Search results

This paper investigates the internationalization of consulting providers that supply to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, United Nations and Asian Development Bank. Previous research has identified that such clients do play a notable role in the internationalization of some consulting firms, but little empirical research has been undertaken. In this paper, a “network” approach to internationalization is taken, with the findings from an interview study suggesting that while consulting providers “follow” multilateral institutions to new markets, this is only one of several “relationship strategies” that firms use in combination to enter and develop foreign markets.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how a multinational enterprise (MNE) makes sense of the ‘wicked problem’ of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

We analyse the single case of an acknowledged leader in CSR, Unilever. We undertake an interpretive textual analysis of how Unilever has accounted for its progress towards greater social and environmental responsibility in its annual social and environmental reports published between 2000 and 2012.

We identify enduring themes as well as what has changed in this 12-year period. We conclude that while Unilever has made definite progress, becoming more confident and ambitious in its plans and achievements, it potentially runs the risk of reducing CSR to a ‘tame problem’ that can be solved through technical solutions that offer win-win solutions and do not challenge the economic theory of the firm.

We show the value of using the perspective of ‘wicked problems’ to understand the complexity of the CSR challenge facing the MNE.

We suggest that the current approach of measuring CSR progress has limitations and potentially negative side effects.

Our chapter offers a novel conceptualisation of CSR, as well as empirical evidence of CSR as a process of corporate sensemaking in the face of ‘wicked problems’.

Cochlear's first product, the 22-channel Nucleus implant, was the result of a research programme that has been dated back to 1967, when Graeme Clark, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon, commenced doctoral work on the electrical stimulation of the hearing nerve. Following the completion of his PhD in 1969, Clark was appointed the inaugural Chair in Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne. When he joined the university in 1970, his primary objective was the practical application of his PhD research: namely, the development of a ‘bionic ear’, an electronic device that would stimulate the hearing nerve in the profoundly deaf. He realised early on that lack of resources would be one of his major impediments:across the road [from my office] the experimental research laboratory was in a disused hospital mortuary. When I looked at the mortuary my heart sank. It was dilapidated and bare. There was a stone table in the centre, but little else. The walls needed painting, and the light diffused poorly through the high windows. Anyway, I had no money to buy equipment even if the laboratory itself were satisfactory. (Clark, 2000, p. 54)

This volume is the outcome of the 33rd European International Business Academy (EIBA) conference held at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Catania (Italy). This conference brought together more than 300 scholars from around the world to discuss theoretical and empirical issues in international business (IB), as well as their consequences and challenges to IB scholars and policy-makers. Organized around 10 thematic tracks, the conference is the annual forum for discussing major research issues in the IB realm. This volume is a collection of the best papers, which, selected through a blind refereeing process for presentation at the conference, make significant contributions by providing fresh new perspectives on a variety of relevant topics.