globalisation has also meant a shift towards self regulation of multinationals as part of the restructuring of the world economy that increases among others things flexible employment practices worsening of labour conditions and lower wages for many women workers around the world in this context as part of the global trend emphasising corporate social responsibility csr in the 1980s one important development has been the growth of voluntary corporate codes of conduct to improve labour conditions this article reviews from a feminist interdisciplinary perspective the broad academic literature on women workers covering the more classical debate on women workers in the industrialization process and entering into women workers in the global supply chains and women workers and corporate codes of conduct the main argument is that this research on women workers is crucial to frame the issues of business ethics and in particular csr and codes of conduct in the context of women in the global political economy when this crucial knowledge is ignored then the ethical policies of the companies also ignore the real situation of the women workers at the bottom of their supply chains

impacts of corporate code of conduct on labor standards a case study of reebok s athletic footwear supplier factory in china this study examines the social impacts of labor related corporate social responsibility csr policies or corporate codes of conduct on upholding labor standards through a case study of csr discourses and codes implementation of reebok a leading branded company enjoying a high profiled image for its human rights achievement in a large taiwanese invested athletic footwear factory located in south china i find although implementation of reebok labor related codes has resulted in a race to ethical and legal minimum labor standards when notoriously inhumane and seriously illegal labor rights abuses were curbed chinese workers were forced to work harder and faster but earned less payment and the employee elected trade union installed through codes implementation operated more like a company union rather than an autonomous workers organization representing worker interests in order to explain the paradoxical effects of reebok labor related codes on labor standards i argue the result is determined by both structural forces and agency related factors embedded in industrial national and local contexts to put it shortly i find the effectiveness of reebok labor related codes is constrained not only by unsolved tension between reebok s impetus for profit maximization and commitment to workers human rights but also by hard nosed competition realities at marketplace and chinese government s insufficient protection of labor rights despite drawing merely from a single case study these findings illuminate key determinants inhibiting the effectiveness of labor related csr policies or codes in upholding labor standards and hence two possible way outs of the deadlock 1 sharing cost for improving labor standards among key players in global supply chain and 2 combining regulatory power of voluntary codes and compulsory state legislations

the impact of inward fdi on the performance of chinese manufacturing firms recent years have witnessed the emergence of china as one of the most important destinations for foreign direct investment fdi which reached us 403 98 billion by the end of 1999 moftec 2000 china is now the largest recipient of fdi in the developing world however the amount of fdi will underestimate its overall consequences if spillover effects are significant murphy 1992 o malley 1994 buckwalter 1995 this study investigates the impact of fdi on the performance of chinese locally owned firms in manufacturing

economic conditions early in life and individual mortality this paper analyzes the effect of economic conditions early in life on the individual mortality rate later in life using business cycle conditions early in life as an exogenous indicator we have individual data records from dutch registers of birth marriage and death certificates covering an observation window of unprecedented size 1812 2000 these are merged with historical data on macro economic and health indicators we correct for secular changes over time and other mortality determinants we nonparametrically compare those born in a recession to those born in the preceding boom and we estimate duration models where the individual s mortality rate depends on current conditions conditions early in life age individual characteristics including individual socio economic indicators and interaction terms the results indicate a significant negative effect of economic conditions early in life on individual mortality rates at all ages

foreign investment and economic development conflict and negotiation this paper is part survey part essay the survey consists of a partial review of the literature on the subject of foreign direct investment in developing countries with particular emphasis on conflict and its resolution through negotiation after a brief discussion of the objective functions guiding the strategies of both main actors the paper turns to a review of the substantive and institutional context surrounding the negotiation process between multinational firms and host countries next follow some general principles common to most negotiations drawn from the experience obtained in other fields and a discussion of the relevant literature on international business negotiations last the essay integrates the various threads of analysis into a series of normative conclusions which while not pretending to be imperial are offered as challenges for further study

global value chains labor organization and private social standards lessons from east african cut flower industries summary this article examines the opportunities and challenges that private social standards pose for labor organizations it explores different labor responses to private social standards in east african cut flower industries the analysis incorporates the concept of labor agency in global value chain analysis and reveals how retailer driven chains offer more room for labor organizations to exercise their agency than the traditional cut flower value chains labor organizations have been able to influence social standard setting and implementation and to use standards to further labor representation at production sites however labor organizations ability to seriously challenge the prevailing governance structure of the cut flower value chain appears extremely limited

