how economic incentives may destroy social ecological and existential values the case of executive compensation executive compensation has long been a prominent topic in the management literature a main question that is also given substantial attention in the business ethics literature even more so in the wake of the recent financial crisis is whether increasing levels of executive compensation can be justified from an ethical point of view also the relationship of executive compensation to instances of unethical behavior or outcomes has received considerable attention the purpose of this paper is to explore the social ecological and existential costs of economic incentives by discussing how relying on increasing levels of executive compensation may have an adverse effect on managerial performance in a broad sense specifically we argue that one dimensional economic incentives may destroy existential social and systemic values that influence the manager s commitment to ensure responsible business conduct and have negative spillover effects that may reduce the manager s performance there are well documented findings that demonstrate that reliance on sources of extrinsic motivation such as economic incentives may displace intrinsic motivation our perspective is a holistic one in the sense that we will explore the influence of sources of extrinsic motivation on the manager s intrinsic commitment to different types of values we will in particular investigate how it may influence the manager s ethical reflection and behavior or lack thereof

organizational governance and ethical systems a covenantal approach to building trust american businesses and corporate executives are faced with a serious problem the loss of public confidence public criticism increased government controls and growing expectations for improved financial performance and accountability have accompanied this decline in trust traditional approaches to corporate governance typified by agency theory and stakeholder theory have been expensive to direct and have focused on short term profits and organizational systems that fail to achieve desired results we explain why the organizational governance theories are fundamentally inadequate to build trust we advance a conceptual framework based on stewardship theory characterized by covenantal relationships and argue that design of governance mechanisms using a covenantal approach is more effective in building trust in organizations a covenantal relationship is a specialized form of a relational contract between an employee and his or her organization we argue that regardless of incentives and control mechanisms carefully designed through contractual mechanisms in the absence of covenantal relationships it is extremely difficult to build trust within organizations we propose that organizations are more likely to build trust both at the organizational level and at the interpersonal level when they create reinforcing and integrated systems that honor implied duties of covenantal relationships

product market competition and managerial slack this article analyzes the effect of product market competition on managerial incentives in contrast to hart 1983a i show that competition may actually exacerbate the incentive problem the difference in results derives from our different assumptions about managerial preferences the importance of assumptions about preferences suggests that we do not yet understand the precise mechanism through which competition affects incentives

value creation management competencies and global corporate citizenship an ordonomic approach to business ethics in the age of globalization this article develops an ordonomic approach to business ethics in the age of globalization through the use of a three tiered conceptual framework that distinguishes between the basic game of antagonistic social cooperation the meta game of rule setting and the meta meta game of rule finding discourse we address three questions the answers to which we believe are crucial to fostering effective business leadership and corporate social responsibility first the purpose of business in society is value creation companies have a social mandate to organize mutually advantageous cooperation second business ethics should teach the management competencies necessary to fulfill business s societal mandate these competencies are optimization competence in the basic game of value creation governance competence in the meta game of political rule setting and the three discourse related skills of orientation competence reception competence and communication competence necessary for engaging in the meta meta game third companies can help solve global problems through global corporate citizenship if they participate as political and moral actors in rule setting processes and rule finding discourse aimed at laying the foundation for value creation on a global scale

asymmetric information as a commitment in oligopoly abstract in this paper we show that in an oligopolistic industry that consists of identical firms a subset of firms may find it optimal to commit to face asymmetric information about their agents operations therefore some firms may choose to incur informational agency costs even though information is available at no cost the commitment to face asymmetric information is also a commitment on the part of the firm not to extract the entire agent s surplus and so agents have incentive to make a specific investment that increases firms expected profits the level of this investment increases with the proportion of firms that are not informed

governance pressures and performance outcomes of sustainable supply chain management an empirical analysis of uk manufacturing industry although sustainable supply chain management sscm has recently received increasing attention among uk manufacturing firms there is a concern as to whether sscm practices are being implemented because they are profitable or only because of governance coercive pressure thus the aims of this paper are twofold first determining the role of governance in the adoption of sscm practices second investigating whether sscm practices can be both environmentally beneficial and commercially viable in light of these issues this paper develops and empirically assesses an integrated model of governance pressures sscm practices performance data was collected from 146 uk manufacturing managers and analysed using the structural equation modelling method exogenous driving forces of governance were found to be precursors to the successful implementation of sscm practices the empirical results further suggest that while the implementation of sustainable supply chain management has a positive effect on environmental performance it does not necessarily lead to improved economic performance as only sustainable procurement was found to have a positive effect on economic performance this paper contributes to the literature by highlighting the role of governance in sscm adoption and performance gains in environmental protection while economic performance is partially compromised the results also provide useful insights for both managers seeking to adopt sustainable practices and policy makers seeking to further promote sustainable supply chain

