Search results

Even though extant research highlights the crucial role some stakeholders play in helping corporations understand, manage and mitigate the occurrence of modern slavery in their supply chains and operations, there is a fundamental lack of understanding of all the relevant stakeholder groups and the specific roles they play. By adopting a stakeholder theory approach, this study aims to identify all the key stakeholders and their associated roles towards supporting corporations’ modern slavery monitoring, detection and disclosure activities.

A systematic literature review was conducted by following the PRISMA guidelines. Relevant literature included scholarly work focusing on the identification of key stakeholders and the roles they play in enabling corporations’ modern slavery monitoring, detection and disclosure activities.

Nine stakeholder groups and their roles were identified, such as governments, workers, IGOs, NGOs and suppliers. Examples of performed activities include conducting audits, providing training, monitoring occurrences of modern slavery, enforcing regulations, reporting on labour issues and evaluating corporations’ modern slavery reports.

A comprehensive understanding of key stakeholders and their roles enables better collaboration towards achieving transparency within corporations’ supply chains and operations. Other stakeholders can leverage these findings to enhance modern slavery reporting activities.

Clarity regarding key stakeholders and their roles may improve quality and quantity of reported modern slavery information, enhancing corporations’ public accountability.

This study adopts a stakeholder theory approach to provide a comprehensive understanding of key stakeholders and their roles in enhancing corporations’ modern slavery reporting activities.

Using political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) as a theoretical framework, this study aims to examine how multinational corporations (MNCs) can function as nonstate actors in public diplomacy efforts during the Russia–Ukraine war.

A thematic analysis using qualitative content analysis was conducted on 98 new releases from the websites of the top 50 MNCs listed in the Fortune Global 500.

The findings indicate that MNCs elucidate their initiatives aimed at providing a secure environment for war victims through their news releases, with notable variations in responses based on the companies' geographical location. MNCs also mentioned strengthening the power of public authorities by rebalancing power dynamics between governments and intergovernmental initiatives under war conditions.

This study is one of the first empirical investigations to research corporate diplomacy and explore the theoretical implications of PCSR for corporate diplomacy.

Corruption is one of the main facilitators of increased wildlife crime in South Africa. It is important to look at the current legislative framework to determine how wildlife crime can be combated effectively. This paper aims to provide an analysis of the process of wildlife crime, focusing on wildlife poaching and trafficking role players and critically analyses the legislation in place to combat the phenomenon.

A critical analysis of existing literature such as case law, legislation, peer-reviewed publications and electronic articles was used to identify the legislation and processes for the prevention of wildlife crime in South Africa. Common denominators were identified in these sources to provide a baseline for examining wildlife crime.

Wildlife criminals rely extensively on corruption during all facets of their trafficking schemes. The use of traditional environmental laws is not effective in dismantling wildlife trafficking networks, as prosecuting those in the upper echelons is often challenging. The extensive reliance on corruption during all facets of wildlife trafficking provides an opportunity for law enforcement to use such corruption crimes as predicate offences in racketeering prosecutions, thus ensuring kingpins find it more difficult to escape prosecution, owing to their involvement in criminal enterprises that sustain themselves through patterns of racketeering.

This paper contributes knowledge to narrow the research gap with regard to wildlife criminals and how they function. It also addresses possibilities to improve prosecution and disrupt wildlife trafficking networks.

The research aims to comprehensively study a relatively new institute of Russian tax law – the value-added tax (VAT) office. For this purpose, the authors use the following research methods: logical, hypothetico-deductive, formal-legal, and comparative-legal. The research novelty is due to the subject of scientific analysis and the synthesis of the obtained research results. Particularly, the essential features of digital platforms are investigated. It is noted that the concepts of “digital platform” and “foreign company providing electronic services in Russia” are not identical. The research considers the foreign experience of tax accounting and VAT registration of companies. The simplicity of accounting of foreign companies is an important advantage of the tax jurisdiction: the simpler the grounds and procedure of registration, the more taxpayers express their intention for voluntary registration. Thus, the research discusses the problems of registration and deregistration, as well as the voluntary registration of such companies. Currently, 3,292 companies are registered in Russia, which indicates the success of this tax institution. Simultaneously, it is noted that there is a lack of law enforcement practice directly related to the VAT office. This order of things may testify in favor of the effectiveness of the complex of legal norms under consideration.

Gas flaring is a crucial issue in the energy transition era, as it is a major source of carbon emissions in the gas production chain. The reduction of flaring could potentially contribute to eliminating energy poverty, as the amount of gas currently flared each year could power the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite Iran's zero-clearing target, the country ranks third in gas flaring globally, with 12% share. This case study examines the reasons behind gas flaring in Iran within the Sustainable Development Goals framework. The study reveals that while technological and economic difficulties were the primary obstacles in early years, policy malfunctioning has demonstrated the wicked nature of a sustainability problem in recent years. The traditional top-down institutional structure has led to interference from public agencies and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) companies, complicating decision-making. The lack of precise criteria for finding best solutions, as well as the absence of appropriate control and monitoring mechanisms, has further paralyzed efforts to reduce flaring. The intensification of conflict between interest groups has added complexity to the situation. The issue has been further complicated at higher levels due to economic sanctions. This study offers practical solutions for reducing flaring in Iran based on global experiences and policies and programs of some selected countries. These suggestions address the policy, technological, and institutional aspects of the problem and aim to pave the way for sustainable and responsible energy transition. By reducing gas flaring, Iran can contribute to global efforts to mitigate climate change and create a more equitable and sustainable energy future.

This study aims at estimating the gender wage gap in Ecuador, and its evolution over the last decade and a half, exploring its heterogeneity through different working conditions (formal/informal, full employment/underemployment, short term/long term and tenure/no tenure) and workers personal characteristics (education level; age and children).

Propensity score matching (PSM) and coarsened exact matching (CEM) are used to examine the gender pay inequality of wage earners in Ecuador, using the National Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment Survey (ENEMDU) data set from 2007 to 2022.

Results show a persistent gender pay gap, evidencing a significant heterogeneity through the different dimensions taken into account, in terms of working conditions and workers personal characteristics. The evolution of the pay gap during the years analyzed hardly shows any reduction of differences in earnings between men and women; on the contrary, women exposure to precarious and unregulated jobs seems to be increasing wage inequality.

The results make the case for active policies oriented not only at containing the negative effects of the traditional division of labor within the family but also at improving labor law enforcement, mitigating informality and workers rapid turnover.

This study is one of the few that use matching techniques to study the gender wage gap and the first in Ecuador; the time span taken into account is larger than previous studies, allowing a medium-long run perspective across different economic phases.

Our study explores the effects of immigration on the employment of native middle-skilled workers, focusing on how this effect varies with the specificity of their occupational skill bundles.

Exploiting the 2002 opening of the Swiss labor market to EU workers and using register data on the location and occupation of these workers, our findings provide novel results on the labor market effects of immigration.

We show that the inflow of EU workers led to an increase in the employment of native middle-skilled workers with highly specific occupational skills. This finding could be attributed to immigrant workers reducing existing skill gaps, enhancing the quality of job-worker matches, and alleviating firms' capacity restrictions. This allowed firms to create new jobs, thereby providing increased employment options for middle-skilled workers with highly specialized skills.

Previous literature has predominantly highlighted the disadvantages of specific occupational skills compared to general skills in the context of labor market shocks. However, our findings reveal that workers with specific occupational skills can benefit from an immigration-driven labour market shock. These results suggest that policy conclusions regarding the role of specific occupational skills should be more nuanced.