What Do We Know about Trade Promotions? Contributions,Limitations, and Further Research

The trade promotion area remains seriously under-researched compared with its share of the overall marketing mix budget. This review attempts to provide an up-to-date account of what we know about trade promotions. For eight major topics we elaborate on what that topic means in the context of trade promotions, why it has been deemed important, what empirical findings have emerged in that area, and proposeareas for future research.     

Clusters,Chains and Compliance: Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance in Football Manufacturing in South Asia

A recent concern in the debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries relates to the tension between demands for CSR compliance found in many global value chains (GVCs) and the search for locally appropriate responses to these pressures. In this context, an emerging and relatively understudied area of interest relates to small firm industrial clusters. Local clusters offer the potential for local joint action, and thus a basis for improving local compliance on CSR through collective monitoring and local governance. This article explores the interrelationship between global governance, exercised through GVC ties, and local governance, via cluster institutions, in ensuring compliance with CSR pressures. It undertakes a comparative analysis of two leading export-oriented football manufacturing clusters in South Asia that have both faced common challenges on child labour. The article shows that both forms vertical and horizontal governance have played a part in shaping the response of the two clusters on child labour. Moreover, these two distinct forms of governance have also led to quite differentiated outcomes in terms of forms of work organization and child labour monitoring. This raises broader questions on how global CSR demands can locally be better embedded and the conditions under which football stitchers labour in these new work forms.     

The Completion Rate of IMF Programmes: What We Know,Don’t Know and Need to Know

Although a great deal of attention has been paid to IMF conditionality and to the effects of IMF programmes, relatively little attention has been paid to their completion rate. However, the record is that the clear majority of Fund programmes are uncompleted. Is this a cause for concern and why is it that the completion rate is low? In principle, a number of factors could be at work. Gaining a better understanding of what these are should allow policy reform at the IMF to improve performance. While there are things that we do not know and need to know about programme completion, we know enough to delineate the broad direction that policy should take.     

Ethics in International Value Chain Networks: The Case of Telenor in Bangladesh

The spotlight in the CSR discourse has traditionally been focused on multinational corporations (MNCs). This paper builds on a burgeoning stream of literature that has accorded recent attention to the relevance and importance of integrating small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the CSR debate. The paper begins by an overview of the CSR literature and a synthesis of relevant evidence pertaining to the peculiarities and special relational attributes of SMEs in the context of CSR. Noting the thin theoretical grounding in the literature on offer, the paper then presents relevant CSR theoretical perspectives that could be useful in conducting further research on SMEs. In light of this framework, the paper outlines the findings of an empirical study highlighting the peculiar CSR orientations of SMEs in a developing country context in comparison to some of their MNC counterparts. The study is qualitative in nature, capitalizing on a comparative research design to highlight differences in CSR orientations between SMEs and MNCs. The findings are presented and implications are drawn regarding the peculiar relational attributes of SMEs in the context of CSR generally, and developing countries more specifically, and how this inclination can be further nurtured and leveraged.     

Clustering as an organizational response to capital market inefficiency: evidence from microenterprises in Ethiopia

Absence of a well-developed capital market has been listed as a key obstacle to industrialization in developing countries in the development literature. In this paper, we show that industrial clusters, through specialization and division of labor, can ease the financial constraints of microenterprises even in the absence of a well-functioning capital market. By using data from more than 17,000 microenterprises in four sectors and four regions of Ethiopia, we find that clustering lowers capital entry barrier by reducing the initial investment required to start a business. This effect is found to be significantly larger for microenterprises investing in districts with high capital market inefficiency, indicating the importance of clustering as an organizational response to a credit constrained environment. The findings highlight the importance of cluster-based industrial activities as an alternative method of propagating industrialization when local conditions do not allow easy access to credit.     

Configuration and Development of Alliance Portfolios: A Comparison of Same-Sector and Cross-Sector Partnerships

This paper explores the intersection between three processes associated with globalisation. First, the rise of emerging economies like China, Brazil and India, the so-called ‘Rising Powers’, and their potential to define the contours of globalisation, global production arrangements and global governance in the twenty-first century. Second, the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals in the shaping of global trade rules and industrial practices. Third, the significance of small firm clusters as critical sites of industrial competitiveness. Some of the most significant examples of successful, innovative and internationally competitive small firm clusters from the developing world are located in the ‘Rising Powers’ and cluster promotion is a core element of national industrial policy in some of these countries. There is also evidence of engagement by clustered actors with corporate social responsibility goals around labour and environmental impacts. While these three processes have been separately studied there has been no attempt to explore their intersections. This paper addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of secondary data, and a detailed reading of the literature, on CSR and clusters in Brazil, China and India. It assesses the evidence on small firm clusters in the Rising Power economies and considers how these Rising Power clusters engage with CSR goals pertaining to labour, social and environmental standards. It argues for a greater focus on the formal and informal institutional context, termed the ‘social contract’, in explaining divergent experiences and practices observed across these countries. This raises important questions for future academic and policy research on clusters, CSR and the Rising Powers. The paper concludes by outlining a research agenda to explore the local and global consequences of the relationship between Rising Power clusters and international labour and environmental standards.     