responsible entrepreneurship in developing countries understanding the realities and complexities developing countries have recently experienced a burgeoning of small scale individual entrepreneurs sies who range from petty traders to personal service workers like small street vendors barbers and owners of small shops as a result of market based reforms rapid urbanisation unemployment landlessness and poverty while sies form a major part of the informal workforce in developing countries and contribute significantly to economic growth their potential is being undermined when they engage in irresponsible and deceptive business practices such as overpricing sale of underweight or substandard products or attempts to hoard goods to name a few despite the growing interest in corporate social responsibility csr initiatives of small businesses in developing countries the sies have received almost no attention to address this void in the literature we explore the reasons for the less than optimal level of social responsibility demonstrated by some sies in developing countries we do so by drawing upon the existing literature to develop a comprehensive framework of social responsibility of sies highlighting their unique characteristics and the different contextual factors that they encounter in developing countries based on this framework we then present a set of propositions specifying the influence of these contextual factors such as business environment cultural traditions socio economic conditions and both international and domestic pressures on the business practices of sies the framework offers an explanation for the lack of responsible entrepreneurship of sies and has important implications for promoting sustainable business practices in developing countries where businesses are striving hard to survive and compete

barriers against globalizing corporate ethics an analysis of legal disputes on implementing u s codes of ethics in germany global firms need to decide on the correspondence between their corporate ethics and the globalization of their activities when firms go global they face ethical complexities as they operate in different legal and cultural environments that may impact the admissibility and appropriateness of their approach to institutionalize and implement corporate ethics global firms may have good reasons to establish global codes of ethics that are to be obeyed by all employees worldwide however developing and implementing such codes can be rather difficult due to various and partly competing conditions in the countries of operation in this article two legal disputes are analyzed to illustrate some of the difficulties that may emerge when firms globalize their codes of ethics i argue that these conflicts can be mitigated when firms carefully design their codes and the processes of code implementation

ethical and moral dilemmas associated with strategic relationships between business to business buyers and sellers while ethical and moral issues have been widely considered in the general areas of marketing and sales similar attention has not been given to the impact of strategic account management sam approaches to handling the relationships between suppliers and very large customers sam approaches have been widely adopted by suppliers as a mechanism for managing relationships and partnerships with dominant customers characterized by high levels of buyer seller inter dependence and forms of collaborative partnership observation suggests that the perceived moral intensity of these relationships is commonly low notwithstanding the underlying principles of benefiting the few large strategic customers at the expense of the many smaller customers and other stakeholders and the magnitude of the consequences of concessions made to large customers even though some such consequences may be unintended dilemmas exist also for executives implementing strategic account relationships regarding such issues as information sharing trust and hidden incentives for unethical behaviour we propose the need for greater transparency and senior management questioning of the ethical and moral issues implicit in strategic account management

strategic inattention delegation and endogenous market structure abstract we model an industry in which a discrete number of firms choose the output of their differentiated products deciding whether or not to consider the impact of their decisions on aggregate output the firm s choice of ignoring the impact of its production on aggregate output which is typical of monopolistic competition is derived as an equilibrium choice rather than assumed upfront such a choice is labelled as strategic inattention we show that our model of strategic inattention is isomorphic to a model of strategic delegation with managerial compensation based on relative profit performance thus monopolistic competition and cournot oligopoly are reconciled within a general model which can lead to either market form

electricity market price volatility the case of ontario abstract price volatility analysis has been reported in the literature for most competitive electricity markets around the world however no studies have been published yet that quantify price volatility in the ontario electricity market which is the focus of the present paper in this paper a comparative volatility analysis is conducted for the ontario market and its neighboring electricity markets volatility indices are developed based on historical volatility and price velocity concepts previously applied to other electricity market prices and employed in the present work the analysis is carried out in two scenarios in the first scenario the volatility indices are determined for the entire price time series in the second scenario the price time series are broken up into 24 time series for each of the 24 h and volatility indices are calculated for each specific hour separately the volatility indices are also applied to the locational marginal prices of several pricing points in the new england new york and pjm electricity markets the outcomes reveal that price volatility is significantly higher in ontario than the three studied neighboring electricity markets furthermore comparison of the results of this study with similar findings previously published for 15 other electricity markets demonstrates that the ontario electricity market is one of the most volatile electricity markets world wide this high volatility is argued to be associated with the fact that ontario is a single settlement real time market

institutional pressures and ethical reckoning by business corporations prior studies have provided explanations for the presence use and dissemination of codes of corporate ethics or codes of corporate conduct of business corporations most such explanations are functional in nature and are descriptive as they are derived from the codes and their associated documents we search for more underlying explanations using two complementary theories first social contract theories explaining the exogenous and endogenous reasons of organizational behavior and then institutional theory explaining why organizations take similar measures in response to institutional pressures based on our explanations we contend that the codes and their use and dissemination are arising from underlying social and institutional pressures for firms to continuously validate their existence in the face of increasing changes and recurrent uncertainties

