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Recent developments in the EU’s anti-corruption strategy have brought the EU closer to meeting the UNCAC’s objectives, i.e. the Proposal for a Directive on combating corruption (2023) and the Proposal for a Directive on Asset Recovery and Confiscation (2022). This paper aims to discuss these developments from the perspective of the UNCAC, to identify missing elements in the EU’s asset recovery mechanisms.

Critical approach towards EU anti-corruption policy (discussing the problems and solutions). Review of EU developments in asset recovery law.

There is a political will on the part of the EU to fight corruption through the rules enshrined in the UNCAC. However, improving EU law by introducing a new type of confiscation of unexplained wealth and criminalising illicit enrichment, without establishing convergent rules for the return of corrupt assets from EU territory to the countries of origin, cannot be seen as sufficient action to achieve the UNCAC’s objectives. In modelling mechanisms of the return of assets, the EU should search for solutions to overcome the difficulties resulting from the ordre public clause remaining a significant factor conditioning mutual legal assistance.

This paper discusses the possible input of the EU, as a non-State Party to the UNCAC, to advance implementing the UNCAC solutions on asset recovery by establishing convergent rules for the return of corrupt assets from EU territory to countries of origin.

This study aims to examine the effect of exploratory innovation offshoring on the level of hierarchical control and how this effect is moderated by transnational and dynamic environments.

This study draws on a sample of 148 Taiwanese multinational enterprises to examine their governance decisions on foreign investments.

Findings show that the more innovation offshoring is exploratory, the higher the level of hierarchical control will be used by multinational enterprises (MNEs) and that transnational and dynamic environments have different moderation effects on the positive exploratory innovation offshoring-hierarchical control relationship.

This study has two theoretical implications. First, this study extends the concept of complexity from a transaction attribute level (problem) to an environmental level (transnational environment) and finds that exploratory innovation offshoring and transnational environments interactively impact governance choices. Second, this study distinguishes between two sources of technological uncertainty – uncertainty due to transaction-level attributes (exploratory innovation offshoring) and external environments (dynamic environments) and finds that exploratory innovation offshoring and dynamic environments interactively impact governance choices.

The practical implication of this study lies in the simultaneous consideration of exploratory innovation offshoring and transnational/dynamic environments, which will allow international decision-makers to adjust/select the governance forms most appropriate for speedy responding to and handling environmental changes.

This study employs the theoretical perspectives of transaction cost economics (TCE) and resource-based view (RBV) to analyze and discuss the impact of operational environments – transnational and dynamic environments – on MNEs’ decisions on the governance structure for a given innovation offshoring.

The purpose of this paper is to try to reach the main factors that could put national security at risk as a result of government cloud computing programs.

The paper adopts the analytical approach to first lay foundations of the relation between national security, cybersecurity and cloud computing, then it moves to analyze the main vulnerabilities that could affect national security in cases of government cloud computing usage.

The paper reached several findings such as the relation between cybersecurity and national security as well as a group of factors that may affect national security when governments shift to cloud computing mainly pertaining to storing data over the internet, the involvement of a third party, the lack of clear regulatory frameworks inside and between countries.

Governments are continuously working on developing their digital capacities to meet citizens’ demands. One of the most trending technologies adopted by governments is “cloud computing”, because of the tremendous advantages that the technology provides; such as huge cost-cutting, huge storage and computing capabilities. However, shifting to cloud computing raises a lot of security concerns.

The value of the paper resides in the novelty of the topic, which is a new contribution to the theoretical literature on relations between new technologies and national security. It is empirically important as well to help governments stay safe while enjoying the advantages of cloud computing.

