The financialization of the non‐financial corporation. A critique to the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis

One aspect in which non‐financial corporations (NFCs) are said to be financialized is that they have been increasingly engaged in financial accumulation from which they derive a growing proportion of financial income. This is what we call the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis. In this article, we show that the evidence used to sustain it, in the U.S. setting, has to be reconsidered. Our findings show that, contrary to the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis, financial income averages 2.5% of NFCs’ total income since the 1980s, oscillating since the beginnings of the 1990s until 2005 and then declining. In terms of assets, some of the alleged financial assets might actually reflect other activities in which NFCs have been increasingly engaged, such as tax avoidance, internationalization of production, activities refocusing and M&As.     

跨国公司理财环境问题研究

理财环境是跨国公司生存和发展的空间。跨国公司的理财环境具有整体性或系统性、层次性、多变性的特点。任何一个跨国公司的理财活动都受国内和国际环境的影响。东道国对跨国公司的影响主要有政治和法律环境、经济环境、社会和自然环境、技术环境等。而受国际环境影响的主要因素有国际法律环境、金融环境和多国经济组织等。     

跨国公司研发投资技术外溢效应探究:浙江案例

近年来,浙江吸收的跨国投资在促进产业结构升级、推动经济增长方式转型方面具有独特的优势。本文综合运用相关理论,通过实证研究,对跨国公司研发投资的技术外溢效应进行了实证分析。本文创新点在于,外溢效应的大小,更多地取决于本土企业竞争力的强弱,只有不断增强本地企业的技术创新能力,才能吸收跨国企业的技术外溢效应。     

跨国公司撤资研究的述评与展望

随着跨国公司不断地在全球范围内进行直接投资和调整布局,由此引发的撤资行为逐渐受到一定的关注。尽管现有研究成果十分丰富,但作为国际商务活动的跨国公司撤资行为仍然没有得到应有重视和充分解释。本文从跨国公司撤资的含义与类型、动机与原因、影响与对策等方面对国内外现有研究进行梳理,评述了相关研究的进展与不足,并提出未来应该从微观层面对撤资行为进行多学科交叉研究,构建完整的跨国公司撤资理论体系。     

建筑企业国际工程总承包的造价管理与成本控制

随着我国整体建筑实力的不断增强,我国的建筑企业已越来越多的走向国际建筑市场。如何在国际建筑项目中做好造价管理与成本控制,实现建筑企业的利润最大化,是所有走出国门的建筑企业面临的共同问题。本文作者从国际工程总承包业务角度,结合自身的实际经验谈谈在进行国际工程总承包过程中如何合理的进行造价管理与成本控制。     

Learning Sustainability? Absorptive capacities as drivers of sustainability in MNCs’ purchasing

MNCs are expected to operate in a sustainable fashion. Implementation of sustainability requires the ability to acknowledge external (sustainability-related) knowledge, and to apply it in intra-company activities such as purchasing. We focus on absorptive capacities as potential drivers of sustainability, and investigate the effect that a purchasing function’s capacity to absorb and process knowledge has on social and environmental sustainability practices, and subsequently on economic performance in purchasing. We compare MNCs and non-MNCs using a structural equation model of a large set of survey data from four European countries and find that only realized absorptive capacities impact sustainability practices in purchasing and this impact is smaller in MNCs than in other companies. We suggest that companies respond to the demand for sustainability by strengthening their implementation capabilities: the potential to acquire and transform knowledge within a purchasing function is less relevant, and what matters is its application.     

Aligning corporate transfer intentions and subsidiary HRM practice implementation in multinational corporations

We study HRM practice implementation in subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) and diverge from extant research by focusing on alignment, which we conceptualize as the degree to which subsidiary implementation of HRM practices corresponds with the subsidiary-specific transfer intentions of corporate headquarters. In explaining alignment we examine different aspects of the headquarters–subsidiary relationship, namely, the extent of formal control, interpersonal relationships and subsidiary strategic HRM capabilities. Based on a sample of 105 subsidiaries from 12 Nordic MNCs, the results highlight the importance of expatriates, trust and the strategic HRM capabilities of the subsidiary HR function. We conduct post hoc analyses to shed further light on (i) the relationship between our independent variables and the two separate components of alignment – corporate intentions and subsidiary implementation, and (ii) two different types of misalignment – excessive and insufficient.     

再论我国公司法人格否认制度

10年前的2005年我国在新颁布的《公司法》中大胆的吸收了西方公司法中的一项重要制度，即公司法人格否认制度。该制度的产生是为了规避在股东有限责任的背景下股东滥用有限责任从而损害债权人的利益的问题。我国企业在进行了公司制的改革后，也同样存在着股东可能滥用有限责任的问题，因此在公司法中规定法人格否认是必须的。但是，从10来的司法实践来看，公司法人格否认制度还没有能够完全发挥其限制股东滥用有限责任，保护无辜债权人的立法目的。本文针对在司法实践中存在的问题，在理论上提出一些建议，以求进一步完善公司法人格否认制度。     

我国金融资产管理公司实行股份制改革的思考

本文探讨了资产管理公司在体制、机制等方面存在的问题与不足,探索性的提出中国金融资产管理公司的发展方向,即实行股份制改革,实现投资主体多元化,将金融资产管理公司转变为“产权清晰、权责明确、政企分开、管理科学”的、以市场规则为原则的市场化经营性公司,并论证其必然性与可行性。     

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.