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Multinational corporations (MNCs) confront complex challenges to continuously achieve higher levels of social performance across diverse country and cultural contexts. Yet many MNCs have reactive strategies toward corporate social responsibility (CSR). Such strategies do not leverage multicultural team diversity for dynamic learning. Meanwhile, cross-sector alliances between MNCs and not-for-profit entities present a rich opportunity for MNC learning. Multicultural teams often lie at the core of such initiatives in MNCs, although they have been, at best, a peripheral concern of CSR research and theory. We redress this gap in the CSR literature by integrating theory on social capital and the external team perspective and applying this to the CSR context. Our analysis has practical implications for MNCs as well, suggesting further extensions.

This paper suggests that motives for engaging in affiliative‐promotive “helping” extra‐role behavior is related to cross‐cultural differences. The cultural dimensions of in‐group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, performance orientation, and humane orientation, and their differential effect on helping extra‐role behavior in a diverse workforce are examined. Theoretical implications provide guidance for future empirical research in this area, and provide managers with more realistic expectations of employee performance in the workplace.

Bindu Aryais currently a doctoral student in International Business and Strategy at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her dissertation will empirically investigate how collaborative efforts between for-profit, not-for-profit and governmental agencies facilitate outcomes and can function to enhance sustainable development. Her research on how social networks facilitate organizational and group decision-making processes and outcomes has appeared in Journal of Management (forthcoming).

Previous research demonstrates a consistent association between the media and body and eating related issues in children. Recent research has highlighted a role for “fat talk” to describe discourses around body size and food. One key source of media information is Disney animation films, yet to date no research study has explored the verbal content of this genre.

The present study used a content analysis to examine fat talk in Disney animation films (1937–2021; n = 53) with a focus on the frequency of fat talk, changes over time and differences between the genders and heroic statuses of the givers and receivers of fat talk. Fat talk was defined as relating to both body size and food and could be either positive or negative.

Results revealed that there was more negative than positive fat talk per film; no significant changes over time; males were the givers of significantly more positive and negative fat talk than females and were also the receivers of more negative fat talk; good characters were the givers and receivers of more positive and negative fat talk and more self-directed negative fat talk than bad characters.

The results are discussed in terms of possible legislation and parenting interventions to minimise the harm of this genre on young children.

Disney animation films may not be as benign as often thought.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives to fight the pandemic and its multitude of related consequences, this chapter explores implications for leadership and effective action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As international management scholars and consultants, the authors document actions taken and their wide-ranging consequences in a diverse set of countries, including countries that have been more or less successful in fighting the pandemic, are geographically larger and smaller, are located in each region of the world, are economically advanced and economically developing, and that chose unique strategies versus strategies more similar to those of their neighbors. Cultural influences on leadership, strategy, and outcomes are described for 19 countries. Informed by a cross-cultural lens, the authors explore such urgent questions as: What is most important for leaders, scholars, and organizations to learn from critical, life-threatening, society-encompassing crises and grand challenges? How do leaders build and maintain trust? What types of communication are most effective at various stages of a crisis? How can we accelerate learning processes globally? How does cultural resilience emerge within rapidly changing environments of fear, shifting cultural norms, and profound challenges to core identity and meaning? This chapter invites readers and authors alike to learn from each other and to begin to discover novel and more successful approaches to tackling grand challenges. It is not definitive; we are all still learning.

Thanks to the work of Marjorie A. Lyles, we have a clearer understanding about how organizations learn and utilize knowledge, especially in the context of international partnerships. I suggest that her strong impact on the intersection of international business, international management, and strategy, which extends beyond her path-breaking research, can be considered under the categories of learning, collaboration, and context and place.

Purpose – In management literature, the influence that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can have on reforming multinational corporations' practices is traditionally depicted as significant. Few studies have emphasized the limits that NGOs face. The aim of this chapter is to:1.Describe how the positive view of NGO influence is implicitly built on a neo-Tocquevillian understanding of civil society and an explicit utilization of Habermasian ideas of civil society and communication.2.Reveal the limitations of the ability of NGOs alone to affect the negative aspects related to corporate activity and capitalism in general, building on existing critical work on civil society.

Design/methodology/approach – We review the existing mainstream literature on NGO–business relationships and compare it to the less developed body of critical research on the subject.

Findings – We found that current mainstream research on NGO–business relationships are implicitly referring to a specific positive conception of civil society believing in the power of civil society to reform society (Neo-Tocquevillian Belief).

We then propose critical alternative conceptions of civil society, to allow the development of further research in a more critical perspective, insisting on the limits of the ability of NGOs to mitigate the worst effects of neoliberalism.

Originality/value – The value of this chapter lies in the presentation of the implicit assumptions on which mainstream research on NGO–business relationships are based today. The chapter identifies possible alternative theoretical orientations for future research for doctoral students or researchers.