Displaying: 1-20 of 68 documents

0.147 sec

1. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 4
Betty Dee Makani-Lim, Felix Chan Lim Global Players in the Local Field: Changing Corporate Practices in Response to the Local Culture
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
For the most part, the primary driver for international businesses in establishing operations in other countries is the reduction of overall operating costs. Host countries, especially developing nations, welcome multinational corporations (MNCs) because of the perceived economic benefits that international businesses can bring to their local communities. Surprisingly, one of the most understudied, under-analyzed, and sometimes even completely neglected factors when international businesses consider setting up shop in other countries is the local culture of their chosen destination country. This paper substantiates the thesis that international businesses should adapt their corporate practices to the local cultures in which they operate to achieve effective and superior businessperformance. The paper goes further in identifying corporate practices that were adapted or revised by international businesses to respond to the culture of local communities in the Philippines.
2. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Nada Kobeissi Foreign Investment in the Mena Regions: Analyzing Nontraditional Determinants
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Although there is substantial literature examining the flow of foreign investments into various regions of the world, there is still a lack of research about joint ventures and foreign investment activities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). One objective of this paper is to remedy this neglect and extend previous empirical work by focusing on foreign investments in the MENA region. The second objective is to focus on non-traditional determinants that have tended to be overlooked or underestimated in previous research. The increasing globalization has led to a reconfiguration of the ways in which multinationals pursue various types of foreign investments,and changed the motives for and the determinants of FDI. This has prompted some to suggest that non traditional determinants have become more important. In view of that, the paper will focus on factors such as governance, legal environment, and economic freedom and examine their impact on foreign investment activities in the MENA region.
3. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Runa Sarkar Environmental Initiatives at Tata Steel: Green-Washing or Reality? A Case Study of Corporate Environmental Behavior
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The firm has an overwhelming role in sustainable development, and this paper identifies what influences a firm’s management of the business-environment interface. This is done through an in-depth case study of the environmental behavior of Tata Steel, India’s largest and oldest integrated steel plant. The Indian regulatory environment is one of strict (and sometimes contradictory) laws and slack enforcement. This paper examines the inclination of a firm in this context to commit to pollution abatement and honor its commitment by achieving long-run improvement in its environmental performance. Environmental responses studied include compliance withexisting norms, involvement in voluntary schemes, and implementation of environmental management programs. Other responses examined are investment in pollution prevention strategies, adoption of cleaner technologies, taking adversarial positions against regulators vs. working with them to develop regulations, influencing environmental policy, and meeting and/or exceeding stakeholder expectations. This paper analyzes Tata Steel’s reactive and proactive responses and generalizes some of its conclusions to firms indeveloping countries.
4. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Duane Windsor Formulating a Moral Core for International Codes of Conduct
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
A moral core places ethical considerations superior to business interest. This core must include voluntary prescriptions in various forms to “buy higher, sell lower.” International business ethics must somehow address the tradeoff between corporate financial and stakeholder interests. Corporation codes of conduct generally do not define a moral core. Corporate citizenship is typically strategic investment in markets and reputation. There are two practical paths for formulating a moral core. One path is civil lawsuits against multinationals that, successful or not, increase corporate moral sensitivity. The other path is evolution of multilateral codes of conductembedding negotiated norms for guidance of corporate behavior. Four key cases illustrate: (1) World Bank approach for combating corruption in Chad; (2) a lawsuit against Unocal alleging human rights abuses by Myanmar; (3) a lawsuit against ChevronTexaco alleging environmental and community damages in Ecuadorian Amazonia; and (4) demand by developing countries for relaxing intellectual property rights.
5. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Pegram Harrison Corporate Social Responsibility: An Information Strategy
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) continues to evolve as an important paradigm for business strategy. There is much disparate information about it available; evaluating that information and deciding what applies to any given organisation is thus becoming a more complicated task. With an idea to simplifying this process, the Sustainable Development Unit at the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) considered how it might position itself as an information filter for CSR generally. The research summarised here concludes that CSR is too large and vague a concept to be practical or applicable, and suggests that an international organisation such as RIIA should concentrate on creating opportunities for focusing the idea, rather than actually attempting to effect practical change. Whether these opportunities emerge out of discussion, analysis, research, policy briefings, or by other means, will depend on the nature and timing of any specific topic within the overall CSR context.
6. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Jacob Park Beyond Good Intentions: New Directions for Investing in Sustainability
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper examines the rise of socially responsible investment (SRI) as a sustainable finance mechanism and discusses the potential of SRI in steering the banking and financial services industry toward a more socially responsible and environmentally sound model of commerce. I argue in this paper that the potential of SRI to serve as a sustainable business mechanism to steer the global financial market toward a new ethical architecture depends on two related factors: (a) continuing institutional and social pressures forgreater corporate transparency, and (b) the ability of SRI to become a viable financial instrument outside its traditional markets in emerging and developing economies.
7. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Adedayo O. Adeyemi, M. H. Ayegboyin The Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Providing Access to HIV/AIDS Information Management in a Resource-Poor Country: Nigeria, A Case Study
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
We investigate the growing use of information and communication technology in Nigeria and its potential as a tool to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic through information management. Potential applications include data gathering for research and disease tracking, knowledge sharing, and dissemination of information on research findings, prevention methods, available care and support, and patient rights. The research is based on 1450 responses to a widely distributed questionnaire.
8. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
William Flanagan, Gail Whiteman “AIDS is Not a Business”: A Study in Global Corporate Responsibility
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Most major pharmaceutical companies have corporate social responsibility policies that pledge their commitment to improving the health and quality of life of people around the world. Yet these same companies also have difficulty in ensuring that developing countries have access to affordable medications. In the late 1990s, Brazil engaged in a heated battle with large US-backed multinational pharmaceutical companies. Brazil was facing a growing HIV epidemic and was determined to provide treatment to those in need. This required massive price reductions on HIV medications. Although met with resistance, Brazil’s campaign eventually resulted in the negotiation of significant price reductions. Our study examines how Brazil was able to secure these price concessions. We conclude that corporate social responsibility initiatives must be viewed as a dynamic interaction between multiple actors. Our study highlights the importance of governmental action, in both the national and international forums, to negotiate pro-actively with companies to ensure that CSR commitments are met.
9. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Albino Barrera Corporate Responsibility in Adverse Pecuniary Externalities: The Case of International Agricultural Subsidies
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The United States, Europe and Japan provide farm subsidies at a rate of one billion USD per day. The bulk of this is captured by large corporate entities. Damage to less developed countries is extensive and deep. Besides the farmers who are harmed because of the resulting lower agricultural prices, these negative effects ripple through the rest of the economy, due to the central importance of the agricultural sector for developing nations. Besides being direct beneficiaries of these subsidies, farming corporations, including their ancillary support industries, have lobbied heavily to resist the growing international clamor to remove or at least substantially alter thesesubsidies. This paper examines the economics and ethics of international corporate responsibility on the issue of farm subsidies.
10. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
John Hooker, Ans Kolk, Peter Madsen Preface
11. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Roberto Gutiérrez, Audra Jones Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility in Latin American Communities: A Comparison of Experiences
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Five different Latin American experiences help us to understand the impacts of corporate social responsibility on communities. We focus on communities composed of low-income populations to compare types of interventions, their main characteristics, spaces for community participation, and some results and impacts. Some of the findings indicate that (a) a company’s enlightened self-interest in its CSR program ensures its commitment to the program and the program’s sustainability; (b) community involvement from the outset in defining a project increases the probability of success, since corporations cannot assume they understand the needs of a community by taking them at face value; (c) projects do not create untenable expectations in local communities when they consider the whole life cycle and the sustainability of the investment after an appropriate exit strategy is executed; and (d) financial resources are only part of the equation because corporations can have enormous impacts with limited financing if programs are well defined and supported.
12. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Ian Maitland Corporate Codes of Conduct: On the Virtue of Modesty
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
What are international codes of conduct for? The broad support for such codes masks fundamental differences about their purpose. Corporations see codes of conduct as regimes for regulating their relations with their suppliers in developing countries and—not least—to counter negative publicity. For labor and human rights activists, on the other hand, codes of conduct are levers for forcing positive change in global labor and environmental standards. Here I consider two areas typically covered by codes of conduct—wages and child labor—and identify some of the dangers of using codes to force change. If low wages or child labor are the result of poverty, and can’t be fixed by enlightened corporate policies, then codes will at best leave the underlying problems untouched and at worst will aggravate them. I conclude that we should be cautious about using codes to force higher standards.
13. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Bryane Michael How Involved Should the World Bank Be in International Corporate Responsibility Programs?: A Qualitative Exploration of Optimal Program Provision
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The growth of popularity of International Corporate Responsibility (ICR) has brought several international organizations into the ICR “industry”—notably the World Bank. The World Bank sees its ICR activities as public goods which make up for under-provision by the market due to market externalities. Yet, ICR also benefits the Bank. The optimal level of World Bank involvement will depend on the degree to which it provides public goods and increases the quality of non-perfectly competitive markets where ICR activities may be under-provided. The optimal level of World Bank ICR project provision is discussed and policy issues are raised.
14. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Benjamin J. Richardson Corporate Finance and Environmentally Responsible Business
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The financial services sector has the potential to be an important driver for improved corporate social and environmental responsibility through its control over corporate financing. But, so far, only ad hoc policy initiatives have arisen in the European Union and other countries. Because the financial services sector is where wholesale decisions regarding future development, and thus pressures on the environment, arise, the reform of investment and banking services to promote long term investment and better consideration of environmental impacts may be an effective way to promote sustainable development. Reforms such as corporate environmental reporting requirements and lender liability for borrowers’ environmental harm, are some of the ways by which an institutional framework for mobilising financial organizations as instruments of environmental regulation could be constructed.
15. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
James K. Rowe, Ronnie D. Lipschutz Corporate Codes of Conduct as a Global Business Strategy
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
We argue that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), particularly corporate codes of conduct, has been one of global business’s preferred strategies for quelling popular discontent with corporate power. By “business strategy” we mean organized responses, through organizations like the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), to the threat that public regulation poses to business’s collective self-interest. Attention to CSR’s historical development reveals it has flourished as discourse and practice at times when corporations became subject to intense public scrutiny. In this essay we outline two periods of corporate crisis, and account for the role codes have played in quieting public concern over increasing corporate power: 1) When developing countries along with Western unions and social activists were calling for a “New International Economic Order” that would more tightly regulate the activity of Transnational Corporations (1960–1976); and 2) When mass anti-globalization demonstrations and high profile corporate scandals areincreasing the demand for regulation (1998–Present).
16. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Jayraj Jadeja, Bharat R. Shah, Preshth Bhardwaj Codes of Business Conduct: Pharma Marketing at a Brossroads?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In a perfect world, physicians and drug producers would have only one goal: to advance the health of their patients. Unfortunately, ours is not a perfect world. While every physician’s prime responsibility—by oath and by law—is to the patient, every pharmaceutical producer’s first and foremost obligation, by design, is to shareholders and employees. Their ultimate objectives are diagonally diverse. This situation calls for a code of ethics to govern the marketing and prescription of pharmaceuticals. This paper attempts to identifythe business practices prevailing in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, in order to provide a basis for constructing an appropriate code of ethics. The research is based on surveys or in-depth interviews of physicians, patients, retail pharmacists, and drug manufacturers.
17. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
A. Adewole Asolo-Adeyeye New Global Business Moral Order and Business Activities in Developing Countries: The Nigerian Experience
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Given the overwhelming expansion of globalization that has reduced the entire globe to a small village, especially in international business activities, there is a pressing need to design a new paradigm of moral rules for global business, in order to take care of emerging moral exigencies in corporate activities—especially multinational activities, which have grave cross-cultural moral implications. While the international business arena has addressed this new reality by fashioning various moral orders to guideactivities in the international business scene, this paper observes that the developing countries of the world have been at the receiving end of the moral configuration of global business. This is why the responses of most developing countries to the global business moral order is predicated on resolving the apparent conflicts generated by this moral order vis-à-vis the value systems of individual countries. Specifically, the paper examines the issue of a global business moral order with particular focus on how it is faring in developing countries. It notes that in these countries, the moral order is merely a paper tiger due to its weak implementation framework, whenceits inability to make any meaningful impact in developing countries. After a critical survey of the Nigerian business terrain, this paper concludes that the global business moral order barely impacts the Nigerian situation despite the promise of better, honest, fair, and sustainable business practices implied by corporate social responsibility.
18. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Susanne van de Wateringen The Petroleum Industry and Reputation: Developments in Corporate Reputation Over the Period 1990-2002
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
A good reputation is one of the most valuable assets a company can have. A problematic reputation can hinder companies in their performance. In competitive markets where products differ little in price, technology, or availability, reputation can make a difference. Petroleum companies are frequently associated with environmental issues such as oil spills and climate change. Since environmental performance rankings remain inconclusive due to methodological shortcomings, those issues may affect the sector’s reputation. This paper examines whether the observation of a problematic reputation for multinationals in the petroleum sector is sustained by empirical data for the period 1990–2002. Taking in account methodological limitations, the analysis shows two downward trends for all companies, indicating a common reputation effect. The effect of catalyst events is observed for individual companies. However, the contribution of the paper is not only empirical. Conceptually, the results show the complexity of measuring the multidimensional concept of reputation, as well as the importance of the reputation commons, catalyst events, and a reputation mechanism.
19. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Roy W. Smolens, Jr., Nicolaas Tempelhof Cultural Perspectives of CSR Opportunities for German Firms in Poland
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This chapter examines cultural issues related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) as practiced by German firms operating in Poland. Recognizing the interdependence of a corporation’s social and financial performance, the chapter attempts to analyze how German firms can increase profit through good social performance. However, implementing CSR measures requires detailed knowledge of Polish society and culture. Behavior and attitudes must be considered to understand a company’s CSR target group andachieve the desired financial return from investments in CSR. The authors characterize the most profitable types of CSR initiatives available to firms operating in Poland.
20. International Corporate Responsibility Series: Volume > 2
Rae Weston A Analysis of Corporate Governance Issues for Large Japanese Multinationals Seen Through the Prism of Three Recent Cases
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This study examines the three major Japanese multinational corporate governance cases of the past decade: Sumitomo Copper, Daiwa Bank, and Mitsubishi Motors. The analysis focuses on three particular matters: Does senior management and the board exhibit a form of “disaster myopia”? Were there clear signs of the impending problems that were ignored? Is there anything distinctive that makes these cases Japanese in character? The first two questions are answered in the affirmative for all three firms, but only the Mitsubishi case exhibits a peculiarly Japanese characteristic.