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

international technology transfer and the technology gap abstract we build a quality ladders product cycle model that explores how the quality of technology transferred through foreign direct investment fdi is linked to innovation and imitation when the absorptive capacity of ldcs is limited successful imitation of low quality levels makes fdi involving high quality levels possible through reduction of the technology gap a subsidy to imitation or a tax on low quality fdi production encourages imitation relative to innovation thus releasing the constraint faced by foreign firms seeking to produce in the south these forces that stimulate high quality fdi raise southern welfare through lower prices faster innovation and higher wages

optimal capital income taxation with incomplete markets borrowing constraints and constant discounting for a wide class of infinitely lived agent models chamley has shown that the optimal capital income tax rate is zero in the long run lucas has argued that for the u s economy there is a significant welfare gain from switching to this policy this paper shows that for the bewley class of models with incomplete insurance markets and borrowing constraints the optimal tax rate on capital income is positive even in the long run therefore cutting the capital income tax to zero may well lead to welfare losses

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

does economic upgrading lead to social upgrading in global production networks evidence from morocco summary this paper contributes to the global production networks gpns literature by analyzing the relationship between economic upgrading increase in the value added of production and social upgrading improvements for workers in gpns it does so by drawing on primary data from moroccan garment supplier firms showing that economic upgrading can lead to social upgrading with mixed outcomes especially in a fast fashion model the most advanced form of economic upgrading functional upgrading often translates into social upgrading and downgrading simultaneously for different workers this is due to contradictory commercial requirements imposed by global buyers in gpns

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

toward a model for international business ethics this paper briefly examines the topic of business ethics and attempts to suggest a code of ethics for multinational firms while most companies have basic policies on employee integrity confidentiality and sexual harassment relatively few have established policies regarding bribery exploitive child labor human rights violations and other issues they may encounter in the global market place drake 1998 until recently very few companies had truly global operations consequently little attention was paid to the issue of ethical guidelines in a global context recent changes in international markets have led to an explosion of corporations with global operations and the need for a global code of ethics has grown commensurately in this paper we explore the issue of global business ethics and attempt to provide a framework for future discussion we also examine some of the unique difficulties surrounding the development of any set of global business standards key among these difficulties is the issue of competing ethical values in home and host countries

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

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

an analytical approximate solution to the problem of precautionary savings abstract this paper considers the problem of precautionary savings for an expected utility specification with finite horizon the exact solution is known for only a few cases numerical methods have limited applications because of bellman s curse of dimensionality this paper derives a simple analytical approximate solution for a general specification of the felicity function which is linear in the variance of the innovations on human wealth numerically the approximation is very accurate for realistic values of the parameters of the problem

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

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

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

oil extraction and poverty reduction in the niger delta a critical examination of partnership initiatives the combination of corporate community conflicts and oil transnational corporations tncs rhetoric about being socially responsible has meant that the issue of community development and poverty reduction have recently moved from the periphery to the heart of strategic business thinking within the nigerian oil industry as a result oil tncs have increasingly responded to this challenge by adopting partnership strategies as a means to contribute to poverty reductions in their host communities as well as secure their social licence to operate this paper critically examines the strengths and weaknesses of the different community development partnership cdps initiatives employed by shell exxon mobil and total to contribute to poverty reduction within their host communities in the niger delta nigeria drawing on empirical data and critical analysis the paper argues that while the cdp initiatives by spdc mpn and epnl have the potential to contribute to community development the failure to integrate negative injunction duties into existing partnerships means that the partnerships make no difference to how oil tncs conduct their core business operation consequently cdps have had limited positive impact on poverty reduction in the niger delta the paper concludes by examining the implications of the emerging issues for partnership and poverty reduction

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

on the severity of economic downturns lessons from cross country evidence abstract we measure the severity of recessions as a function of their amplitude and duration within a quantile regression framework we assess what causes economic downturns to be more or less severe we find that the most severe downturns have striking similarities regarding cumulated domestic credit and large current account deficits

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

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

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

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

when and where does foreign direct investment generate positive spillovers a meta analysis local firms may attract productivity spillovers from foreign investors yet these vary with local firms awareness capability and motivation to react to foreign entry in consequence spillovers vary across countries at different levels of economic development we apply competitive dynamics theory to analyze these contextual moderators of spillovers and test hypotheses thus derived in a meta analysis of the empirical literature on spillovers our analysis suggests a curvilinear relationship between spillovers and the host country s level of development in terms of income institutional framework and human capital