Responsibility and Informal CSR in Formal Cameroonian SMEs

In this article, we explore the implicit conceptions of business ethics and social responsibility of owners?managers of small and medium enterprises (SME) in Cameroon. While using a hermeneutical approach, our main objective is to clarify how Sub-Saharan African business people themselves understand and define corporate responsibility in their particular economic and political environment. Our aim is not to deliver an empirical study of business practices and management behavior in SMEs. We wish to discuss which responsibilities they themselves judge to be relevant and which can legitimately be attributed to them by third parties. Secondly, we relate our findings to other empirical work on SMEs, in Africa and elsewhere. It is shown that there are similarities with the way in which SMEs in Europe interpret their responsibility, but also striking differences. Further, we relate our findings to some theoretical controversies around corporate social responsibility (CSR) in SMEs, to questions about evaluation tools for CSR in the SME context, and to the role of CSR with respect to poverty alleviation in developing countries.     

The autocratic advantage: Internationalization of state-owned multinationals

We offer a theoretical extension and empirical analysis of home country autocracy as a key determinant for the internationalization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Building on international business and international political economy theory, we argue that the pursuit of a mercantilist domestic agenda by autocratic governments is influential upon the magnitude and direction of state-owned multinational enterprises’ (SOMNC) outward investment via acquisition. We conclude that autocratic home countries are ‘re-purposing’ SOEs to pursue international nationalist objectives – and that autocracies can do so more effectively and purposefully than democracies, by maintaining effective control over their SOMNCs.     

Conceptualization of CSR Among Muslim Consumers in Dubai: Evolving from Philanthropy to Ethical and Economic Orientations

Many existing studies postulate that in developing economies philanthropy tends to dominate in the CSR orientation delivered by organizations and expected by local populations. To assess this in the emerging economy of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, we conducted a preliminary investigation of how locals are responding to the growing number of CSR initiatives that are being implemented in the Emirate. Moreover, given that scholars have argued that Islamic principles of philanthropy should guide CSR initiatives in Muslim countries, we also consider if our Emirati respondents connect CSR with Islamic philanthropy. Results from our survey of 267 local Muslim consumers in Dubai indicate that CSR is not typically equated with philanthropy. In addition, respondents displayed an appreciation of the economic benefits that CSR can generate. The implication is that organizations in Dubai no longer need to base their CSR on the platform of Islamic philanthropy as many scholars have argued. Our findings are significant for the wider Gulf region in that they suggest that in wealthy emerging nations, CSR may not be predominantly interpreted as the corporate philanthropy which is needed in poorer developing economies for the provision of infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and housing, and which in some Muslim contexts is also implemented because of local religious values.     

Gaining legitimacy through CSR: an analysis of Turkey's 30 largest corporations

Grounded in institutional theory, this study provides an overview of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of Turkey's 30 largest corporations through a thematic content analysis. The study focuses on the G‐20 member Turkey and investigates the influence of isomorphism mechanisms on the adoption of CSR initiatives in a developing country context. The aim of this study is to integrate Carroll's CSR dimensions, the type of CSR engagement and coercive, mimetic and normative isomorphism mechanisms proposed by institutional theory. Through this integration the study makes a unique contribution to the literature by providing a different perspective. Findings reveal industry characteristics do not influence the selection of CSR initiatives. While business‐to‐business companies focus on CSR activities linked to their core business functions, business‐to‐consumer companies focus on CSR initiatives that are more discretionary, varied and philanthropic. In addition, findings show that multinational corporations implement CSR initiatives at the global level rather than focusing on local needs.     

What Do We Know about Success and Failure of Mergers?

Collecting the most important results of about 80 empirical merger studies, this study condenses the bewildering spectrum of results to 18 stylized facts. Most important, no more than a quarter of the mergers increase consumer welfare; another quarter increase profits at the cost of consumers; half of the mergers reduce the value of the firm. Targets' shareholders win, while bidders' shareholders break even upon the announcement of a merger, but lose significantly in the long run. Seen relatively, horizontal mergers fare best, especially if they are focus-increasing. Cash-financed mergers fare better than stock-financed and strategic mergers fare better than financial ones. Confronting the stylized facts with existing merger theory reveals some major paradoxes; confronting them with existing competition policy reveals the need for a modification and intensification, as mergers increase concentration, and corporate policy strives towards still higher concentration. As a summary ten lessons are extracted on what we may have learnt, and on what is still open.     

