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The purpose of this paper is to examine a case of companies cooperating with the State to prevent a public controversy over nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster and achieve mutually beneficial policy outcomes. It analyses the private and public communication of pro-nuclear corporate, political and regulatory actors.

Drawing on the political economy theory, the study examines how actors mobilised power by accessing an existing social network to agree a joint public communication strategy in order to ensure public support for the continuation of nuclear power generation in the UK. It traces discursive frames from their inception in private communication to their reproduction in public communication and their dissemination via the media.

The study provides evidence of pro-nuclear actors cooperating behind the scenes to achieve consistent public pro-nuclear messaging. It finds evidence of four discursive frames: avoiding knee-jerk reactions, lessons learned, safety and nuclear renaissance. In combination, they guide audiences’ evaluation of the consequences of the Fukushima disaster for the UK in favour of continuing the commercial use of nuclear energy.

The private e-mail exchange between pro-nuclear actors presents a unique opportunity to examine the mobilisation of less visible forms of power in the form of agenda setting (manipulation) and discursive framing (domination) in order to influence policy outcomes and shape public opinion on nuclear energy. This is problematic because it constitutes a lack of transparency and accountability on part of the State with respect to policy outcomes and restricts the civic space by curtailing the articulation of alternative interests and voices.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a micro-level, human-activity-centred interpretative framework for the way operations strategy is formed, linked and aligned with corporate-level strategies, and to apply it to gain insights on these processes.

Relying on the theoretical foundations of social practice theory and actor-network theory, as well as on the analysis of the organisational realities of the operations strategy formation process embedded in pluralistic organisational contexts, a conceptual framework for analysing the production and alignment of operations strategy is developed. The framework is then used to guide field research for the analysis of an operations-led strategic initiative in a medium-sized agro-food company.

Operations strategy formation can be interpreted as an ongoing practical, distributed social activity of network (re)formation. Specific initiatives, or events, act as catalysts for the association of operations strategy formation practices with corporate-level ones, facilitating thus the current and future alignment of strategic content. Artefacts play an active role in the linking process.

The research presented in this paper is pioneering as it is the first explicit consideration of operations strategy formation (process) as practical social activity (practices are the focus of analysis, not individuals’ choices), in which non-human agency (informational artefacts, etc.) is explicitly taken into account. For this purpose, a novel analytic framework was developed, which, however, need to be further tested to determine the exact conditions under which it is valid.

The framework improves the understanding of the organisational dynamics of operations strategy formation, its linking with, and institutionalisation in, other organisational processes and strategic discourses. Thus, it can assist in the analysis of operations-led strategic initiatives.

Application of the results obtained can provide better workplaces.

For the first time: operations strategy formation is considered as a social activity by focusing on the strategists and managers’ practices; the role of documents, decision-support tools and other artefacts is surfaced; and the importance of introducing operations strategy formation practices carrying strategy content into corporate and business-level strategy processes and their role in the alignment of the two strategies is emphasised.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a global trend involving corporations, states, international organizations and civil society organizations. It is far from clear what CSR stands for, what the trend really is, where it comes from, where it is heading and who the leading actors are. If one views it as a social movement, one must ask: a movement of what and for whom? The purpose of this paper is to examine the CSR trend in all its complexity and draw conclusions regarding its development and potential impact.

Analysis of central documents and publications on CSR is combined with interviews with driving corporate actors.

This article portrays the CSR trend in three ways: as a regulatory framework that places new demands on corporations; as a mobilization of corporate actors to assist the development aid of states; and as a management trend. Each of these portraits suggests certain actors, relations, driving forces and interests as being central. An analysis shows that no one of these views seems to be more accurate than the others: rather the movement comprises a collection of diverse interests, actors, origins and trajectories. These multiple identities may partially describe the trend's success, but could equally well describe its contestation, fragility and fluidity.

The conceptual distinction shows the likely development and potential impact of a corporate social development. Moreover, the discussions help us reflect on the formation of management trends and how certain models come to flow rapidly and extensively around the globe, following and adding to institutional change – especially to changes in the roles, relations and boundaries between and among states, business corporations and civil society organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that there are structural and functional limits to corporate social responsibility (CSR) that determine the boundary conditions of corporate social initiatives. The current preoccupation with win-win situations in CSR may not serve societal interests. For CSR to produce social outcomes that are not necessarily constrained by corporate rationality there needs to be a change in the normative framework of public decision making at the institutional level. The author develops a global governance framework for CSR that provides more democratic forms of decision making in the political economy that will enable corporate social responsibility to overcome the constraints imposed by corporate rationality.

This is a conceptual paper and critique.

The author develops a global governance framework for CSR that provides more democratic forms of decision making in the political economy that will enable corporate social responsibility to overcome the constraints imposed by corporate rationality.

The paper contributes to theoretical development of CSR.

This study aims to compare styles of management accounting (MA), i.e. the way in which MA influences corporate decision-making, in German and Spanish companies. The study illustrates relevant differences by comparing the role of management accountants in decision-making processes and puts a particular emphasis on their networking activities in a corporate context.

This study builds on field study data from semi-structured interviews with senior management accountants in German and Spanish companies. The authors analyze the data within the framework of the actor-network theory (ANT).

