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The purpose of this paper is to advance understanding of why subsidiary initiative opportunities face constant opposition, despite being essential to the competitiveness of international organizations. The paper also develops a detailed theoretical framework to showcase the conflicts and opportunities created by subsidiary initiatives, as most research in this field is descriptive and comparative.

The paper draws substantially on entrepreneurship, agency, contingency and institutional theories, and focuses on the conflict generated by subsidiary initiatives in the context of headquarters–subsidiaries relationships, including the impact of developed and emerging markets. Based on a thorough analysis of the literature, the paper’s conceptual approach aims to develop models of how MNC networks deal with subsidiary initiatives.

The findings indicate that subsidiary initiative opportunities face opposition from both the organization and its environment.

The paper builds conceptual models showing the network of opportunities and conflicts created by subsidiary initiatives.

This paper aims to investigate whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) are more or less likely than local firms to violate their employees’ human rights in emerging economies, whether regional institutional pressures influence the likelihood of violating employee human rights and whether the density of MNEs in a region affects the likelihood of employees’ human rights violation by local firms.

Building on neo-institutional theory, this paper hypothesizes that, in an emerging economy, MNEs violate their employees’ human rights significantly less than local firms do. Moreover, it is hypothesized that the quality of regional institutions only influences the social behavior of local firms toward their employees. In addition, it is hypothesized that the density of MNEs in a region has a positive effect on local firms’ attitudes toward employee human rights. These hypotheses are examined using a sample of 1,211,638 respondent–year observations in 32 Mexican regions between 2005 and 2014.

This paper shows that MNEs are less likely to violate their employees’ human rights than local firms are. It also provides evidence that regional institutions do not influence MNE behavior toward employee human rights violation, but affect local firms. Furthermore, contrary to what was hypothesized, the density of MNEs in a region has a negative rather than positive influence on local firms’ respect of employee human rights.

This paper advances understanding of the behavior of MNEs in an emerging economy setting and contributes to the ongoing debate in the literature on their social impact.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a local trade union improves living conditions for women entrepreneurs in India and how its activities have evolved over time.

The authors conducted a longitudinal case study of the self-employed women’s association (SEWA) in India. Founded in 1972, this organization fosters and supports women’s entrepreneurship. The approach of this study combines qualitative face-to-face interviews and secondary data analysis.

The findings highlight the fact that SEWA, which combines the features of a trade union and a social movement, improves women’s conditions in several different ways. The study shows that the organization’s main role has evolved from creating a community to expanding it and finally to becoming an agent of societal change.

The study contributes to the literature by analyzing how locally grown organizations fight social exclusion and improve the conditions of deprived groups in emerging economies.

This paper aims to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in transition and developed economies.

Building on social capital theory, the creating shared value approach and institutional theory, the authors study why and how six SMEs in the food sector implement CSR.

The authors show that CSR adoption by SMEs is motivated by company values and beliefs, relationships with the local community, a desire to abide by rules and regulations and business motives. They also show that SMEs are involved in various CSR-related activities such as respecting their employees, infusing CSR in the supply chain and philanthropy.

The findings suggest that although there are similarities between the CSR motives and activities of SMEs in developed and transition countries, there are also some differences, which can be explained by differences in institutions and related to the maturity of the CSR construct in each setting. The authors consequently call for a more holistic approach when investigating CSR across countries, in particular when such investigation concerns SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on industry-specific corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices.

Using a multiple-keyword search, the authors identified 302 articles reporting on such practices, published in 99 different academic journals between 1995 and 2014. These articles were analyzed to map the CSR literature, identify which industries have been under greater scrutiny and distinguish trends in the most researched industries.

The authors’ findings indicate that the CSR studies are very unevenly distributed and that the issues studied and the methods used vary widely across industries. The authors also map this field of study and propose suggestions on where research on industry-specific CSR should go in the future.

The first extensive, systematic analysis of the industry-specific CSR literature is provided. The current research adds value to the literature by highlighting the key issues investigated, as well as those that require further inquiry.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the internationalization of international new ventures (INVs). Specifically, this research explores the ways in which a formal cluster can facilitate the internationalization process of these firms.

