The scope of corporate social responsibility in networked multinational enterprises

The extent of corporate social responsibility of a multinational enterprise along a global production system or chain is contested. Legal approaches highlight ownership, causation, and awareness. The stakeholder approach broadens responsibility but fails to address the directness of linkages. Adopting a social network perspective to examine international production within modern global factory systems, we argue that the extent of responsibility of the lead firm is impacted by all activities and participants in the chain. The full extent of responsibility is likely to be determined by whether indirect partners are exclusive or non-exclusive. Global factory systems, while contributing to geographical, ownership, and task fragmentation, significantly amplify linkages, interactions, and awareness implying a concomitant increase in corporate social responsibility when viewed from a social network perspective.     

Beyond cops and robbers: The contextual challenge driving the multinational corporation public crisis in China and Russia

Entering the new century, foreign Fortune 500 companies operating in China and Russia have encountered an increasing number of public crises concerning various social and environmental issues. The public crisis refers to an unexpected, non-routine, and media-exposed event in which affected stakeholders (e.g., community members, employees, customers) charge that a company has compromised their interests. Although many of these crises involved the misdeeds of multinational corporations (MNCs), the story is beyond catching baddies. Instead, there are contextual challenges rooted in the social, political, and market environments of China and Russia that drive the occurrence of the public crisis regardless of MNC misdeeds. Considering the institutional change and stakeholder growth in these countries, it is increasingly important for MNCs to understand and effectively deal with these challenges. This article provides insights to MNCs and researchers in three ways. First, the article reveals the patterns of MNC crises in the two countries from 2000 to 2011 and presents the variation between the two countries. Second, the article identifies four types of contextual challenges, including the global-national challenge, the social-trust challenge, the institutional-voids challenge, and the normalized-misdeed challenge. Finally, the article discusses the managerial implications of these challenges and recommends tackling strategies.     

浅谈公司治理对企业社会责任的影响

文章从公司的治理研究入手,详细的分析了企业社会责任与公司治理的关系,并有效地进行了内部和外部的治理机制验证,得到企业社会责任的进一步升华.     

Integrity in the corporation: The plight of corporate product advocates

The integrity of corporate product advocates (advertisers and salespersons) is questionable for the same reason the integrity of lawyers is questionable. In both cases the requirements of a professional role inevitably lead to forms of deception. However, the integrity of lawyers has been taken to be a more serious issue than the integrity of product advocates. I consider why this is so, and I conclude that we should pay more attention to the integrity issue in the corporate case. In addition, I consider a parallel set of arguments that purport to justify a lack of integrity among product advocates and lawyers respectively. According to these arguments, a great social good is obtained from the institutions, corporate and legal, of which these persons are essential participants. Against these arguments, I emphasize the overriding importance of integrity, both within institutions and in society at large.     

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。     

The multinational corporation as a coordinated network: Organizing and managing differently

A multinational corporation (MNC) has a number of unique advantages. Of these, the flexibility to operate as a coordinated multinational network places the strategic emphasis on resources and learning. Coordination and integration are needed to provide coherence in resource commitments. Operating as a coordinated multinational network can provide the flexibility needed to implement global strategies. A network organization results in linkages and interrelationships that require organizing and managing differentially. This article focuses on the organizational and managerial characteristics that are needed to operate as a coordinated multinational network. These characteristics include: a strong central leadership role; the flexibility to respond to opportunities; a differentiated, multidimensional focus; distributed, interdependent capabilities; the managerial capacity to achieve coordination; and a collaborative decision-making process. This article also discusses the changes needed in structural mechanisms and systems. Explored are the planning process, performance evaluation and control, information technology/management information systems, and human resource management. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The valdez principles: Implications for corporate social responsibility

The Valdez Principles have been formulated to guide and evaluate corporate conduct towards the environment. While at first glance the code appears to impose enormous new responsibilities on firms, a closer analysis indicates that existing regulations and business practices already require businesses to meet many of the environmental goals sought by its proponents. Likely corporate response to the code is examined against this background and with reference to the experience with other voluntary codes of conduct. It would appear that compliance with the code will yield minimal benefits and non-compliance will impose minimum costs for the environmentally-responsible firm.Joao S. Neves is Associate Professor of Management at Trenton State College where he teaches various courses in Management. A graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Neves has numerous publications in academic and trade journals. His interests include corporate social responsibility and he has contributed to many conferences. Rajib N. Sanyal teaches international management and human resource management at Trenton State College in Trenton, New Jersey. He obtained his Ph. D. from Georgia State University-Atlanta. His writings can be found in International Journal of Value-Based Management, Journal of International Business Studies, and Labor Studies Journal, among others.     

Organizational attention to corporate social responsibility and corporate social performance: the moderating effects of corporate governance

Many studies have explored the antecedents of corporate social performance (CSP), such as institutional forces and stakeholder pressures. However, few studies examine CSP from a socio‐cognitive perspective. To address this research void, this study adopts an attention‐based approach to examine the relationship between managers' attention to social issues and CSP. More important, this study reports that this relationship will be moderated by governance mechanisms that constrain managerial discretion. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, this study provides empirical support for these arguments. Therefore, our study adds new insights to the literature addressing CSP from a socio‐cognitive perspective and speaks to the structural features, both inside and outside organizations, that guide managers' attention.     

The impact of corporate and national cultures on decentralization in multinational corporations

We develop and test a model of multinational corporation (MNC) decentralization in which the allocation of decision rights to subsidiaries is explained by aspects of both internal corporate culture as well as external national cultures. We extend the literature on MNC decentralization by testing the impact of both of these factors as determinants within the same model. Drawing on management control theory as a conceptual platform, we argue that the assignment of decision rights to a subsidiary in the MNC is impacted by corporate innovativeness and shared values, as well by aspects of home and host country cultures. We test our model on a sample of 119 MNC subsidiary managers drawn from a diverse range of industries and locations. The findings provide support to the proposition that corporate innovativeness positively impacts the decision to decentralize, whilst also indicating that home country individualism and host country uncertainty avoidance have a significant influence. The findings challenge established international management logic with respect to shared values—this variable is found to have a negative relationship with decentralization. Overall cultural distance is not found to be significant.     

The kitchen and the multinational corporation: An analysis of the links between the household and global corporations

The paper examines relationships between multinational corporations and the unwaged work women do in their homes. It is argued that far from being a sanctuary, the home has become a dumpsite for unnecessary and unsafe products. Women in North America and the Third World are now dealing with health and safety issues in their neighbourhoods and households. Consciousness of these dangers has resulted in mobilization and the formation of alliances aimed at confronting multinationals and securing more government regulation. The experience of one group of women in a small Ontario community is described. Harriet Rosenberg is Assistant Professor in the Social Science Division at York University. She is the Principal Investigator of a SSHRC Grant for her Aging and Caregiving in an African Population. She is the co-author of Through the Kitchen Window: The Politics of Home and Family, with M. Luxton, Network Basic Series, Garamond Press, Toronto; and co-author with M. FitzGerald of Surviving in the City: Urbanization in the Third World, Oxfam, Toronto.Paper presented at Women and the Invisible Economy Conference, Institute Simone de Beauvoir, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Feb. 22, 1985.     

跨国公司内部贸易对母国竞争力的相关性分析及启示

目前,跨国公司内部贸易的存在与发展,极大地带动了其母国进出口贸易规模的扩大,且由于海外子公司的大量返销行为,带动了母国国内产业结构的升级。应从有效利用其母子公司间的内部贸易,达到公司整体利益的最大化,实现对国内经济的拉动效应等方面得出对中国企业跨国经营的启示。