“First principles” of international business (IB) thinking should be applied systematically when assessing the functioning of internationally operating firms. The most important first principle is that entrepreneurially oriented firms seek to create, deliver and capture economic value through cross-border linkages. Such linkages invariably require complementary resources from a variety of parties with idiosyncratic vulnerabilities to be meshed. Starting from first principles allows bringing to light evidence-based insight. For instance, most companies are not global and even the world’s largest firms rarely change the location of key strategic functions. International new ventures (INVs), emerging economy multinational enterprises (MNEs) and family firms face unique vulnerabilities but also command resources that can be used to create value across borders. The quest for “optimal” international diversification appears to be a futile academic exercise, and in emerging economies with institutional voids, relational networks – and more broadly, informal institutions – are unlikely to function as scalable substitutes for formal institutions. In global value chains (GVCs), many lead firms and their partners have been able to craft governance mechanisms that reduce bounded rationality and bounded reliability challenges, and it is also critical for them to use governance as a tool to create entrepreneurial space. Finally, many of the world’s largest companies have been on successful trajectories toward reducing their climate change footprint for a few decades. But these firm-specific trajectories are fraught with challenges and cannot just be imposed via unilateral, macro-level targets decided upon by individuals and institutions lacking a clear understanding of innovation and capital expenditure processes in business.

Purpose: This chapter aims to enlighten the stakeholders on the role and contribution and the issues and challenges of large-scale industries in the wake of the globally unified economies.

Need for the study: Large-scale industries are one of the pillars of any nation and can exercise an immense impact on the numerous facets of the economy of any country. Their role and contribution can benefit all the stakeholders, especially in today’s integrated and interdependent world economies. Hence, there is an absolute need to highlight the issues and challenges and suggest measures to overcome them to promote a resilient global economy.

Methodology: The study gathered data from secondary sources like textbooks, articles, and the internet.

Findings: The findings of the study state that large-scale industries are enormous contributors to employment creation, development of the economy, growth of revenue, research and development (R&D) and innovation, export promotion, and infrastructure. The significant challenges include regulatory compliance, workforce management, economic volatility, political instability, supply chain management, environmental compliance, and technology and infrastructure.

Protectionism, deregulation, public–private partnership, privatisation, and environmental regulation are significant government decisions that affect large-scale industries. The study identifies tax incentives, easy access to financing, and domestic and international trade policies to safeguard large-scale industries’ interests.

Practical implications: Large-scale industries contribute towards the growth of global economic resilience in terms of employment generation, technological advancements, and innovation, fostering international trade in today’s interconnected world.

In an environment of intensive global mobility, this study aims to investigate the performance role of staffing choices within diverse MNE subsidiary strategies. Incorporating the integration-responsiveness (IR) framework with a contingency perspective, this study proposes that the performance success of distinct MNE subsidiary strategies depends on staffing choices. This study argues that performance differences of staffing choices such as assigned expatriates, self-initiated expatriates, former inpatriates and host-country nationals derive from their different knowledge/experience advantages regarding the intra-firm environment and local market conditions.

The study utilizes a unique sample of 169 foreign subsidiaries located in Greece that faced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (in 2020). For robustness reasons, this study also captures the imposition of capital controls (in June 2015).

This study finds important mediating performance effects of a diversified human resource portfolio across distinct subsidiary strategies in difficult times. Integration strategy tends to use more assigned expatriates, locally responsive strategy tends to utilize more host-country nationals, whereas multi-focal strategy favors self-initiated expatriates and former inpatriates, with positive subsidiary performance effects accordingly. So, staffing policies that are suitable to balance the needs of Human Resource Management (HRM) portfolio differ from strategy to strategy. Moreover, this study finds that managing HRM diversity is crucial in turbulent times.

While the empirical evidence has been predominantly accumulated from large economies, largely neglecting performance effects of MNE subsidiary staffing in crisis contexts, the analysis sheds light on a small open economy (i.e. the Greek context) emphasizing rapidly environmental deterioration. The findings extend existing theorizing on international performance and HRM management by providing an integrative conceptual framework linking integration-responsiveness motivated strategies with distinct groups of high-quality human resources under contingency considerations, so creatively synthesizing largely fragmented IB and HRM research streams. The study provides valuable insights into the performance role of non-conventional staffing choices such as self-initiated expatriates and former inpatriates, given that relevant studies examine either exclusively expatriates or compare expatriates with host country nationals, reaching inconclusive results.