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

is the 2007 u s sub prime financial crisis so different an international historical comparison the first major financial crisis of the twentyfirst century involves esoteric instruments unaware regulators and skittish investors it also follows a well trodden path laid down by centuries of financial folly is the special prob lem of sub prime mortgages really different our examination of the longer historical record which is part of a larger effort on cur rency and debt crises finds stunning qualitative and quantitative parallels across a number of standard financial crisis indicators to name a few the run up in us equity and housing prices that graciela l kaminsky and reinhart 1999 find to be the best leading indicators of crisis in countries experiencing large capital inflows closely tracks the average of the previous 18 post world war ii banking crises in industrial countries so too does the inverted v shape of real growth in the years prior to the crisis despite widespread concern about the effects on national debt of the tax cuts of the early 2000s the run up in us public debt is actually some what below the average of other crisis episodes in contrast the pattern of us current account deficits is markedly worse at this juncture the book is still open on how the current dislocations in the united states will play out the precedent found in the aftermath of other episodes suggests that the strains can be quite severe depending especially on the initial degree of trauma to the financial system and to some extent the policy response the average drop in real per capita output growth is over 2 percent and it typically takes two years to return to trend for the five most catastrophic cases which include episodes in finland japan

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

social capital structural holes and the formation of an industry network the formation of a network is determined by the opposition of two forces the first is the reproduction of network structure as a general social resource for network members the second is the alteration of network structure by entrepreneurs for their own benefit the idea of reproduction is a conventional one in organizational sociology but has taken on increased importance due to the work of bourdieu and coleman in contrast burt stresses the entrepreneurship of individual agents in exploiting structural holes that lie between constrained positions though complementary the theories of social capital and structural holes have fundamentally different implications for network formation this paper investigates these theories by examining empirically the formation of the interorganizational network among biotechnology firms we propose that network structure determines the frequency with which a new biotechnology firm or startup establishes new relationships network structure indicates both where soci

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

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

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

dissecting the cycle a methodological investigation following burns and mitchell we define the cycle as a pattern in the level of aggregate economic activity an algorithm to locate turning points is developed as is a new measure of pro cyclicality a link between turning points and the moments of the series is established thereby providing the statistical foundation that burns and mitchell s work lacked using these tools we are able to dissect cycles in terms of the contributions made by trend growth volatility serial correlation and non linear effects we dissect several models and find little evidence that certain non linear effects are important to the nature of business cycles

social exclusion and transgenic technology the case of brazilian agriculture many argue that transgenic technology will have wide ranging implications for farmers in developing nations a key concern is that competencies may be destroyed by predominantly foreign multinational transgenic technologies exacerbating problems of social exclusion in the case of subsistence farmers conversely those that fail to adopt the technology may become uncompetitive particularly in commodity based export markets drawing on interview data conducted in brazil and supporting data collected in north america europe and china we found that the impact of transgenic technology varies it has less impact on farmers that adapt the products to their crop systems and environment and greater negative implications for less formally educated subsistence farmers in consequence of both complexity and compatibility earlier attempts at industrializing agriculture through technological innovation led to vastly improved agricultural output and exports but the benefits of productivity was not equitably distributed d lee 2005 american journal of agricultural economics 87 5 1325 1334 nor was it designed to meet specific local environmental and socioeconomic farmer conditions exacerbating social exclusion multinationals attempting to introduce transgenic technology without considering the broader social and ethical implications will invite resistance we discuss the implications for policy makers multinationals and small scale farmers

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

globalization and labor conditions working conditions and worker rights in a global economy this book explains how three major mechanisms of globalization international trade international migration and the activities of multinational companies have altered working conditions and labor rights around the world during the 20th century drawing on analyses of a database on international labor conditions assembled for this project and a growing research literature on globalization and labor conditions the book finds that trade migration and multinational companies are associated with improvements in world labor conditions

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

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

how does future income affect current consumption this paper tests a straightforward implication of the basic life cycle model of consumption that current consumption depends on expected lifetime income the paper projects future income for a panel of households and finds that consumption is closely related to projected current income but unrelated to predictable changes in income however future income uncertainty has an important effect consumers facing greater income uncertainty consume less the results are consistent with buffer stock models of consumption like those of deaton 1991 or carroll 1992a 1992b where precautionary motives greatly reduce the willingness of prudent consumers to consume out of uncertain future income