the relationship between sustainable supply chain management stakeholder pressure and corporate sustainability performance in 2009 greenpeace launched an aggressive campaign against nestle accusing the organization of driving rainforest deforestation through its palm oil suppliers the objective was to damage the brand image of nestle and thereby force the organization to make its supply chain more sustainable prominent cases such as these have led to the prevailing view that sustainable supply chain management sscm is primarily reactive and propelled by external pressures this research in contrast assumes that sscm can contribute positively to the reputation of an organization as a good citizen and thereby counter the impression that external stakeholder pressure is the only driver of sscm the study draws on resource dependence theory in analyzing the three competing models of the potential stakeholder sscm and the corporate sustainability performance relationship a dataset of 1 621 organizations allows the statistical comparison of these three models findings suggest that stakeholder pressure and sscm both contribute to an organization s sustainability performance thus supply chain managers will perceive benefits from sscm other than merely the reduction of risk from reputational damage through stakeholder activism

corporate autonomy and buyer supplier relationships the case of unsafe mattel toys this article analyses supplier buyer relationships where the suppliers adapt to the buyers needs and expectations to gain mutual advantages in some cases such closely knit relationships lead to violations of the autonomy of one or both partners a concept of corporate autonomy ca is developed to analyze this problem three different facets can be distinguished rule autonomy executive autonomy and control autonomy a case study of mattel s problems with lead contaminated toys produced in china shows that the ca of buyer and supplier can be restricted as a result of a dysfunctional partnership involving a moral dilemma

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

the power lessness of industry self regulation to promote responsible labor standards insights from the chinese toy industry the provision of responsible labor standards along the entire value chain poses considerable challenges for corporations in particular management shortcomings and institutional deficits which are partly related to cultural issues frequently impede the realization of responsible business practices in emerging and developing countries it is widely established in theory that industry self regulation constitutes a particularly promising approach for overcoming these challenges nonetheless it is still an open question as to whether industry initiatives effectively promote responsible standards in practice this contribution aims to enrich the current discussion about the power of industry self regulation to ensure responsible labor standards in factories in emerging and developing countries for this purpose we analyze the icti care process icp the self regulation initiative of the international toy industry that aims to promote responsible business practices in chinese toy factories the assessment of the icp shows that corporations buying behavior is decisive in order for industry self regulation to become an appropriate means of improving labor standards based on the insights from the study and from theoretical reasoning we develop a framework for effective industry self regulation that integrates the perspective of factories

child labor and multinational conduct a comparison of international business andstakeholder codes increasing attention to the issue of child labor has been reflected in codes of conduct that emerged in the past decade in particular this paper examines the way in which multinationals business associations governmental and non governmental organizations deal with child labor in their codes with a standardized framework it analyzes 55 codes drawn up by these different actors to influence firms external societal behavior the exploratory study helps to identify the main issues related to child labor and the use of voluntary instruments such as codes of conduct apart from a specific indication of the topics covered by the code especially minimum age requirements this also includes monitoring systems and monitoring parties most important to company codes are the sanctions imposed on business partners in case of non compliance severe measures may be counterproductive as they do not change the underlying causes of child labor and can worsen the situation of the child workers by driving them to more hazardous work in the informal sector this underlines the importance of a broad rather than a restrictive approach to child labor in codes of conduct the paper discusses the implications of this study offering suggestions for future research

does customer auditing help chinese workers the authors find that auditing by downstream firms has limited effects on chinese firms adherence to labor standards and other measures of blue collar workers well being auditing does not affect the supplier s blue collar employees wages probability of belonging to a union or likelihood of working overtime audited firms however are more likely to provide rural migrant workers who usually face discrimination with government sponsored medical insurance business medical insurance and unemployment insurance

exploring the effects of union ngo relationships on corporate responsibility the case of the swedish clean clothes campaign in the current era governments are playing smaller roles in regulating workers rights internationally and transnational corporations tncs non governmental organisations ngos involved in the struggle for workers rights and labour trade unions have started to fill this governance gap this paper focuses on the least researched of the relationships among these three actors the union ngo relationship by analysing the ways in which it affects definitions of tnc responsibility for workers rights at their suppliers factories based on a qualitative study of the union ngo relationship in the swedish garment industry between 1996 and 2005 we propose that there are six main configurations of union ngo relationships by linking these configurations to their effects on tnc responsibility we propose that co ordination relationships between unions and ngos particularly high commitment co ordination relationships are likely to result in a broadening of the definition of tnc responsibility while conflictual relationships both high and low commitment result in a narrowing of the definition of tnc responsibility the study indicates that co operation is generally more beneficial for both unions and ngos than is any form of conflictual relationship in terms of broadening the definition of tnc responsibility