private regulation and trade union rights why codes of conduct have limited impact on trade union rights codes of conduct are the main tools to privately regulate worker rights in global value chains scholars have shown that while codes may improve outcome standards such as occupational health and safety they have had limited impact on process rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining scholars have though only provided vague or general explanations for this empirical finding we address this shortcoming by providing a holistic and detailed explanation and argue that codes in their current form have limited impact on trade union rights due to i buyers paying lip service to trade union rights ii workers being treated as passive objects of regulation in codes of conduct iii auditing being unable to detect and remediate violations of trade union rights iv codes emphasizing parallel means of organizing v suppliers having limited incentives for compliance and vi codes being unable to open up space for union organizing when leveraged in grassroots struggles our arguments suggest that there is no quick fix for codes limited impact on trade union rights and that codes in their current form have limited potential to improve trade union rights we conclude by discussing ways in which codes of conduct and private regulation of worker rights more generally could be transformed to more effectively address trade union rights

determinants of international standards in sub saharan africa the role of institutional pressure from different stakeholders abstract international environmental and quality standards in africa are seen as being driven by pressure from international markets and importers this study presents a conceptual framework where other stakeholders and plant resources are included in the argument for standards we argue that among other stakeholders international banks as creditors are important determinants international banks most of which are committed to sustainable practices facilitate the diffusion of standards they also perform sustainability related risk analysis urging customers to demonstrate corporate social responsibility our results also suggest that foreign ownership plant size and business communications through company website are important for the adoption of standards in africa

country level institutions firm value and the role of corporate social responsibility initiatives drawing on transaction cost theories and the resource based view of a firm we posit that the value of corporate social responsibility csr initiatives is greater in countries where an absence of market supporting institutions increases transaction costs and limits access to resources using a large sample of 11 672 firm year observations representing 2445 unique firms from 53 countries during 2003 2010 and controlling for firm level unobservable heterogeneity we find supportive evidence that csr is more positively related to firm value in countries with weaker market institutions we also provide evidence on the channels through which csr initiatives reduce transaction costs we find that csr is associated with improved access to financing in countries with weaker equity and credit markets greater investment and lower default risk in countries with more limited business freedom and longer trade credit period and higher future sales growth in countries with weaker legal institutions our findings provide new insights on non market mechanisms such as csr through which firms can compensate for institutional voids

determinants of pollution abatement in developing countries evidence from south and southeast asia abstract developing countries pa ticularly those in asia are fast adopting industrial pollution control standards similar to those in developed countries formal regulation has been greatly hampered however by the absence of clear and legally binding regulations limited institutional capacity lack of appropriate equipment and trained personnel and inadequate information on emissions one would predict highly pollution intensive production under such conditions our research however has uncovered strongly contradictory evidence despite weak or nonexistent formal regulation there are many clean plants in the developing countries of south and southeast asia of course there are also many plants which are among the world s most serious polluters what explains such extreme interplant variation this paper reviews evidence drawn from three empirical studies of plant level abatement practices conducted 1992 1994 the analyses test the importance of plant characteristics economic considerations and external pressure in determining environmental performance the results consistently show that pollution intensity is negatively associated with scale productive efficiency and the use of new process technology it is strongly and positively associated with public ownership but foreign ownership has no significant effect once other plant characteristics are taken into account among external sources of pressure community action or informal regulation emerges as a clear source of interplant differences in all three studies the results suggest that local income and education are powerful predictors of the effectiveness of informal regulation they also show that existing formal regulation has measurably beneficial effects even when it is quite weakly developed

corporate social responsibility in challenging and non enabling institutional contexts do institutional voids matter the extant literature on comparative corporate social responsibility csr often assumes functioning and enabling institutional arrangements such as strong government market and civil society as a necessary condition for responsible business practices setting aside this dominant assumption and drawing insights from a case study of fidelity bank nigeria we explore why and how firms still pursue and enact responsible business practices in what could be described as challenging and non enabling institutional contexts for csr our findings suggest that responsible business practices in such contexts are often anchored on some csr adaptive mechanisms these mechanisms uniquely complement themselves and inform csr strategies the csr adaptive mechanisms and strategies in combination and in complementarity then act as an institutional buffer i e institutional immunity which enables firms to successfully engage in responsible practices irrespective of their weak institutional settings we leverage this understanding to contribute to csr in developing economies often characterised by challenging and non enabling institutional contexts the research policy and practice implications are also discussed