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

who profits from innovation in global value chains a study of the ipod and notebook pcs in an era when new ideas are brought to the market by global value networks of specialists rather than by one company a key question is who captures the most value from innovation in such a structure and why this paper addresses the question of who benefits from innovation in global value chains by looking at specific computer and electronics products we apply a novel industry studies methodology for measuring the distribution of financial value across the supply chains for two models from apple s ipod family and notebook pc models from lenovo and hewlett packard hp these are all examples of globally innovated products combining technologies from the u s japan and other countries and assembled in china our analysis shows that the gross margins of apple for its high end ipod products are generally higher than those earned by hp and lenovo for notebook pcs although not so high as to be considered supernormal a key reason for the difference is that apple s control of the core software proprietary standards and complementary infrastructure of the ipod enables it to retain greater profits whereas a large share of the pc industry profits are siphoned off to microsoft and intel who control key technical standards consistent with teece 1986 our results confirm the importance of stages of technical evolution appropriability regimes and complementary assets as determinants of profiting from innovation on the other hand we find that manufacturing has become commoditized and is no longer a key to profiting from innovation in final electronic products also contrary to recent suggestions in the literature we find no evidence of a causal link between product and industry architectures instead there is a vast electronics industry architecture that can easily support product level value chain configurations ranging from modular to integrated

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

how to promote clusters policy experiences from latin america abstract in this paper we propose to differentiate between three types of clusters when it comes to formulating cluster oriented policies in latin america survival clusters of micro and small scale enterprises owe their existence more to unfavorable macroeconomic conditions and less to entrepreneurial competence and dynamism their competitive potential is limited support measures should mainly aim at improving the conditions for survival since these clusters are important in creating employment opportunities the impetus should be to break through the low skills low investment vicious circle more advanced and differentiated mass producers have been flourishing in the import substitution era but are coming under enormous pressure with the transition to open economies in these clusters the main challenge is to create an environment that stimulates and supports learning innovation and constant upgrading clusters of transnational corporations are typically dominated by foreign firms not only at the final assembly stage but also in parts production these clusters often are showcases of best practice manufacturing this can be used to stimulate the upgrading of domestic firms notably by involving them in the supply chain of transnationals

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

determinants of horizontal spillovers from fdi evidence from a large meta analysis summary the voluminous empirical research on horizontal productivity spillovers from foreign investors to domestic firms has yielded mixed results in this paper we collect 1 205 estimates of spillovers and examine which factors influence spillover magnitude our results suggest that horizontal spillovers are on average zero but that their sign and magnitude depend systematically on the characteristics of the domestic economy and foreign investors foreign investors who form joint ventures with domestic firms and who come from countries with a modest technology edge create the largest benefits for the domestic economy

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

consumption puzzles and precautionary savings abstract when marginal utility is convex agents accumulate savings as a precautionary measure against labor income eventualities this paper shows that precautionary savings can go a long way in making the excess growth excess smoothness and excess sensitivity features of consumption consistent with the stochastic processes of labor income observed in the u s at the microeconomic level

do spillover benefits grow with rising foreign direct investment an empirical examination of the case of china using data from the chinese manufacturing industry for 2001 this article examines the impacts of foreign presence on the performance of locally owned chinese firms our key result supports a curvilinear functional form foreign penetration rates in excess of just about two thirds of industrial capital are associated with declining spillover benefits indicating the dominance of negative spillovers the curvilinear relationship is found to be particularly strong in labour intensive industries contrasting with a standard linear relationship in technology intensive sectors the finding of the complexity of spillover effects challenges the laissez faire view that the more inward foreign direct investment fdi the better and that inward fdi into all types of domestic industry is equally valuable in terms of performance benefits our findings argue for policy measures to strengthen domestically owned chinese industry to provide effective competition to foreign firms and to absorb the benefits from spill

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

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

consumption beyond certainty equivalence this paper discusses the recent research on the consumption function that has attempted to relax the assumption of certainty equivalence while there remain many open questions both theoretical and empirical it is clear that the assumption of certainty equivalence can be misleading under more plausible specifications of preferences toward risk uncertainty lowers the level of consumption increases the expected rate of growth of consumption and increases the response of consumption to news about income moreover changes in the amount of uncertainty are a potentially important source of fluctuations in consumption this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

corporate social responsibility in global value chains where are we now and where are we going we outline the drivers main features and conceptual underpinnings of the compliance paradigm we then use a similar structure to investigate the drivers main features and conceptual underpinnings of the cooperative paradigm for working with csr in global value chains we argue that the measures proposed in the new cooperation paradigm are unlikely to alter power relationships in global value chains and bring about sustained improvements in workers conditions in developing country export industries after that we provide a critical appraisal of the potential and limits of the cooperative paradigm we summarize our findings and we outline avenues for research purchasing practices and labor standard noncompliance csr capacity building among local suppliers and improved csr monitoring by local resources in the developing world

