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How headquarter (HQ) and subsidiary actors end conflicts and reach agreements is an important but still under-researched question in multinational corporations (MNC) literature. This conceptual article approaches these conflict dynamics from the Convention Theory perspective. Convention Theory draws attention to justice principles (known as “order of worth”) and to the material aspects in relations between MNC actors. We offer a framework that contributes to HQ-subsidiary relations research in three ways: (1) it links conflicts to justice principles, (2) it enriches the understanding of the stability of agreements, and (3) it sheds light on the activities needed for realizing preferred arrangements.

We stress the public demand for accountability of global brands and the rise in normative public brand evaluations in online networks. To gain an empirical and theoretical understanding of these phenomena, we introduce the notion of public brand auditing, which refers to public agents collectively contrasting brands against a multiplicity of shared understandings of what is worthy and good.

Convention theory serves as a theoretical lens to conceptualize public brand auditing, since it provides a normative framework of orders of worth based on which the appropriateness of actions are judged. Empirically, we conduct a netnographic study and illustrate public auditing strategies with online discussions about Google on the Slashdot platform.

We find that public brand auditing comprises two major auditing strategies: drawing leeways of acceptable brand conduct and allocating responsibilities.

Approaching public forms of normative brand judgments from a convention theory perspective allows researchers to better understand how the public holds brands accountable and evaluates brand conduct against higher-order principles.

The concept of public brand auditing helps managers to understand and approach the normative basis of both positive and negative brand judgments.

We urge brands to monitor public demand for accountability and emphasize the importance of the civic, market, and industrial orders of worth in guiding brand conduct.

This paper offers a conceptualization of and a framework for investigating public brand auditing phenomena.

The diversification phase observed in the American economy since 1975 (Leontiades, 1980) has led to significant questioning about the dimensions constituting related diversification. During the 1980s, the disappointing performances of businesses that had implemented related diversifications pushed researchers to take a closer look at the challenges involved in integration to discover commonalities in progressing from potential synergy to synergy achieved. As a result, many recent research endeavors have attempted to describe the management and integration process best suited to the context (Haspelagh & Jemison, 1991; Marks & Mirvis, 1998; Pablo, 1994; Shrivastava, 1986). Obviously, their attention focused primarily on initiatives targeting integration on the functional, structural, and operational levels, without really taking into account the historical, cognitive, and cultural baggage that each business carries around with it.

This research is intended to provide a better understanding of the factors that contribute to creating synergies between companies undertaking an integration process involving related diversification. Based on the cognitive approach, it is premised on the notion that creating synergy primarily depends on reconciling the collective representations of the companies involved rather than on simply implementing measures designed to achieve technical and operational integration.

This study places particular emphasis on the concept of collective representations, which recognizes that organizational players come to adopt a relatively homogeneous view of the world. It proposes an analysis framework and research method enabling it to go beyond the limits of attempts that, up until now, have strived to quantify and substantiate the mental schemata of organizations involved in merger acquisition. Moreover, these attempts have been criticized as being too vague (Côté, Langley & Pasquero, 1999; Grant, 1988; Lampel & Shamsie, 2000).

In order to characterize the content of collective representations specific to each of the organizations undergoing integration, we propose applying a new approach in the sociology of organizations called the theory of conventions (Boltanski & Thévenot, 1991, 1994). The convention theory posits that organizational players share representation systems that help forge interaction rules. Collective, concerted action is made possible by mobilizing common frameworks, that is, conventions. These conventions are characterized by higher principles specific to each city. The outcome can be agreement or conflict, depending on whether player justifications are rooted in the same city or not.

Through the longitudinal analysis of the case of related diversification, specifically a Canadian chartered bank’s acquisition of two brokerage subsidiaries (1987, 1994), this study examines the evolution of the integration initiatives and collective representations of the businesses involved. We made two significant observations in examining the various integration initiatives undertaken by the bank during the period under study. First, the integration initiatives could be described as falling into the technical, structural, and operational categories. Second, their outcomes, both qualitatively and quantitatively, were far from conclusive.

Concurrent analysis of justificatory fragments of the three organizations, during the period under studied, revealed divergence between the justification modes that each of the businesses opted for. This divergence of dominant collective representations enabled us to interpret the issues encountered during these initiatives and posit a new explanation for their qualified success.

Referring to the sociology of conventions, the purpose of this paper is to examine how various conventions of work coordination and employee relations affect how recruiters in the domestic labour industry use ethnic categories to match jobs to applicants in the domestic services sector and how institutional gatekeepers relegate immigrant women to jobs with poor career opportunities.