foreign subsidiary csr as a buffer against parent firm reputation risk this study examines the influence of parent firm reputation risk on the level of corporate social responsibility activities of foreign subsidiaries we first argue that a strong reputation risk spillover occurs from parent firms to their foreign subsidiaries due to the high visibility of multinationals the control of parent firms over their subsidiaries and the liability of foreignness associated with foreign firms in host countries then we argue that subsidiaries may resort to csr in their host country to reduce the spillover effect thus we hypothesize a positive relationship between parent firm reputation risk and foreign subsidiary csr activities moreover we explore several contingency factors at both the parent firm and subsidiary levels that affect the extent of spillover and the need for subsidiaries to use csr as a buffer against parent firm reputation risk we find that the positive relationship between parent firm reputation risk and foreign subsidiary csr activities is weaker for foreign subsidiaries that directly report to the parent firm with longer operations in the host country and larger institutional distance between host and home countries using a unique sample of subsidiaries of large multinationals in china from 2009 to 2016 we find general support for our arguments

semiglobalization and international business strategy if markets were either completely isolated by or integrated across borders there would be little room for international business strategy to have content distinctive from mainstream strategy but a review of the economic evidence about the international integration of markets indicates that we fall in between these extremes into a state of incomplete cross border integration that i refer to as semiglobalization more specifically most measures of market integration have scaled new heights in the last few decades but still fall far short of economic theory s ideal of perfect integration the diagnosis of semiglobalization does more than just supply a relatively stable frame of reference for thinking about the environment of cross border operations it also calls attention to the critical role of location specificity in the prospects of distinctive content for international business strategy relative to mainstream business and corporate strategy in addition it flags factors products subject to location specificity as being salient from the perspective of international business finally it highlights the scope for strategies that strive to capitalize on the large residual barriers to cross border integration as well as those that simply try to cope with them

perspectives on multinational enterprises in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes play a pivotal role in the development of many emerging economies in consequence they became the focus of scholarly research by economists and policy analysts in contrast international business scholars have been comparatively uninterested in analysing this role of mnes yet they could make important contributions to these debates first studies taking the individual firms as starting point would enhance understanding of the interaction between mnes and the local environment second theories and research methodologies developed in international business research could provide new insights into the dynamics of mnes in emerging economies the objective of this paper is to motivate more international business scholars to engage in research on positive and negative spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economy societies to advance this research agenda scholars need to analyse the specific activities and capabilities of the firms involved and the impact of fdi on the broader social and environmental context for management this agenda raises the ethical question to what extent ought businesses to care about their local stakeholders

quantifying the microeconomic effects of war using panel data evidence from nepal summary the extensive coverage of household surveys in conflict regions in recent decades has fueled a growing literature on the microeconomic effects of war in this paper we use a unique panel dataset to quantify the impact of the nepalese civil conflict on schooling attainment given longitudinal data we are able to directly estimate unobserved individual heterogeneity and thus address selective wartime displacement despite the widely held view that war is detrimental to human capital formation we find no effect of war intensity on schooling attainment once unobserved individual heterogeneity is accounted for we draw on supplementary data to explain our findings

corporate social responsibility product differentiation strategy and export performance this article argues that corporate social responsibility csr may contribute to product differentiation in export markets and thus improve export performance we test this argument by observing a period of decreasing export competitiveness in a leading emerging economy brazil using a large scale survey design with 252 questionnaires completed by medium and large sized brazilian exporters we used structural equations modelling to test our hypotheses the results suggest that csr product differentiation predicts export performance better than product quality differentiation and almost as well as product innovation differentiation multi group analysis further revealed that the positive and significant effect of csr product differentiation on export performance is likely to be contingent on the number and type developing vs developed of countries that are targeted our study contributes to the literature on csr and export performance by developing and empirically validating a model that explains under which conditions csr based product differentiation may lead to improved export performance

health nutrition and economic development the relationship between health and economic development is explored focusing on nutrition based health indicators the spotlight is placed on the inter related feedbacks between the influence of health on productivity on one hand and the influence of income on health status on the other disentangling causality in these relationships has preoccupied much of the literature we evaluate different empirical strategies that have been adopted and assess the results there is now a body of evidence based on careful empirical studies that demonstrates a causal relationship between health and labor productivity there is also evidence that at least among the very poor additional income is spent on improved nutrition there are two issues that have received little attention although we argue they are likely to be very important first measurement of health is discussed in detail evidence is presented on how taking into account differences in the extent of measurement error is critical for interpreting the impact of health on wages the same theme emerges in studies of the effect of income on health specifically calorie intake the key role of non linearities in these relationships is highlighted and we demonstrate that a good deal of the variation in estimates of income elasticities of demand for calories can be ascribed to the role of measurement and functional form authors