the firm as a nexus of treaties part 1 knowledge its acquisition sharing and or asymmetry the participatory generation of information rents and the theory of the firm masahiko aoki common knowledge and the co ordination of economic activities jacques cremer profit sharing information and employment matti pohjola part 2 vertical integration and the strategic management of the enterprise what is vertical integration michael h riordan vertical integration transaction costs and learning by using kurt lundgren the firm as a nexus of internal and external contracts torger reve part 3 issues of labour organization the viability of worker ownership an economic perspective on the political structure of the firm henry hansmann intellectual skill and the role of employees as constituent members of large firms in contemporary japan kazuo koike the implicit contract for corporate law firm associates ex post opportunism and ex ante bonding robert h mooking part 4 finance and the political structure of the firm capital structure as a mechanism of control a comparison of financial systems erik berglof long term contracts in financial markets hakan lindgren the principle of external accountability in competitive markets herbert gintis union militancy and plant designs kar ove moene can transaction cost economics explain trade associations marc schneiberg and j rogers hollingsworth

supply chain specific understanding the patchy success of ethical sourcing initiatives as a number of high profile companies have found to their cost corporate reputations can be significantly affected by firms management of sustainability issue including those that are outside their direct control such as the environmental and social impacts of their supply networks this paper begins by examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility reputation and supply network conditions it then looks at the effectiveness of one tool for managing supply network sustainability issues ethical sourcing codes of conduct by examining how the characteristics of three supply networks branded clothes diy wood products and branded confectionary affects the implementation ethical sourcing codes of conduct it ends by setting out conclusions on why implementation of such codes has been so much more successful in some sectors than others and recommendations on effective approaches to managing sustainability issues in supply networks

multinational corporate power influence and responsibility in global supply chains this paper examines the question of how to determine the extent of a multinational corporation mnc s corporate social responsibility for actions by its suppliers drawing on three theories of power and influence from the organization and management literature resource dependence theory social exchange theory and social network theory this paper presents a conceptual framework for analysing the extent of power and influence of an mnc in a global supply chain based on a consideration of i economic and non economic exchanges and ii direct and indirect exchanges in the mnc s industry network the paper also shows how the legal concept of complicity can be incorporated by considering the knowledge links of the mnc to other organizations in the industry network finally the paper demonstrates how the concepts can be integrated to construct a power assessment grid which can be used to assess the extent of responsibility of an mnc for the actions of its suppliers and other parties in the industry as well as a map of power and knowledge relationships between organizations in the industry which can be used for further analyses using social network analysis techniques

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

institutionalizing sustainability a structural equation model of sustainable procurement in us public agencies abstract the rapidly growing interest in sustainable operations in practice has been mirrored by an equivalent expanding attention within the academic community yet as encouraging and significant as the recent growth in the area has been there is still much that needs to be done for instance there is surprisingly little empirical research on public sector management and on factors that might lead an organization to become more likely to adopt sustainable practices the scope of this research therefore is to explore the conditions under which a given organization is more likely to engage and prioritize sustainable procurement practices and to determine the extent to which the leadership style of the organization s top leader can explain the degree to which sustainability is promoted within a specific organization data collected with the help of a self administered survey from a random sample of us public agencies is analyzed using structural equation modeling among others the results of the empirical analysis confirm that the leadership style of an organization s top executive is positively associated with the probability that an agency will engage in sustainable procurement practices this research is among the first to attempt to provide an actionable model of adoption of sustainable procurement at an organizational level it contributes to the diffusion of research on sustainability by studying sustainable procurement practices adoption and by developing a model that draws simultaneously on systems theory stakeholder theory transformational leadership theory and institutional theory

a profit driven approach to building a people responsible supply chain abstract today an increasing number of companies have publicized policies to improve corporate social responsibility performance related to human resources in their supply chain management practices such as safer and healthier working conditions higher payment better benefits and fewer working hours however there are still concerns about the sincerity and effectiveness of such efforts this could be attributed to the fact that the economic benefit of those improvements is not clearly structured as an integral part in the companies decision making process in this paper we develop a stylized analytic framework that links a firm s supply chain social performance in people with its economic performance in profit specifically we examine how consumers responses to the outbreak of social misconduct in supply chains affect competing firms market segmentation and profit and subsequently provide economic incentive for proactive social responsibility investment closed form optimal solutions for proactive social responsibility strategy are found for our model setup numerical tests and sensitivity analyses have been conducted to study the effects of various factors on the firms supply chain social responsibility strategies factors such as consumers ethical disposition the social environment and consumers perception of a product s functional versus social value are a few among them the results of our analysis demonstrate that proactive investment in supply chain social responsibility can enhance a firm s competitive advantage and economic performance thereby suggesting a profit driven approach to achieving supply chain social responsibility and sustainability

stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain management orientation this project investigates salient stakeholder forces of socially responsible supply chain orientation srsco in the apparel and footwear sector focusing on fair labor management issues srsco was conceptualized as a composite of internal organizational direction and external partnership for a creation and continuation of fair labor conditions throughout the supply chain primary stakeholders identified were consumers regulation industry and media a total of 209 mail survey responses from sourcing managers of u s apparel and footwear companies were analyzed two dimensions of srsco were confirmed internal direction and external partnership consumer and industry peer pressures were found significantly related to internal direction while industry peers and media were significantly related to the external partnership regulation was not significantly related to either internal direction or external partnerships lack of regulation forces to govern labor issues and roles of consumers industry peers and media in promoting fair labor management are discussed in this article

