Search results

The changing roles of the United Nations (UN) and national institutions have made addressing climate change a critical concern for many multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) survival and growth. This chapter discusses how such institutions, which vary in their nature and characteristics, shape firm strategies for climate change adaptation. Exploring different versions of institutional theory, the chapter demonstrates how and why institutional characteristics affect typical patterns of firm ownership, governance, and capabilities. These, in turn, influence companies’ internationalisation and climate-change strategies. Climate change poses challenges to how we understand firms’ strategic decisions from both an international business (IB) (HQ–subsidiary relations) and global value chains (GVC) (buyer–supplier relations) perspective. However, climate change also provides opportunities for companies to gain competitive advantages – if firms can reconfigure and adapt faster than their competitors. Existing IB and GVC research tends to downplay the importance of climate change strategies and the ways in which coherent or dysfunctional institutions affect firms’ reconfiguration and adaptation strategies in a globally dispersed network of value creation. This chapter presents a perspective on the institutional conditions that affect firms’ climate change strategies regarding ownership, location, and internalisation (OLI), and GVCs, with ‘investment’ and ‘emerging standards’ playing a significant role. The authors illustrate the discussion using several examples from the Global South (i.e. Bangladesh) and the Global North (i.e. Denmark, Sweden, and Germany) with a special emphasis on the garment industry. The aim is to encourage future research to examine how a ‘business systems’, or varieties of capitalism, institutional perspective can complement the analysis of sustainability and climate change strategies in IB and GVC studies.

Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.

The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.

By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

Digital technologies over time are becoming increasingly pervasive and relatively affordable, finding a large diffusion in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) also for internationalization purposes. However, less is known about the specific mechanisms by which this can be achieved. Specifically, we focus on how SMEs can face the international environment, leveraging digital technologies and thanks to their intellectual capital (IC).

We analyze the relationship between digital technologies and the internationalization of SMEs, exploring the mediating role of IC in its three dimensions: human, relational and innovation capital, and assessing the possible moderating effects posed by international institutional conditions, specifically the Sino-US trade frictions. The relationships are tested using a sample of companies listed on China’s A-share Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) from 2010 to 2021.

Digital technologies help to internationalize SMEs. However, this positive relationship is affected (mediated) by the presence of an already consolidated IC. In addition, the institutional conditions of the international market, such as the Sino-US trade friction, moderate the components of IC differently. Specifically, the overall mediating effect of human and relational capital is boosted, while this does not happen for innovation capital.

First, this study contributes to the literature on organizational resilience, especially digital resilience, confirming its validity in the context of internationalization and, in particular, those processes adopted by SMEs. Second, we clarify the mechanisms through which digital technologies exert their impact on the process of internationalization and in particular the prominent necessity of having IC. Third, our conclusions enrich the understanding of how IC components react to turbulence in international markets.

This study aims to propose a longitudinal analysis of motivations for Integrated Reporting (IR) adoption, internal changes, the benefits of IR implementation and compliance challenges.

The authors analyse a longitudinal case study of an Italian-listed company (Eni) participating in the IR-Pilot Programme (PP) and covering 10 years of IR adoption. The analysis was based on a mixed-method approach that included semi-structured interviews, content analysis of annual reports and triangulation with other data sources. Results are discussed regarding institutional theory, legitimacy theory and diffusion of innovation theory.

The study suggests that motivations for adopting IR change over time and participation in the IR-PP helps Eni acquire a comprehensive and substantial integrated view of value creation over time, makes integrated culture a key factor for strategic business sustainability and confirms the readiness of early adopters to comply with the non-financial Directive (NFD).

This study, among the few longitudinal case studies, provides organisations, regulators and academics with insights into the motivations driving the successful adoption and implementation of IR and the NFD. The results may help companies consider one of the tools currently deemed to bring sustainability into action and participation in pilot groups.

This study aims to synthesize and conceptualize the highly fragmented yet important literature on racial discrimination in entrepreneurship.

A bibliometric analysis and literature review were performed that involved 523 articles containing 26,926 references.

The bibliometric analysis identified three dominant research themes that comprehensively illustrate the state of research in this domain: strategic, sociocultural and individual-level perspectives. The synthesis of extant literature helped in formulating a holistic conceptual model that portrays the genuineness of racial discrimination in entrepreneurship. The sources, factors and impact of racial discrimination faced by entrepreneurs were identified. Based on the review and analysis of keywords, certain fruitful future research directions were formulated that will take the field forward.

This work is the first attempt to review the literature that narrows down the focus to racial discrimination in entrepreneurship (from other discriminations such as gender, cultural and religious discrimination) as one form of discrimination due to its unique origins and consequences.

Institutional abuse is a worldwide phenomenon with the UK also subject to several high-profile abuse scandals perpetuated on people with learning disabilities and/or mental health conditions living within institutional settings. This study aims to provide a broad perspective of safeguarding practices within institutional care to inform practice and service development in this area.

A narrative overview was undertaken of a range of empirical evidence, discussion papers, enquiry reports, reports from regulatory bodies and professional guidance to explore safeguarding practices within institutional care for individuals with learning disabilities and/or mental health conditions.

A range of literature was identified that exposed and explored abuse in this context. Three key themes were identified: failings within institutional care; safeguarding issues and concerns; and good practice within institutional care. Whilst guidance is available, standards are explicit and protocols facilitate improvement potential in this area, a consistent message was that statutory recommendations for reform have not been effective.