international joint venture partner selection the role of the host country legal environment this study attempts to enhance our understanding of how a host country s legal environment influences international joint venture ijv partner selection criteria empirical results based on survey data collected on 169 ijvs revealed that host country rule of law perceptions negatively influence appropriation and coordination cost concerns which positively influence partner related criteria furthermore these concerns mediate the relationship between perceptions of host country rule of law and partner related criteria

corporate social responsibility and crony capitalism in taiwan corporate social responsibility csr has become increasingly popular in advanced economies in the west in contrast csr awareness in asia is rather low both on the corporate and state level however recent events have shown that the csr is receiving more attention by corporations in asia recent development in csr in taiwan is one example of such a trend a 2005 survey on the 700 publicly listed companies in taiwan on csr has highlighted the current csr situation concurrently the numbers of corporate scandals and corruption have dramatically increased over the past 6 years corporate csr activities co existing with pervasive corporate scandals create a phenomenon of contradictions this article aims to report via the survey findings the current development of business ethics in corporate taiwan and to interpret the findings in context of taiwan s business ethos especially its confucian familism and crony capitalism

foods and fads the welfare impacts of rising quinoa prices in peru abstract riding on a wave of interest in superfoods in rich countries quinoa went in less than a decade from being largely unknown outside of south america to being an upper class staple in the united states the united kingdom and elsewhere as a result concerned commentators suggested that the rising international demand for quinoa which tripled prices might have substantially harmed peruvian quinoa consumers we study the impacts of rising quinoa prices on the welfare of peruvian households our analysis suggests these fears are unwarranted a descriptive analysis shows that quinoa is a small part

the obsolescing bargaining model mnc host developing country relations revisited the traditional bargaining model of mnc host developing country relations has become obsolete today those relations are better understood as the result of a two tier multi party bargaining process tier 1 bargaining between the governments of host and home countries occurs bilaterally or through multilateral institutions it produces macro rules on fdi that affect micro negotiations in tier 2 per the traditional bargaining model the extent of fdi liberalization resulting from tier 1 bargaining varies predictably across home host country pairs and industries suggestions for testing the two tier bargaining model are also presented

predicting stakeholder orientation in the multinational enterprise a mid range theory as the reach of corporations increasingly extends across borders a key research question is whether overseas subsidiaries adopt a shareholder centric orientation centered on maximizing shareholder wealth or a stakeholder centric orientation centered on creating value for a broader range of stakeholders existing theories addressing the corporate level of analysis focus on forces exogenous to the firm local resource pressures and institutional norms using a combination of induction and fuzzy set analysis i draw on documentary evidence and 298 interviews with managers and stakeholders to build theory about the conditions that shape subsidiaries stakeholder orientations two major findings emerge first although theory emphasizes external stakeholders control over resources internal control through the corporate parent can crowd out the voices of local stakeholders second although institutional theory proposes isomorphism with local norms and standards some corporations are subject to scrutiny by global stakeholders and their subsidiaries face higher requirements for social engagement than their peers these findings are the foundation of a mid range theory that combines conventional explanations focused on environmental factors and an internal stakeholder perspective based around the roles of the parent corporation as owner and resource provider to predict stakeholder orientation

knowledge acquisition from foreign parents in international joint ventures an empirical examination in the hungarian context in this paper we examine organizational characteristics structural mechanisms and contextual factors that influence knowledge acquisition from the foreign parent in international joint ventures ijvs we in turn relate assessments of knowledge acquisition to ijv performance the data come from a survey of ijvs in the hungarian context where learning and knowledge acquisition from the foreign parent is thought to be particularly critical adaptation mechanisms such as capacity to learn articulated goals and structural mechanisms such as the provision of training technology and managerial assistance by foreign parents all were positively associated with the degree to which ijvs reported acquiring knowledge from their foreign parents we also found limited support for the belief that cultural conflicts can impede knowledge acquisition but only for two party joint ventures with 50 50 equity arrangements we also looked at the relationship between knowledge acquisition and different dimensions for evaluating ijv performance the relationship between knowledge acquisition and performance was significant for all indicators of performance through knowledge acquisition from the foreign parent and the organizational characteristics hypothesized to enhance ijv knowledge acquisition affected assessments of some dimensions of performance more than others our findings contribute to advancing knowledge about the relationship between organizational characteristics and organizational knowledge acquisition in ijvs as well as the relationships between knowledge acquisition and different dimensions of ijv performance

