Corporate sustainability strategies in institutional adversity: Antecedent,outcome, and contingency effects

This study examines (i) how top-level managerial institutional ties drive corporate sustainability strategies of emerging market firms operating under conditions of institutional adversity; (ii) the impact of corporate sustainability strategies on market performance; and (iii) the moderating role of financial resource slack on the relationships between corporate sustainability strategies and market performance. The study builds from institutional development logic and the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. Primary data are collected from 300 firms operating in a major sub-Saharan African market. Findings show that top-level managerial institutional linkages with regulatory national governmental officials, local community leaders, and top managers at other firms drive corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies, which in turn influence market performance. In addition, the findings reveal that financial resource slack strengthens the path between corporate proactive sustainability strategies and market performance, but not the path between corporate responsive sustainability strategies and market performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Going Underground: Banal Nationalism and Subterranean Elements in Argentina’s Falklands/Malvinas Claim

ABSTRACT

This article calls for consideration of underground elements that have been typically overlooked or unseen in debates about the nation and banal nationalism. The materialities and (re)presentation of elements such as earth, sand and rock have the capacity to be affective, contentious, to embody intimate memories of conflict and to reinforce national territorial aspirations. These subterranean elements have been ‘nationalised’, bathymetrically mapped and deployed by Argentina to make claims over territories in the South Atlantic, including the Falklands/Malvinas. Rather than re-examining these technical procedures undertaken by the state and analysing what they mean for the geopolitics of the South Atlantic, this article explores how the subterranean is manifest in everyday reproductions of nationalism and national memory in Argentina. It presents insights from research undertaken in a range of different environments in Argentina, encompassing museums, veterans’ centres and public monuments, to demonstrate how the presence of the elemental in the everyday can reinforce and also disrupt banal (territorial) nationalism. Furthermore it argues for conceptualisation of the elemental as part of a relational network that links matter, national citizenries and territories together. The conclusion posits that the subterranean elements and their (re)presentation are essential to understanding the materialisation of banal nationalism as part of the everyday reproduction and rejection of claims to ‘national’ territory.     

La transición de Tailandia en las esferas laboral y sanitaria

La economía de Tailandia ha cambiado rápidamente de la agricultura a la industria manufacturera y el sector de los servicios, pero el ordenamiento del mercado laboral y la representación de los trabajadores son mucho menos consistentes que en los países desarrollados, donde hubo una transición más lenta y gradual hace ya décadas. Los autores estudian el robustecimiento de las políticas y la legislación tailandesas en el ámbito de la seguridad y la salud en el trabajo, que obedece a las normas internacionales y a la nueva Constitución democrática. Por último, identifican los principales retos pendientes, entre ellos el cumplimiento de la ley y una medición mejor de los efectos del trabajo en la salud física y mental.     

Counterproductive work behavior as protest

We suggest that counterproductive work behaviors can be viewed as a form of protest in which organizational members express dissatisfaction with or attempt to resolve injustice within the organization. Incorporating the three key predictors (injustice, identity and instrumentality, [Klandermans, B., (1997). The social psychology of protest. Oxford: Blackwell.]) from the protest literature leads us to propose that counterproductive behaviors can be both individual and collective. Crossing this dimension with concepts of organizational and individual deviance leads to a fourfold classification of counterproductive work behaviors.     

Toward a Theory of Reinstatement: Seven Motivations for Reinstatement as Relationship Repair

There is a long, interdisciplinary tradition of examining why organizations remove privileges from members as a part of disciplinary action. In contrast, little is known about why organizations return privileges after disciplinary action has occurred. Nonetheless, such reinstatement is ubiquitous in organizations. This paper provides a starting point for a theory of reinstatement by using the emerging theoretical domain of relationship repair. Treating reinstatement as relationship repair highlights the importance of causal attribution, social equilibrium, relationship structure, and power as means of relationship repair. The paper uses these four bases of relationship repair to develop a series of specific motivations for why managers might reinstate privileges.     

The Strategic Significance of Negative Externalities

Negative externalities have competitive relevance in a market when they have selective impacts – as, for example, when a product in use imposes greater costs on consumers of rival products than on other people. Because managers have discretion over aspects of product design that affect external costs, the externality in such cases may be viewed as a strategic variable. This paper presents evidence of the existence of competitively relevant negative externalities. I introduce a metric for the externality's competitive effect, the external cost elasticity of demand, which I estimate econometrically using data from the motor vehicle industry. Managerial implications are considered. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developmental approaches to B2B virtual communities

This paper analyses the development approaches of four business-to-business (B2B) virtual communities (VCs) and compares them through use of a cross-case analysis. The study indicated that there is no “one size fits all” method for developing VCs and that a structured, rigorous development methodology based on academic research is required in order to successfully create and manage VCs. It also found that the main challenge in creating successful VCs is not that of developing them, but that of developing an engagement and contribution culture.     

Air Pollution and ‘Dirty’ Industries: How and Why Does the Composition of Manufacturing Output Change with Economic Development?

This paper examines the impact on air pollution ofchanges in the composition of manufacturing output indeveloped and developing countries. Pollutionemissions from manufacturing output are estimated ina manner which holds constant the effect of technologyand regulations allowing the impact of compositional changes alone on pollution to beestimated. The paper has three main findings; (1) theinverted-U estimated between per capita income and thepollution intensity of GDP arises due to both thecomposition of manufacturing becoming cleaner and theshare of manufacturing output in GDP falling.Compositional changes alone are not responsible forthe inverted-U between per capita income and percapita emissions; (2) changes to the composition ofmanufacturing output are consistent with the pollutionhaven hypothesis, however there is clear evidence thatrising per capita incomes are associated with afalling income elasticity of demand for `dirty'products. This fact may explain the compositionalchanges that occur with development; (3) in additionto the income elasticity effect, the analysis suggeststhat land prices and to a lesser extent the prices oflabour and capital, determine the proportion of dirtyindustry within a country's manufacturing sector.     

A dance of excellence,accessibility, money and national identity: A discourse analysis of the Royal New Zealand Ballet's website

This paper explores how the Royal New Zealand Ballet's (RNZB's) website is used to construct the organisation's identity. Recent changes to the New Zealand government's cultural policy regarding accessibility, accountability, and funding have seen arts organisations need to consider economic sustainability. We posit that the changing demands placed on elite arts organisations to accommodate both artistic and commercial values may create conflicting messages and tensions that impact on their identity. To explore these tensions, we applied Dryzek's discourse analysis to the RNZB's website. The study uncovered the key entities constructed on the website as the audience, sponsors, and dancers, then considered the power relationships between these entities as well as the explicit and implicit reasons the website had been constructed. The results of the study highlight that the RNZB has chosen to emphasise its normative identity as a creative arts organisation, which inevitably had to meet utilitarian needs of financial support in order to have longevity. By making money, access, excellence, and national identity a part of their overall identity, the RNZB have perhaps inadvertently created contradictions and ambiguity in their wider identity scheme. We conclude that the until the RNZB can run sustainably without government support, and the contradictions in their presented identity will most likely remain.