In the sampled German companies, strong networks between management accountants and other corporate functions have been established, whereas the corresponding Spanish networks are emerging but remain fragile because of interference from anti-programs, mistrust and defensive departmental attitudes. Although MA in Spain has established only few accepted routines and remains distant from managerial decision-making, it enjoys an unquestioned standing in the German companies, because its routines and procedures are embedded into corporate culture. This embedding is facilitated by not only information technology but also relatively simple tools such as templates, timetables and standardized agendas.

The present study underlines how combining the field study approach with rationales from ANT can provide relevant insights into MA practices in its corporate context.

The present study provides guidance for management accountants striving for an increased influence on corporate decision-making and an improved collaboration with corporate management.

The authors extend the traditional spectrum of theoretical approaches in comparative MA studies. The ANT lens allows to show how styles of MA are shaped by interdependencies between institutional settings and networking processes. In this way, this paper complements previous cross-country research, which has mainly relied on contingency theory to examine static, country-specific differences in relation to distinct environmental and cultural conditions.

This study aims to clarify identity building and authenticity management in human brand research, focusing on inside operators managing corporate accounts on social media. Conventional human brand research analyzes online influencers, and there is a research gap in whether these previous findings apply to corporate accounts.

Using netnography and interview data, this study analyzes Japanese corporate accounts on Twitter.

A corporate account’s identity is constructed under the influence of not only the brand but also the actual inside operator, called naka-no-hito, and other accounts that interact on social media. Corporate accounts are able to exhibit humanistic passion through the inside operator’s personality and maintain a distance from commerciality – to manage their authenticity. These activities attract general and other corporate and media accounts, and interactions with them re-create promotion effects.

This study observed that corporate accounts’ authenticity is not a trade-off between passion and commercial transparency but a compatibility achieved by coordinating interests among actors, together with the presence of inside operators.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate associations emerge in business networks focusing on mutually attributed identities in customer-supplier relationships. The role of the mutually perceived identities for interaction behaviours of the parties is examined and consequences of multiple emergent identities for management are discussed.

The paper is a conceptual one starting from an overview of prior research on corporate associations in marketing, findings on distinctive features of business markets and review of studies on identity in interaction processes.

Departing from various strands of research on the origin and role of corporate associations in the literature the authors argue that corporate associations, in business networks are relationship specific and continuously emergent, and that businesses acquire multiple identities in relation to main stakeholders as customers and suppliers. The relationship specificity, emergent nature and multiplicity of relationship-specific identities have consequences for management.

This study is among the few that explore the role of corporate associations in business-to-business context. It results in two propositions: first, that corporate associations are relationship specific and continuously emergent and, second, that businesses operating in business networks have to cope with multiple relationship-specific identities. Both propositions are original and contribute to the understanding of dynamics of business relationships and networks.

This chapter identifies, defines and explores four news media roles of conduit, facilitator, mediator and political actor through which the media participate with corporate, social and political actors in agenda-building processes. The framework of the media’s four agenda-building roles sheds light on how the news media perform their various roles as well as how other actors, such as organizations and media audiences, are able to mobilize the media performing these roles. This framework helps explain how and why media roles affect the way actors are able to influence the media agenda with the intention of shaping the public agenda.

This paper aims to explore how changes in the coercive and enabling orientations of the organizational rule system influence the attention managers pay to rules.

The findings of a case study covering a multinational energy company, which are interpreted based on insights from the coercive/enabling bureaucracy literature and the evolution of rules literature, help explain how rules can direct attention.

The findings suggest that the tensions between corporate management’s intentions for an organization’s rule system and the attention middle (country) managers pay to those rules were the main driver of dialectic changes in the rule system. The more coercive the rule system became, the more middle managers diverted their attention away from rule compliance. The paper shows how the dialect change process constituted a dynamic interaction between mindful “rule setters” and mindful “rule followers.” The alignment between intentions and attention was reestablished by better balancing the coercive and enabling orientations of the rule system: enabling better flexibility, enhancing internal transparency based on local business logic and improving global transparency through closer alignment of local and global growth and efficiency goals. Surprisingly, the repair characteristic was not as important.

The findings contribute to the literature by showing how the enabling and coercive characteristics of an organizational rule system constitute managerial attention artifacts. The paper demonstrates how tensions between corporate intentions and local contingencies in the context of global organizations can lead to constrictive change and create a win-win situation for both central and local actors by better balancing the coercive and enabling orientations of the rule system. It also offers new insights into the dialectic change process in an organization’s rule system based on attention view toward organizational rules.

Corporations are increasingly expected to act responsibly. The purpose of this paper is to examine two types of corporate responses to these expectations: overt and covert responses. Specifically, it examines oil companies’ involvement in multi-stakeholder initiatives and sponsorships (overt responses) and their monitoring of critics, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activist organisations (covert responses).

Theoretically, the paper draws on theories of visibility and post-political regulation. Empirically, it focuses on case studies of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Shell and BP, drawing on qualitative methods.

The paper demonstrates that overt responses create an impression of consensus between antagonistic interests and that covert responses support this impression by containing deep-seated conflicts.

Corporate responses have implications for the role of the corporation as a (post-)political actor. By containing antagonism and creating an impression of consensus, the interplay between overt and covert responses open up further possibilities for the proliferation of soft governance and self-regulation through participation in voluntary transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Data on covert practices of corporations are difficult to access. This impedes possibilities for fully assessing their extent. The findings of this paper support trends emerging from recent research on covert corporate intelligence practices, but more research is needed to provide a systematic overview.

The paper contributes to the understudied area of covert corporate activity in research on the political role of multinational corporations.