Alain Verbeke is one of the world’s leading thinkers on international business (IB) and globalization, a renowned scholar and educator who contributes to creating a better global business environment by addressing some of today’s most critical challenges. He was one of the first scholars to advance a theoretically rigorous and practically significant perspective on international corporate social responsibility (CSR). Verbeke’s work on international CSR is particularly impactful because it is rooted in IB theory and based on a realistic set of assumptions about the behavior of managers, policymakers, and other market and nonmarket stakeholders. In this chapter, the authors apply theoretical principles central to Verbeke’s research – most notably behavioral assumptions of bounded rationality and bounded reliability – to analyze businesses’ and societies’ pace of progress in relation to stated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. The authors argue that bounded rationality and reliability challenges create misalignment between stated/imposed commitments toward ESG performance, and economic actors’ ability to deliver on these commitments. The authors discuss examples of such misalignment, focusing on tensions among stakeholders, between stakeholder organizations and firms, and within firms. The authors propose that to be relevant for policy and practice, the sustainability research should be based on realistic microfoundational assumptions.

The purpose of this paper is to present a quantitative and qualitative synthesis of the diverse academic proposals and initiatives for preventing and eliminating hate speech on the internet.

The foundation for this study is a systematic review of papers devoted to the analysis of hate speech. It has been conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol and applied to an initial corpus of 436 academic texts. Having implemented the suitability, screening and inclusion criteria, this corpus was refined to a sample of 74 articles.

The main subject categories studied in this corpus of academic research are legal issues and social media. In the majority of the articles, the use of hate speech via social media is associated with five typologies: religion, cyber racism, political slurs, misogyny and attacks on the LGTBI community. The absence of ethical reflection is one of the major shortcomings of IT-focused research and analysis devoted to online hate speech.

To date various systematic reviews have been presented, and they focus on detecting or describing hate speech. These have used either the search appraisal synthesis analysis framework or the Cochrane network. The PRISMA protocol was applied for this study, and both Scopus and texts in German were included. To date no major, rigorous systematic review has been undertaken of proposals to combat hate speech.

The link between hate speech and poverty has not been studied in depth within the academic sphere. Tolerance and ethical compassion are not granted the attention they merit when it comes to analysing the phenomenon of hate speech.

Distances between contexts that a multinational enterprise (MNE) is familiar with and those that it is not familiar with do not hinder the MNE from becoming global. In this sense, distance serves as a barrier between an MNE’s global intentions and its regional realizations. (Multi)regional strategies are a possible expression of an MNE’s inability to approach distances. Considering the managerially relevant distances is essential to analyze the internationalization and the resulting (multi)regional strategies. A deeper understanding of how distance works requires linking distance to micro-foundations. Besides bounded rationality, bounded reliability opens the conceptual pathway toward a deeper understanding of internationalization and (multi)regional strategies.

Chinese firms are winning market share from foreign multinational enterprises in domestic markets. The international business literature suggests that this is happening because these firms are developing non-traditional firm-specific advantages (FSAs). Strategic factor market (SFM) theory provides a good basis for explaining how this is happening. However, it is underdeveloped in terms of analysing unique resources and unique access to those resources by Chinese firms in their domestic markets. This paper aims to develop a framework to understand how Chinese firms have developed non-traditional FSAs.

The case study method is adopted to explore how Chinese firms develop non-traditional FSAs. Specifically, the authors compare paired case studies of a Chinese firm and a foreign multinational in each of two industries.

The authors find that Chinese firms have developed non-traditional FSAs because of more relevant experience, better adapted strategies and privileged relationships. This has enabled Chinese firms to develop non-traditional FSAs.

The authors propose a framework that conceptualises non-traditional FSA development in Chinese firms as a product of superior access to unique and valuable resources in their domestic SFMs.