the failure of a socially responsive gold mining mnc in el salvador ramifications of ngo mistrust in july 2008 pacific rim mining a socially responsive canadian gold mining multinational corporation mnc with 77 million invested in el salvador experienced a 30 decline in stock price when it suspended exploration drilling for gold there in april 2009 the company filed a lawsuit against the government of el salvador through central american free trade agreement to recover its investments plus damages this corporate failure is explored based on 1 four globalization economic development models 2 the social political and economic history of el salvador 3 the el salvador gold mining industry and 4 social movement reactions to international mining companies mncs must carefully engage social justice nongovernment organizations when pursuing economic development projects to ensure a nation s successful integration into the global economy

second third and higher order consumption functions a precautionary tale abstract no analytic solution exists to the consumption problem of an agent who faces uninsurable income shocks though perturbation methods can be used to derive approximate solutions this paper shows it is straightforward to extend the well known second order consumption function to third order however for every n there is a threshold interest rate below which the nth order correction diverges this puts a bound on the accuracy that can be achieved with perturbation methods even a second order consumption function can perform spectacularly worse than a zeroth order function that disregards precautionary saving and this cannot be rectified by going to higher orders

international exchanges as the basis for conceptualizing ethics in international business extant business ethics literature available for application to international business demonstrates some variety but no comprehensive principles while the domains of both international business and business ethics are expanding they are also becoming increasingly divergent at the same time the primacy accorded to the multinational enterprise in both fields ignores the socio cultural and political embeddedness of economic activities and multiple agencies in international business individuals firms nations etc some international business theorists have offered the view that international exchange should be the central building block for theories on international business in this paper it is argued that international exchange could be the fundamental unit of analysis for international business ethics as well the potentially unifying features of exchange norms and ethical principles leads the author to develop some core exchange ethics principles that are tested on three recent international business practices

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

precautionary saving and the timing of taxes this paper analyzes the effects of government debt and income taxes on consumption and saving in a world of infinitely lived households having uncertain and heterogeneous incomes the special structure of the model allows exact aggregation across households despite incomplete markets the effects of government debt are shown to be substantial roughly comparable to those resulting from finite horizons and crucially dependent on the length of time until the debt is repaid also anticipated changes in taxes are shown to cause anticipated changes in consumption finally an index of fiscal stance is derived

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

on the welfare effects of competition for foreign direct investments abstract this paper investigates welfare effects of subsidy competition for the location of a multinational enterprise one of the competing regions benefits more from the inward investment but in the absence of incentives the multinational s preferred location is the other more advanced region the paper shows that subsidies by making the multinational switch location may increase aggregate welfare if the multinational exports in the absence of incentives the welfare effects of subsidy competition may look very different allowing subsidies attracts the direct investment which otherwise would not take place in one of the two regions further it intensifies competition in the market the paper shows that the welfare increasing role of incentives may be amplified but also that the competition effect by hurting domestic firms may cancel out any other positive role of incentives

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

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

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

labour relations and ethical dilemmas of extractive mnes in nigeria south africa and zambia 1950 2000 this article examines the ethical characteristics of mnes employee relations in developing countries specifically it addresses various ethical issues relating to labour relations and trade unions in extractive industries in nigeria south africa and zambia data collected in these countries indicate that criticisms against mnes relating to labour issues and labour practices in developing countries are not lessening the discussion is lent focus and direction through the analysis of critical incidents from the perspectives of various stakeholders government oil and mining companies and leaders of trade unions tensions over pay expatriate employments as against the locals negotiation rights and employees well being are evident the argument advanced is that the mnes operating in the extractive industries of africa will have to improve their relations with local employees in order to bridge the legitimacy gaps that exist an improved mutual understanding between the mnes and trade unions is required for both actors to have a smooth working relationship

precautionary saving in the small and in the large the theory of precautionary saving is shown to be isomorphic to the arrow pratt theory of risk aversion making possible the application of a large body of knowledge about risk aversion to precautionary saving and more generally to the theory of optimal choice under risk in particular a measure of the strength of the precautionary saving motive analogous to the arrow pratt measure of risk aversion is used to establish a number of new propositions about precautionary saving and to give a new interpretation of the dreze modigliani substitution effect copyright 1990 by the econometric society

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