Corporate social responsibility for poverty alleviation: An integrated research framework

There is a growing demand by United Nations development agencies and governments for a higher engagement of firms in sustainable development goals, including that of eradicating poverty. Nevertheless, the social issue of poverty has not traditionally been covered by firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. In addition, there is a need to integrate theories in order to better explain pro‐poor CSR in developing countries. Relying on a review of both conceptual and empirical research articles on CSR for poverty alleviation, this study contributes to the CSR research agenda by proposing an integrated research framework for assessing and explaining a firm's contribution to poverty alleviation. Besides discussing the existing evidence, the following issues are critically analysed with the general purpose of obtaining the framework and suggesting avenues for future research: the assessment of a firm's contribution to poverty alleviation, types of pro‐poor CSR initiatives that could be adopted by firms, and the factors influencing a firm's contribution. The framework, which intends to be useful for future research, can also assist the United Nations to increase the firms’ contribution to its alleviating poverty sustainable development goal.     

Exploring the relationship between employees’ CSR perceptions and intention to emigrate: Evidence from a developing country

This study contributes to the burgeoning research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the individual level of analysis, in a hitherto largely neglected developing country context. Using survey information collected from 297 employees in public and private enterprises in Kosovo, this study examines how and to what extent employees’ perceptions of their employer's CSR activities are associated with their intention to emigrate. Applying a needs-based framework, this research provides evidence that employees’ perceptions of CSR are positively related to the meaningfulness of their work and job satisfaction and negatively related to intention to emigrate. Additionally, results confirm that the association between CSR perceptions and emigration intention is mediated by the meaningfulness of work and job satisfaction. From a practical point of view, this research should encourage private and public enterprises in developing countries to enhance and extend their CSR engagement.     

Entrepreneurship: The Role of Clusters Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Evidence from Germany

This paper is about the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship at the regional level. Defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new organisations and clusters as a geographically proximate group of interconnected firms and associated institutions in related industries, this paper aims to answer three research questions : first, do clusters matter to entrepreneurship at the regional level? Second, if clusters are associated with different levels of entrepreneurship, what explains those differences? Third, what do the answers to the previous questions imply for academics and policy makers? To answer these questions, this paper distinguishes between clusters and industrial agglomerations and advances a theoretical model and empirical research to explain the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship at the regional level. This paper uses the 97 German planning regions as units of analysis to test the hypotheses. Using hypotheses testing and OLS fixed-effects model, this paper finds that clusters do have an impact on entrepreneurship at the regional level, but industrial agglomerations do not. Implications for academics and policy makers and suggestions for future research are given in the concluding section.     

CSR Performance in Emerging Markets Evidence from Mexico

Although interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets has increased in recent years, most research still focuses on developed countries. The scant literature on the topic, which traditionally suggested that CSR was relatively underdeveloped in emerging markets, has recently explored the context specificity, suggesting that it is different and reflects the specific social and political background. This would particularly apply to local companies, not so much to foreign subsidiaries of multinationals active in emerging markets. Thus far, empirical research that systematically documents a range of CSR activities of local companies and their performance has been scarce. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted among companies in the Mexican auto industry. CSR performance was investigated across three dimensions: environmental, labor, and community, using measures from existing research and global, ‘Western’ standards of practice, to identify the type of CSR activities and the level of CSR performance that exists, if at all, in the emerging-market context. Results show that local companies do engage in the type of CSR activities commonly associated with CSR in developed countries. To the extent that comparisons could be made, our findings also indicate that CSR activities and levels among the sample are comparable to what is known about CSR in developed-country settings. Moreover, six of the nine CSR dimensions are intercorrelated, which suggests that CSR in the Mexican auto parts industry is more structural than incidental.     

Corporate social responsibility in emerging market economies: Determinants,consequences, and future research directions

The last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) worldwide by corporations, investors, policy makers, and researchers across different disciplines. This paper is part of a Special Issue devoted to CSR practices of firms in emerging market economies (EMEs). It complements prior research focusing mainly on developed countries. We begin with an assessment of CSR practices in EMEs, and examine their determinants and performance implications. We then review key findings in the empirical CSR literature, including studies published in the Emerging Markets Review Special Issue. We conclude by describing pertinent avenues for future research.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Social Enterprise

In this article, we contend that due to their size and emphasis upon addressing external social concerns, the corporate relationship between social enterprises, social awareness and action is more complex than whether or not these organisations engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). This includes organisations that place less emphasis on CSR as well as other organisations that may be very proficient in CSR initiatives, but are less successful in recording practices. In this context, we identify a number of internal CSR markers that may be applied to measuring the extent to which internal CSR practices are being observed. These considerations may be contrasted with the evidence that community based CSR activities is often well developed in private sector small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) (Observatory of European SMEs, 2002), a situation which may be replicated in social enterprises especially those that have grown from micro-enterprises embedded in local communities. We place particular emphasis upon the implications for employee management. Underpinning our position is the Aristotelian-informed capabilities approach, a theory of human development and quality of life, developed by Sen (1992; 1999) and Nussbaum (1999) which has been developed further, in an organisational context, (e.g., Cornelius, 2002); Cornelius and Gagnon, 2004; Gagnon and Cornelius, 1999; Vogt, 2005. We contend that the capabilities approach offers additional insights into CSR in social enterprises in general and internal CSR activity in particular. Our article concludes with proposals for future research initiatives and reflections upon social enterprise development from a capabilities perspective.