This paper provides an important resource for practitioners and service providers involved in institutional care. An accessible overview of both the empirical evidence and grey literature on adult safeguarding within institutional settings is provided, along with a range of standards and resources that specify practice in these settings.

This study aims to explore how subsidiary capabilities collectively configure for performance. Additionally, it seeks to examine whether these configurations of capabilities can provide equifinal solutions through developing a comprehensive research framework that focuses on subsidiaries in China.

With a data set collected through a questionnaire from 172 Korean multinational enterprises (MNEs) in China, this study used a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to detect the capability conditions and configurations. These configurations represent combinations of various subsidiary capabilities linked to high performance.

This study identified several complex pathways with distinct configurations for high subsidiary performance. The findings demonstrate the importance of configurations over individual conditions. Thus, the results highlight that the effectiveness of diverse capabilities, which are widely believed to singularly contribute to the high performance of MNE subsidiaries, depends on how each combines with other capabilities. Overall, the findings provide a richer and fine-grained understanding of the role and relative importance of various forms of MNE subsidiary capabilities and how the joint effect of these subsidiaries contributes to high performance.

This study suggests that MNE managers should comprehensively understand how subsidiary capabilities are configured to produce subsidiary performance outcomes. This specifically illustrates the importance of understanding the mutually conflicting yet collectively exhaustive results of multi-selective solutions and aims to align with China’s industrial and regional heterogeneity.

By examining the role of MNE subsidiary capability configurations, which may collectively influence the subsidiary’s performance, this study contributes to the literature. It elucidates how MNE subsidiaries may achieve superior performance by developing and possessing various capabilities tailored to the local context.

This paper aims to investigate the role of field-configuring events (FCEs) and situational context in the institutionalisation of sustainability reporting (SR) in Pakistan.

This paper uses insights from the institutional logics perspective and qualitative research design to analyse the interplay of the institutional logics, FCEs, situational context and social actors’ agency for the institutionalisation of SR among leading corporations in Pakistan. A total of 28 semi-structured interviews were carried out and were supplemented by analysis of secondary data including reports, newspaper articles and books.

The emerging field of SR in Pakistan is shaped by societal institutions, where key social actors (regulators, enablers and reporters) were involved in the institutionalisation of SR through FCEs. FCEs provided space for agency and were intentionally designed by key social actors to promote SR in Pakistan. The situational context connected the case organisations with FCEs and field-level institutional logics that shaped their decision to initiate SR. Overall, intricate interplay of institutional logics, FCEs, situational context and social actors’ agency has contributed to the institutionalisation of SR in Pakistan. Corporate managers navigated institutional logics based on situational context and initiated SR that is aligned with corporate goals and stakeholder expectations.

For corporate managers, this paper highlights the role of active agency in navigating and integrating institutional logics and stakeholders’ expectations in their decision-making process. For practitioners and policymakers, this paper highlights the importance of FCEs and situational context in the emergence and institutionalisation of SR in developing countries. From a societal point of view, dominance of business actors in FCEs highlights the need for non-business actors to participate in FCEs to shape logics and practice of SR for wider societal benefits.

From a societal point of view, dominance of business actors in FCEs highlights the need for non-business actors to participate in FCEs to shape logics and practice of SR for wider societal benefits.

This paper focuses on the role of FCEs and situational context as key social mechanisms for explaining the institutionalisation of SR.

The institutional conditions of primary care provision remain understudied in low- and middle-income countries. This study analyzes how primary care doctors cope with medical uncertainty in municipal clinics in urban India. As street-level bureaucrats, the municipal doctors occupy two roles simultaneously: medical professional and state agent. They operate under conditions that characterize health systems in low-resource contexts globally: inadequate state investment, weak regulation and low societal trust. The study investigates how, in these conditions, the doctors respond to clinical risk, specifically related to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

The analysis draws on year-long ethnographic fieldwork in Pune (2013–14), a city of three million, including 30 semi-structured interviews with municipal doctors.

Interpreting their municipal mandate to exclude NCDs and reasoning their medical expertise as insufficient to treat NCDs, the doctors routinely referred NCD cases. They expressed concerns about violence from patients, negative media attention and unsupportive municipal authorities should anything go wrong clinically.

The study contextualizes street-level service-delivery in weak institutional conditions. Whereas street-level workers may commonly standardize practices to reduce workload, here the doctors routinized NCD care to avoid the sociopolitical consequences of clinical uncertainty. Modalities of the welfare state and medical care in India – manifest in weak municipal capacity and healthcare regulation – appear to compel restraint in service-delivery. The analysis highlights how norms and social relations may shape primary care provision and quality.

There is consensus among scholars on how political institutional imprinting interprets the unique management and practice phenomenon of Chinese enterprises. However, little scholarly attention has been given to the different political institutional imprints that shape firms’ internationalization. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how communist and market logic political institutional imprintings influence firms’ initial ownership strategies in outward foreign direct investment.

Based on the propensity score matching difference in difference method and a sample of 464 foreign investments from 2009 to 2020 for 310 Chinese private firms.

The results show that private firms with market logic political institutional imprintings tend to adopt higher ownership and vice versa. As institutional differences increase, private firms with market logic imprintings are more risk-taking and adopt higher ownership, whereas private firms with communist imprintings are more conservative and choose lower ownership. When diplomatic relations are friendlier, private firms with market logic imprintings prefer higher ownership to grasp business opportunities and vice versa.

This study not only identifies the net effect of political institutional imprinting on private firms’ initial ownership strategy but also investigates the different moderating effects of current institutional forces to respond to the call for research on bringing history back into international business research and the fit between imprinting and the environment.