developed country mnes investing in developing economies progress and prospect this study reviews research from 1970 through 2016 on developed country multinational enterprises dmnes entering and competing in developing economies to identify the current state of knowledge of this research and push it further we review the literature using bibliometric and qualitative content analyses covering leading journals and books we articulate frontier issues that are understudied yet critical to both theorization and practice of dmnes in developing economies we discuss the findings and conclusions from prior research along five key areas 1 entering developing economies 2 organizing local activities 3 managing alliances and joint ventures 4 competing in dynamic environments and 5 dealing with institutions governments and society we offer prospective insights into future agenda that have important implications for mne strategies and decisions and propose frontier directions that encompass strategic localization reverse transfer and adaptation co evolution with local business ecosystems reorganizing and restructuring and strategic responses to institutional and market complexity

implementing supplier codes of conduct in global supply chains process explanations from theoretic and empirical perspectives western buying companies impose supplier codes of conduct scc on their suppliers in developing countries however many suppliers cannot fully comply with scc and some of them even cheat in scc in this research we link contract characteristics price pressure production complexity contract duration to the likelihood of supplier s commitment to scc through a mediating process how the buying companies govern their suppliers our structural equation model analysis shows that the hierarchy relational norms governance is a perfect mediator of contract characteristics effects on the likelihood of supplier s commitment the market governance an insignificant one the managerial implications are provided for successfully implementing scc in global supply chains

asian transnational corporations and labor rights vietnamese trade unions in taiwan invested companies according to the reports in the past decade some asian subcontractors mainly taiwan hong kong and korea transnational corporations tend to be labor abusive in their overseas investment destinations like china or southeast asia taking vietnam as an example this paper raises questions as to why taiwanese transnational companies can control workplace unions in a trade union supportive regime given the government s constraint of political rights and the individualized workplace unions the function of trade unions in vietnam is destined to be limited the trade unions turn out be an arm of management rather than representing workers interests in these transnational companies this article also explores the influence of the newly developed codes of conducts from western buyers in the survey of three companies which are required to follow the codes of conduct by buyers trade unions had no more freedom than those in companies without codes of conduct the paper discusses the implications of this research offering strategies for labor rights improvements

institutional emergence in an era of globalization the rise of transnational private regulation of labor and environmental conditions1 why have systems of transnational private regulation recently emerged to certify corporate social and environmental performance different conceptions of institutional emergence underlie different answers to this question many scholars argue that firms create certification systems to solve problems in the market a view rooted in a conception of institutions as solutions to collective action problems the author develops a different account by viewing institutions as the outcome of political contestation and by analyzing conflict and institutional entrepreneurship among a wide array of actors using a comparative case study design the analysis shows how these arguments explain the formation of social and environmental certification associations both theoretical approaches are needed but strong versions of the market based approach overlook an important set of dynamics that the author calls the political construction of market institutions the analysis shows how both problem solving in markets and

the drivers of foreign direct investment into research and development an empirical investigation this paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development laboratories by 32 multinational enterprises in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries the paper applies a dichotomous set of motives for fdi results from an econometric analysis of 136 laboratory investments show that relative market size and relative strength of a country s science base determine whether fdi in research and development is carried out in order to exploit existing firm specific advantages or in order to build up new firm specific advantages this holds true in similar form for japanese european and u s firms and across the two industries

governing corporate social responsibility an assessment of the contribution of the un global compact to csr strategies in the telecommunications industry csr has become an important element in the business strategy of a growing number of companies worldwide a large number of initiatives have been developed that aim to support companies in developing implementing and communicating about csr the global compact gc initiated by the united nations stands out since its launch in 2000 it has grown to about 2900 companies and 3800 members in total the gc combines several mechanisms to support csr strategies normative principles networks for learning and co operation and communication and transparency about csr activities however up to now only a few empirical evaluations of the contribution of the gc to csr strategies have been conducted that however have not differentiated between different types of companies regarding type of industry or regarding the maturity of csr this paper aims to partly fill this knowledge gap by a case study examination of three frontrunner companies in the telecommunications industry the results show that the gc is only one of the many initiatives that these companies employ in shaping implementing and reporting about their csr strategies and that its role is at most modest there are two important reasons one is that many of the csr issues that these companies deal with are industry specific and are hence addressed in specific networks the second reason is that the gc principles are perceived as minimum requirements that do not provide many incentives to the three case study companies to perform better a differentiation of norms for gc members is expected to enhance the contribution of the gc to csr strategy employment not only for frontrunner companies but as well for other categories of companies