The authors studied how four INVs benefitted from the actions of two clusters in France – Systematic and Mov’eo – as they internationalized. They conducted semi-structured interviews with the CEOs and other representatives of the INVs and with the members of the cluster management teams.

The findings indicate that clusters can facilitate the internationalization of INVs by providing resources, networking opportunities and legitimacy to help them reach global markets and by increasing the speed of internationalization.

By analyzing the specific role that a formal cluster plays in the internationalization of INVs, this research contributes to the literature examining the link between location and INV internationalization. The authors argue that the cluster’s role can be considered as that of an intermediary organization helping INVs to expand globally.

The research was governed by the following questions: 1. What opportunities and conflicts do subsidiary initiatives create in HQ-subsidiary relationships? 2. How does the MNC subsidiary network stifle or oppose subsidiary initiatives, and what role does HQ play in this process? 3. Does the subsidiary’s operating environment generate obstacles to new initiatives? 4. What factors moderate subsidiary initiative conflict in the MNC network?

The authors reviewed publications focusing on subsidiary initiatives from four leading databases – JSTOR, EBSCO, Google Scholar and Science Direct. They chose 52 papers for analysis of HQ-subsidiary issues. They chose an additional 62 publications that related to local environmental pressures that hindered subsidiaries. They narrowed their focus to emerging markets such as Nigeria

For subsidiary initiatives to do well, it’s essential to attract the “attention or interest” of HQ. But HQ pays attention only if it sees how the local plans will contribute to the corporation's overall interests. The corporate immune system (CIS) may become a major obstacle. It usually arises when CIS conflict triggers intra-firm competition over similar products between rival subsidiaries. However, if HQ perceives a subsidiary as having superior strategy it will be supportive of its initiatives.

Previous studies had focused on internal issues at the multinationals, whereas the authors wanted to study also the environmental obstacles to subsidiary initiatives

While common sense suggests that corruption will likely have a negative impact on the economy as it raises the cost of doing business, research on the topic showed inconsistent results (positive, negative and neutral). This paper aims to verify whether corruption has a “grease” or “sand” effect on the wheels of entrepreneurial rates and under which conditions corruption will have stronger or weaker effects.

Using institutional theory as the basis for the hypotheses, generalized least squares estimation is conducted to empirically examine the role of corruption and political discretion in entrepreneurship in a sample of 93 countries.

Countries with higher levels of corruption are associated with lower levels of firm creation. However, this negative effect of corruption is weaker when there are higher levels of political discretion.

This is the first evaluation of the moderating effect of political discretion on the negative impact of corruption on entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the dilemma of institutional duality (ID) confronting multinational corporations and to propose a workable solution for this problem.

The author has searched the literature using several terms directly related to the dilemma of ID and multinational firms.

The findings reveal that to attain “legitimacy”, subsidiaries strive to balance institutional pressures stemming from external environments in the host country and their parent organizations. Understanding institutional theories of multinational corporations enables the subsidiaries to manage external pressures. ID impact varies among subsidiaries, depending on institutional contexts and internal strategies of subsidiaries.

An “institutional duality incidence model” portraying how dual institutions make “legitimacy” problematic for subsidiaries is proposed. A framework for identifying factors generating ID dilemma and their management approach is also proposed. It is concluded that a multinational corporation that recognizes ID as a central concern is more likely to achieve and maintain a higher level of harmony with its subsidiaries and host countries.

Serbian Generation Z originates from South-east Europe. They are a part of a nation that has always been divided between the East and the West and has experienced a constant transition (economic, cultural and political) for the last couple of decades. In Serbia, Generation Z has been under the same influences as elsewhere in the world – globalisation, technology and rapid development of the Internet have greatly influenced it and it could be said that the influence has not ceased to exist. Nevertheless, apart from the aforementioned, the representatives of the Generation Z in Serbia have faced some additional challenges during their childhood, and this distinguishes them from all the other European representatives of this generation: family (still being the backbone of Serbian society), religion, wars and their collective memory of it, as well as economy-related turbulences. The research presented in this chapter was carried out with a goal to show the attitudes, opinions and characteristics of this generation. The chapter provides not only an insight into the mentioned phenomena but also some recommendations for parents, teachers, companies and politicians, as well as suggestions for future research.