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

suppliers as stewards managing social standards in first and second tier suppliers buyer supplier relationships are often framed as principal agent relationships based on contractual arrangements that temporarily align the goals of both parties the underlying notion is that the relationship between buyers and suppliers is adversarial in nature and that the supplier acting in the role of the agent will take advantage of the principal if not sufficiently controlled we propose that there is empirically also another type of partnership which reflects the propositions of stewardship theory according to this theory suppliers are motivated to work autonomously towards contractually agreed objectives we analyse how the agency and stewardship theories differ regarding their descriptions of autonomy motivation identification authority stakeholder orientation and short versus long term collaboration we analyse the case of a first tier supplier and four second tier suppliers situated in turkey in the area of istanbul which collaborate with the aim of improving their social and environmental performance the results show that the relationship between the partners in this case has become more collaborative over time and can now be described in terms of stewardship theory rather than in terms of agency theory we conclude that the distinction between agency and stewardship relationships is empirically meaningful in the context of supplier buyer relationships and adds a new aspect to our understanding of how to achieve more sustainable supply chains

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 effects of competition on executive behavior economists presume that competition spurs a firm to be more efficient by forcing it to reduce its agency problems this article investigates this presumption it finds that the effects of competition on executive behavior can be decomposed into four effects each of which is of potentially ambiguous sign theory thus offers no definitive defense of this presumption this article also derives sets of conditions under which increased competition has the presumed effect of reducing agency problems in some sets important conditions are that increased competition reduce the executive s expected income and that agency goods e g shirking be normal goods for the executive the article shows that an increase in the shareholder bargaining strength can both reduce the agency problem and make it more sensitive to competition

the strategic value of partial vertical integration we investigate the strategic incentives for partial vertical integration namely partial ownership agreements between manufacturers and retailers when retailers privately know their costs and engage in price competition with differentiated goods the partial misalignment between the profit objectives within a partially integrated manufacturer retailer hierarchy implies a higher retail price than under full integration this information vertical effect translates into a competition horizontal effect the partially integrated hierarchy s commitment to a higher price induces the competitor to increase its price which strategically relaxes competition our analysis provides implications for vertical merger policy and theoretical support for the recently documented empirical evidence on partial vertical acquisitions

multinational corporations economic and human rights impacts on developing countries a review and research agenda developing countries are attracting a significant portion of global foreign direct investments governments of such countries often compete fiercely for attracting multinational corporations mncs in the expectation of the advantages they will bring to their economies often prioritising economic goals over fundamental human rights for a long time economists have analysed the economic impacts of mncs while a parallel strand of work in political science business ethics and international law investigates the repercussions of mnc operations on human rights despite the significant relatedness and complementarities these two bodies of literature have so far poorly interacted this paper addresses this limitation and systematically analyses and integrates existing micro level empirical evidence on the economic and human rights impacts of mncs on developing countries it provides a critical analysis of what is known and highlights what we do not know about the factors that mediate the positive and or negative impacts of mnc operations on host developing countries based on a critical analysis of the literature it discusses avenues for future research in this field and sets the grounds for a new interdisciplinary research agenda on this subject

vertical trade relationships the role of dependence and symmetry in attaining organizational goals the perspective that dependence on vertical trade partners should be avoided has been countered recently by the view that there are advantages to strong ties between firms the author offers a fram

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

accelerating the transition towards sustainability dynamics into supply chain relationship management and governance structures abstract stakeholders and competitive priorities drive profit and non profit organizations towards the implementation of sustainability related measures in their internal operations and in their supply chains planning it is believed by some that investments in sustainability may help them to attain more successful futures by maintaining a healthy balance among economic environmental and social resources dimensions consequently some organizations have begun to integrate these dimensions in recent years researchers and practitioners are also working to accelerate the transition for more equitable sustainable post fossil carbon societies by working with all relevant stakeholders this special volume of journal of cleaner production is focused upon on diverse types of supply chain relationships governance mechanisms and innovations which can foster effective and efficient sustainable supply chain management this volume is comprised of twenty seven articles and a book review fifteen of the articles address the supply chain relationships domain while five focus primarily upon governance five upon innovation and two on relationships and governance however there is a huge potential to further explore the opportunities towards achieving sustainability by implementing proper governance mechanisms and eco innovation strategies research from low income countries dealing with sustainability issues are also urgently needed