under the weather health schooling and economic consequences of early life rainfall life in rural areas of developing countries is prone to many kinds of risk such as illness or mortality of household members crop or other income loss due to natural phenomena weather insect infestations or fire for example and civil conflict in addition to their contemporaneous effects the effects of certain types of shocks may still be felt many years or even decades later from a public policy standpoint it is particularly important to identify shocks that have large long run effects moreover the mechanics underlying the persistence of shocks may be of con siderable interest for example a health shock may have a long run effect simply because the health shock itself persists over time alternately the health shock may not directly affect long run outcomes but it could affect some other outcome such as educational attainment that helps determine long run well being in this paper we focus on shocks that occur at the very beginning of life we ask how sensi tive long run individual well being is to environmental conditions around the time of birth in particular we examine the effect of weather shocks around the time of birth on the adult health education and socioeconomic outcomes of indonesian women and men born between 1953 and 1974 in addition we attempt to shed light on the intervening pathways connecting early life rainfall to adult outcomes illuminating the roles of health and educational attainment in deter mining adult socioeconomic status this investigation has considerable data requirements it necessitates information on weather shocks experienced by individuals several decades earlier as well as detailed current informa tion on adult outcomes we use information in the indonesian family life surveys ifls on an individual s year and location of birth and link each individual in that survey to locality specific rainfall data for their birth year for individuals born in rural areas on whom we focus rainfall variation across space and time should generate corresponding variation in agricultural output and thus household income to deal with measurement error in the rainfall data we run instrumental variables regressions where variables for rainfall measured at slightly more distant rainfall stations serve as instruments for rainfall in the individual s birthplace and birth year we examine the impact of early life rainfall on a range of adult outcomes observed in 2000 we find that higher early life rainfall leads to improved health schooling and socioeconomic status for women women with 20 percent higher rainfall relative to normal local rainfall in their year and location of birth are 3 8 percentage points less likely to self report poor or very poor health they attain 0 57 centimeters greater height attain 0 22 more completed grades of

ethical sourcing codes of large uk based corporations prevalence content limitations codes of conduct have become the perhaps most often used tool to manage corporate social responsibility csr researchers have primarily analysed such documents at company wide or trans company levels whereas there is a dearth of studies into the use of codes for particular corporate functions hence this article will examine one particular group of sub company level codes namely codes of conduct that stipulate csr criteria for suppliers examining such ethical sourcing policies adopted by the ftse100 corporations the article draws out what environmental social and economic issues large corporations perceive to be important in the management of their supply chains at an aggregate level the coverage of csr issues is rather extensive yet at the level of the individual corporation a degree of selectivity in the issues that are addressed becomes noticeable the code content analysis furthermore confirms the business case and public pressure to be the most important drivers of csr finally the study highlights the role of isomorphic processes in the adoption of csr tools

the consequences of child soldiering abstract little is known about the impacts of military service on human capital and labor market outcomes due to an absence of data as well as sample selection recruits are self selected screened and selectively survive we examine the case of uganda where rebel recruitment methods provide exogenous variation in conscription economic and educational impacts are widespread and persistent schooling falls by nearly a year skilled employment halves and earnings drop by a third military service seems to be a poor substitute for schooling psychological distress is evident among those exposed to severe war violence and is not limited to ex combatants

migration intermediaries and codes of conduct temporary migrant workers in australian horticulture over recent decades developments in network governance have seen governments around the world cede considerable authority and responsibility to commercial migration intermediaries for recruiting and managing temporary migrant labour correspondingly a by product of network governance has been the emergence of soft employment regulation in which voluntary codes of conduct supplement hard enforceable legal employment standards this paper explores these developments in the context of temporary migrant workers employed in australian horticulture first the paper analyses the growing use of temporary migrant labour in this industry it then describes how different types of intermediaries interact with this workforce the paper then outlines both hard and soft employment regulations and contrasts them with actual employment conditions questioning how a network governance approach has affected this vulnerable workforce the paper concludes that changes in network governance of migration and employment relations have emasculated formal legal regulation leaving market forces to operate without effective or ethical constraints at the expense of the public good