Case studies of a public job centre, a domestic service provider and an occupational integration service show the core conventions structuring job placement in Marseille's domestic service industry. Based on nine semi‐structured interviews with representatives of the three respective intermediaries, the authors reconstructed conventions and compromises between them related to the use of ethnic categories as significant criteria in recruitment.

Characteristic compromises of work conventions frame the organisational use of ethnic categories in the job placement process. Market and domestic conventions are particularly crucial for ethnic criteria to become meaningful in the recruitment process as indicators of cheap and readily available labour. Intersecting with gender, they signal competence in the “domestic world” of beneficiaries’ private homes. Ethnic categories are less meaningful, however, when coordination between intermediary, clients and workers is based on the civic and industrial work conventions.

The paper contributes to better understanding ethnic labelling processes in the placement of immigrant job seekers in the domestic service industry. It points to the problematic fact that denying the recognition of foreign certificates in the industry works to the economic benefit of domestic service providers, while it impedes the careers of female immigrant workers.

Responsible investors have been the precursor in using ESG information in investment decisions. The growing attention to ESG issues across the more traditional investment community is considered as the mainstreaming of RI. However, it is important to note that the integration of ESG information by mainstream investment companies is a fundamentally different approach than RI. While RI derives from moral and ethical concerns, the new trend of integration of ESG information by mainstream investors is business driven.

Based on the keynote address given at the conference on “Organizing Institutions: Creating, Enacting and Reacting to Institutional Logics” held at the Banff Springs Hotel in June 2012, this essay analyzes the relationship between Max Weber's polytheistic theory of value spheres and institutional logics, proposing that the latter project entails studying institutional logics through a framework of comparative religions. I argue that God, love, transcendence, and immanence are all potentially useful analytic categories by which to understand institutional logics.

This paper aims to establish the role of dominant logics to assess the success potential of strategic alliances.

An empirical validation of an approach based on the theory of conventions was carried out through an analysis of strategic alliances initiated by Apple involving the licensing of the Macintosh operating system.

The analysis reveals the presence of modes of justification issuing from the world of inspiration, which seems to oppose the merchant and industrial worlds, which are most conducive to successful strategic alliances.

The analysis of dominant logics within Apple Computer demonstrate that the inspirational logic is opposed to all forms of strategic alliances.

Within the agri-food sectors of Western countries, there is an increasing interest in alternative food, i.e., organic, local and regional food, artisanal food, short-supply chains, slow food etc. Innovation in food processing is a significant element both in alternative food and conventional food strategies. Alternatives are based on competition on qualities rather than price. A main question in this chapter is to address how alternative qualities are embedded into food products? This question is explored using a study of two alternative cases within the dairy sectors of Norway and Wales. A model of the different modes of designed qualities of food is developed and discussed to explore the complex issue of quality. We find space and technology especially relevant as dimensions of qualities. Our conclusion is that there is a need to nuance the discussion about quality and food. Firms may develop as hybrids within a conventional vs. alternative perspective, and a strong emphasis on the conventional and alternative as a dichotomy tends to give a static and restrictive perspective.

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of alternative processes of restructuring in the agri‐food chain, emphasising the socio‐cultural aspects.

A conceptual discussion as to how qualities are embedded in speciality products to make them different from conventional products leads to the presentation of a model of modes of designed qualities. This model is applied to an empirical study of the milk supply chains and the related infrastructure in Norway and Wales.

The research argues that qualities of food are constructed in relations between participants along the supply chain, consumers included. Development of speciality food needs new networks to create other modes of quality than the standard.

The concepts are contributions to analytical generalisations and not to statistical generalisations, i.e. they must be applied to cases. This study is related to the milk sector in two contexts. There is a need to explore other empirical cases.

This paper uses new conceptual tools to analyse how food qualities are constructed in relations between food producers, processors and consumers. It contributes to the debate on the alternative food economy, especially with relation to aspects of quality.

This paper aims to highlight a typology of small firms which, beyond the criteria of size or industrial field, makes it possible to distinguish the quality of firms according to their internal organisation and the type of market on which they act with the objective of reducing the capital gap and credit rationing.

Based on a global approach using qualitative and quantitative data.

Still at the experimental stage, this method of assessing the ability of small firms to access financing from their various external partners could, if widely used, offer a means of increasing the transparency of small businesses and thereby enhancing their positioning and their chances of survival.

The research is at an early stage and needs to be validated empirically.

While this paper describes a method of assessing an economic policy intended to benefit SMEs in France, its main purpose is to show how such a tool can help to target assistance and financing for small businesses more effectively.