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

policies and market factors driving wind power development in the united states abstract in the united states there has been substantial recent growth in wind energy generating capacity with growth averaging 24 percent annually during the past five years about 1700 mw of wind energy capacity was installed in 2001 while another 410 mw became operational in 2002 during 2003 development activity has remained strong with an estimated 1600 mw of capacity installed with this growth an increasing number of states are experiencing investment in wind energy projects currently about half of all states host at least one wind power project this paper explores the key factors at play in the 12 states in which a substantial amount of wind energy capacity has been developed or planned some of the factors that are examined include policy drivers such as renewable portfolio standards rps federal and state financial incentives as well as market drivers such as consumer demand for green power natural gas price volatility and wholesale market rules

the agent ss ethics in the principal agent model this paper evaluates the current use of the principal agent model pam in accounting and finance focusing on the agent ss use of private information the agent ss behavioral norms in the the pam deviate from commonly held ethical values in society from models of man in conventional economic theory and also from behavioral foundations of related business school fields like corporate strategy business ethics and human resource management still it would be unwise to reject the pam solely because of its distasteful ethical assumptions the model does appear to have predictive power but its descriptive or normative qualities remain unexplored the popularity of the pam with its extreme model of man raises fundamental questions about the impact of this model on business school stakeholders and society at large

price and resource related uncertainty in the estimation of the revenue of a wind farm the revenue that wind farms produce is subject to the inherent uncertainty of the wind resource in the short run and the long term this revenue is subject to an additional price related uncertainty in jurisdictions where the output of the wind farms is paid at the prices cleared at the local electricity market an econometric model is developed to estimate the risks of using limited information in the estimation of the annual revenue of a wind farm sensitivities that measure the influence of each uncertainty factor in the overall risks are also developed an application example is shown by which investors or policy makers may determine how typical wind farm capital costs may influence financial project feasibility under a predetermined risk

social sustainability in selecting emerging economy suppliers despite the growing public awareness of social sustainability issues little is known about what drives firms to emphasize social criteria in their supplier management practices and what the precise benefits of such efforts are this is especially true for relationships with international suppliers from the world s emerging economies in asia latin america and eastern europe building on stakeholder theory we address the issue by examining how pressures from customers the government and employees as primary constituencies of the firm determine the extent to which firms consider social aspects in the selection of emerging economy suppliers further we analyze how such socially sustainable supplier selection relates to the capabilities of the firm s suppliers its market reputation and the learning in its supply management organization we test the developed research framework empirically using data from 244 u s and german corporations our findings consistent with our hypothesized model suggest that middle level supply managers as internal stakeholders play a major driving role for firms socially sustainable supplier selection and that strong positive links exist between that selection and the investigated outcomes

valuing social sustainability in agriculture an approach based on social outputs shadow prices abstract interest in sustainability has gained ground among practitioners academics and policy makers due to growing stakeholders awareness of environmental and social concerns this is particularly true for agriculture however relatively little research has been conducted on the quantification of social sustainability and the contribution of social issues to the agricultural production efficiency this paper proposes a framework based on state contingent outputs to compute shadow prices of social outputs our methodological approach is based on the directional distance function and illustrated using a farm level dataset from a sample of catalan arable crop farms in 2015 our results indicate that in the sample of 180 farms included in the analysis efficiency scores are relatively high for the three alternative states of the nature considered in our state contingent analysis in addition our findings show that social outputs shadow prices are positive indicating that producing more social outputs is considered as great value to the farm for the efficient farms the social outputs shadow prices are contingent upon on the state of nature in a way that social outputs shadow prices increase with the improvement in crop growth conditions these results have implications in terms of eu farm payment redistribution

the strategic choice of managerial incentives do firms with separate owners and managers maximize profits we address this question for an oligopoly where managers compete in quantities or prices as in the cournot or bertrand models and owners choose their managers incentives we find that there is a strategic aspect in the problem of selecting incentives and that profit maximizing behavior does not result in particular in the oligopoly we study the behavior of firms competing in quantity price more closely resembles perfectly competitive collusive behavior than cournot bertrand behavior

ethics in finance and public policy the ibercorp case our research has found that companies which have diverged from traditional management in order to adopt strategies which include ethics cooperation and a joint vision of management obtain a greater added value the new challenges of competitiveness require a position of active cooperation between firms and their suppliers which should be considered as collaborators rather than adversaries an active cooperation management may well allow the company to improve the quality of its products and its image speed up delivery to its clients and make its production and trading more agile thus enhancing the perception the client has of the product an improved ethical quality in our dealings generating trust improving communication and establishing long term relationships with joint added value results in higher competitiveness and greater creation of wealth

trade offs in supply chain transparency the case of nudie jeans co though transparency is increasingly central to corporate sustainability and sustainable supply chains the scholarly conversation about supply chain transparency is limited as it defines supply chain transparency inconsistently and lacks an empirical basis we address these shortcomings by developing a multidimensional definition of supply chain transparency and studying the swedish garment retailer nudie jeans attempt to become the most transparent company in the world we extend the scholarly conversation by analyzing how a company in practice attempts to work with supply chain transparency and how to explain the transparency outcomes of such attempts we argue that three underlying tradeoffs i e threat vs collaboration standardization vs differentiation and means vs ends shape a firm s transparency outcomes we question whether more supply chain transparency is always desirable and argue that managers must choose between a compliance or cooperation approach to supply chain transparency

internal organization and managerial compensation in oligopoly abstract we demonstrate that the benefit that an oligopolistic firm derives from departmentalization managerial specialization depends upon the internal organization of the rival firm as a result even if both firms are assumed a priori identical they need not select an identical form of internal organization since the benefit from departmentalization exhibits increasing returns to scale a duopolist derives more restricted benefits from departmentalizing compared with a monopolist the implications of increased competition or the form of internal organization upon the compensation of managers depends upon the degree of correlation between the uncertain demands that face competing firms

do codes make a difference the case of bank lending and the environment codes of conduct are a conspicuous feature of modern business organization but doubts have been raised regarding their efficacy in ensuring high standards of behavior although some of the issues involved have been discussed at some length in the business ethics literature the amount of systematic empirical evidence on the impact of codes is very limited this paper seeks to make a contribution to that body of knowledge by studying the policies and procedures of a sample of banks which have signed a statement on banking and the environment promulgated by the united nations development programme although some differences are found when compared with a sample of banks which did not sign the statement they are not extensive the implications of the findings for codes of conduct and for future empirical studies are then discussed

business codes of multinational firms what do they say business codes are an oft cited management instrument but how common are codes among multinationals and what is their content in an unprecedented study the codes of the largest corporations in the world have been collected and thoroughly analyzed this paper presents the results of that study of the 200 largest companies in the world 52 5 have a code more than half f these codes describe company responsibilities regarding quality of products and services 67 adherence to local laws and regulations 57 and the protection of the natural environment 56 many codes make reference to principles governing stake holder relations e g transparency 55 honesty 50 and fairness 45 corporate core values e g teamwork 43 appropriate conduct among employees e g discrimination 44 and intimidation 43 and treatment of company property by employees e g conflict of interests 52 corruption 46 and fraud 45 monitoring compliance with the code is addressed in 52 of the codes based on this content study three types of codes are distinguished the stakeholder statute 72 the values statement 49 and the code of conduct 46 the results of this inquiry present a benchmark for the evaluation and development of both individual and international business codes

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

green business and blue angels this paper presents a model of a monopolist svoluntary overcompliance with legal environmentalstandards under asymmetric information about thefirm s environmental impacts the key assumptions are the existence of quality premia for environmentalsoundness a positive but imperfect degree ofmonitoring and adaptive consumer expectations conditions necessary for overcompliance to arise in aprofit maximizing equilibrium are derived the effectsof a third party eco labeling system are analyzed itis shown that the existence of an independent labelingauthority increases the likelihood of overcomplianceto be profit maximizing moreover firms might have anincentive to lobby for the introduction of such asystem the effect of consumers risk preferences andan instrument for preventing greenwash companieslying about their environmental performance is alsodiscussed

sustainable supply chain management when focal firms are complex a network perspective the purpose of the paper is to generate an understanding of the prerequisites for sustainable supply chain management a common tendency in the literature is to see sustainable supply chain management as something that is undertaken by a focal firm at the end of the chain even though many scholars point to the need for cooperative approaches focal firms are still considered to manage supply chains from one fixed and coherent vantage point the managerial outlook of the focal firm itself understood as a structurally coherent top down controlled unit through an illustration from the swedish retail sector we argue that such a vantage point is problematic we suggest a deeper analysis of focal firms and sustainable supply chain management in terms of a network perspective employed mainly in the industrial marketing and purchasing imp literature the adopted network perspective recognizes both internal and external complexity of sustainable supply chain management implying for example difficulties to control entire organizations and the existence of multiple supply chains to manage it is also suggested that sustainable supply networks may be a viable concept to use when dealing with sustainability issues related to production since it relates sustainability in the supply chain to the more general responsibility context of firms

stakeholder learning dialogues how to preserve ethical responsibility in networks the shift in corporate strategy from vertical integration to strategic alliances has developed hand in hand with the evolution of organizational structure from the vertically integrated firm to the network organization the result has been the elimination of boundaries more flexible organizations and a greater interaction among individuals and organizations on the negative side the specialization of firms on single areas of competence has resulted in the disaggregation of the value chain and in the disaggregation of ethical and legal responsibility to illustrate this point the paper considers some cases such as the case of the beer girls of southeast asia who are used unethically by distributors to sell beer and liquor to deal with the problem of the disaggregation of ethical responsibility managers can use organizational culture and ethical values to control the performance of employees and of other organizations contemporary developments in business ethics also offer tools for dealing with the problem for example global corporate citizenship integrated social contracting theory and stakeholder learning dialogues provide ways of integrating the interests of all stakeholders the task is now to use these new approaches to create a governance process that incorporates the voices of all stakeholders especially the voices of those stakeholders that have legitimate and urgent moral claims but lack the power to establish those claims

the autonomy of the contracting partners an argument for heuristic contractarian business ethics due to the domain characteristics of business ethics a contractarian theory for business ethics will need to be essentially different from the contract model as it is applied to other domains much of the current criticism of contractarian business ethics cbe can be traced back to autonomy one of its three boundary conditions after explaining why autonomy is so important this article considers the notion carefully vis a vis the contracting partners in the contractarian approaches in business ethics autonomy is too demanding a condition for the realm of cbe but a less stringent version of the contract may be possible a version which uses the contract as a heuristic device which merely requires moral responsibility furthermore it is argued that views of human agency and the moral subject should be made explicit in such a theory

labour leverage in global value chains the role of interdependencies and multi level dynamics the global segmentation of production and distribution has resulted in highly complex global value chains gvcs where vertical and horizontal dynamics are equally important in determining working conditions and providing points of leverage for labour borrowing notions of multi level governance we propose an analytical framework for describing and explaining success and failure of labour agency when attempting to improve working conditions along gvcs our starting point is that the high complexity of gvcs and the absence of a global overarching authority have been balanced by the emergence of governance mechanisms of different forms and at different levels an assessment of these mechanisms which emphasize process over institutions reveals how different types of interactions and interdependencies along gvcs impact on labour s use of power we argue that in order to fully situate labour agency within governance debates any future research agenda needs to be driven by micro level bottom up approaches

competing vertical structures precommitment and renegotiation we consider a model where two agents privately informed about their own characteristics play a normal form game on behalf of two uninformed principals we analyze the existence of precommitment effects through public announcements of contracts in a model where agency contracts designed ex ante can always be secretly renegotiated at the ex ante and interim stages we show that the existence of precommitment effects depends both on the strategic complementarity of the agents actions and on the direct effect of the opponents actions on each principal s welfare in our model the possibility of renegotiation is crucial for the existence of precommitment effects the results are introduced through an example of cournot and bertrand competition between firms viewed as vertical structures

large scale wind power integration and wholesale electricity trading benefits estimation via an ex post approach abstract the integration of large scale wind power has brought about a series of challenges to the power industry but at the same time a number of benefits are being realized among those the ability of wind power to cause a decline in the electricity market prices has been recognized in quantifying this effect some models used in recent years are based on simulations of the market supply side and the price clearing process the accuracy of the estimates depend on the quality of the input data the veracity of the adopted scenarios and the rigorousness of the solution technique in this work a series of econometric techniques based on actual ex post wind power and electricity price data are implemented for the estimation of the impact of region wide wind power integration on the local electricity market clearing prices and the trading savings that stem from this effect the model is applied to the case of spain where the estimated savings are compared against actual credit and bonus expenses to ratepayers the implications and extent of these results for current and future renewable energy policy making are discussed

socially and environmentally responsible purchasing comparing the impacts on buying firm s financial performance competitiveness and risk abstract the paper presents a study that aims to compare the contribution of social and environmental practices along the purchasing process to economic performance competitiveness and risk mitigation of the buying firm the number of studies dealing with the topic has significantly increased in the last few years the majority of the extant research is focused on the environmental dimension whereas fewer studies have explored the social dimension or the combination of both factors the results are mixed with some scholars supporting the existence of a positive relationship between socially and environmentally oriented purchasing management and financial performance competitiveness and risk mitigation and others being more cautious relying on suggestions from earlier literature the study presents an analysis of a database made up of 189 international buying companies operating in italy and the results have provoked two main observations data were collected through a closed question questionnaire to purchasing managers which was defined from items and variables identified in the previous literature on the one hand the results corroborated the hypotheses of the study confirming that both dimensions contribute to firm performance on the other hand the findings showed that differences do exist and that the positive relationship between social and environmental dimensions and firm performance depends upon the stage into which those criteria are integrated the integration of social criteria has proven to impact only risk mitigation throughout the purchasing process whereas the environmental dimension contributes to risk mitigation and competitiveness when included in the supplier selection phase and to economic performance when considered in supplier relationship management

electricity markets cleared by merit order part ii strategic offers and market power in an electricity market cleared by a merit order economic dispatch we make use of the mixed integer linear programming milp scheme derived in part i to find the market outcomes supported by a pure strategy nash equilibria ne from these ne we identify offer strategies in terms of gaming or not gaming that best meet the risk benefit expectations of the participating gencos to do this a number of measures of potential profit gain and loss are developed that quantify the notion of risk benefit under the possible multiple ne the ne identification scheme is tested on several systems of up to 30 generating units each with four incremental cost blocks also showing how market power is influenced by the number and size of the competing gencos as well as by the imposed price cap