Search results

Since the turn of the millennium, a small corpus of post‐structuralist thought has emerged that challenges the dominant belief that capitalism is now hegemonic and that all economic formations are contrasting varieties of capitalism. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of this emergent perspective. The aim is to challenge the notion that the Ukrainian economy can be represented as some variety of capitalism by highlighting the shallow permeation of capitalist practices into daily life and the continuing prevalence of multifarious non‐capitalist economic practices.

To achieve this, evidence is here reported from a 2005‐6 survey that analysed the extent to which 600 households in Ukraine used capitalist and non‐capitalist economic practices in their coping tactics.

This reveals not only the limited use of capitalist practices in the everyday coping tactics of households in Ukraine but also how an array of non‐capitalist economic practices remain heavily relied on by a majority of households to secure their livelihood. The outcome is a call to tentatively reject the “varieties of capitalism” system of meaning because of what it excludes, prohibits and denies, and to open up the future of post‐Soviet Ukraine to other possible trajectories than simply some variety of capitalism.

This snapshot survey of the everyday coping practices of households displays only that capitalist practices are not hegemonic and that multifarious economic relations persist and are widespread. It does not show whether or not there is movement towards greater reliance on capitalist practices.

It begins through the presentation of evidence on Ukraine to tentatively challenge the application of a “varieties of capitalism” perspective towards Central and Eastern European economies.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of characteristics of capitalism on environmental performance.

The authors analyzed a sample of 6,257 companies, based in 55 countries and 8 typologies of capitalism. The independent variables are the characteristics of capitalism, measured through five indicators: cooperation between employees and employers, index of economic freedom, local competition between industries, human development index (HDI) and quality of the governance environment. To measure environmental performance, the authors created an index composed of 20 indicators. Data were analyzed using panel data regression and dynamic panel of the generalized method of moments.

The results indicate that the characteristics of capitalism can shape the environmental behavior of companies. The authors find that in countries with better cooperation between employees and employers, more economic freedom, and competition between firms, in addition to better HDI and national governance, companies have higher environmental performance. When they are in more developed countries, companies have a greater environmental performance.

Managers must consider the country's characteristics of capitalism when making their environmental decisions and strategies. The findings invite governments to incorporate into their regulations mechanisms to protect other interest groups, not just shareholders.

Few studies have examined environmental performance, which is less susceptible to greenwashing. The metric for environmental performance measures the company's concrete effort in relation to environmental issues and not just the disclosure of information. Additionally, the authors examine characteristics of capitalism supported by Varieties of Capitalism, an approach still little explored in the environmental management.

This article argues that social scientists should reconsider the analytic value of the term “capitalism.” The paper argues that the two most coherent definitions of capitalism are those derived from classical Marxism and from the World System theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. Marx and Engels’ formulation was basically a genetic theory in which the structure of a mode of production is determined by the mode of surplus extraction. During the course of the 20th century, however, Marxist theorists had to modify this framework and the result has been an uncomfortable hybrid. Wallerstein resolved these tensions by redefining capitalism in terms of the logic of a world system. However, his argument has difficulty in explaining the consequential variations over time in the specific rules and institutional structures that operate at the global level. The article goes on to argue in favor of Karl Polanyi's concept of market society because it focuses attention on the political governance of market societies at both the national and the global levels.

There is little doubt that in terms of speed and scale, China's economic transformation is without parallel in the past. Never has the world seen a major economic power emerge in such a short time span and attain such a weight in the total world economy. Intriguingly, few social scientific analyses have explicitly interpreted the massive socio-economic changes taking place within China as associated with the emergence of a capitalist political economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct effects of state capitalism on the internationalization behavior of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Specifically, the authors focus on four distinct aspects of internationalization behavior; namely, pace of internationalization, rhythm of internationalization, location choice (developing countries vs developed countries), and diversity of product lines.

The authors empirically test the hypotheses using data from Chinese construction companies during the period 2009-2015. The authors build a unique dataset by combining the data from ENR Top 225 International Contractors reports and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China information. Moreover, concerning the panel data structure and the potential for autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity, The authors use the feasible generalized least square panel model to test the hypotheses.

The authors find that the level of state capitalism has a positive effect on SOEs’ rhythm of internationalization, while there is no significant relationship between the level of state capitalism and the pace of internationalization. Furthermore, the authors find that the SOEs affiliated with higher levels of government organizations are more likely to locate business operations in developing countries and engage in more diversity of product lines.

The findings show that the different varieties of state capitalism are the source of the different internationalization patterns of SOEs. Instead of supposing SOEs to be uniform players in emerging economies, the authors show that the nature of SOEs varies depending on the level of government with which they are affiliated, and this fact results from the divergent manifestations of state capitalism itself.

This study improves the understanding of how state capitalism affects the capabilities and motivations of SOEs in regard to overseas expansion. The authors extend institutional theory by supposing that the level of state capitalism has a positive effect on the rhythm of internationalization. Moreover, the authors find that SOEs embedded with high levels of government affiliation tend to enter into developing countries and diversify their product lines.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the attitude of European firms towards human resource management (HRM) configuration and HRM practices on a country-level basis. Assuming the persistent relevance of institutional framework, the paper investigates the applicability of the varieties of capitalism (VoC) theory to these domains in European countries and their evolution between 1999 and 2005.

The paper selects and groups together variables that are related to both HRM configuration and HRM practices using data coming from the survey performed in 2005 by the Cranfield Network on International HRM. Then, a hierarchical cluster analysis among 16 European countries is performed. Relevant varieties are obtained through the combined application of two stopping rules.

Evidence shows that the evolution of HR policies over time is in line with an extended VoC approach that divides Europe in four VoC. One of these varieties (the “State” model), however, is not validated after a robustness check.

For HR managers, the implementation of common personnel policies within the same variety of capitalism could represent a potential fertile ground for beneficial interactions and mutual learning among HR functions. In particular, the classification suggested in the paper does matter if an intervention on HRM practices is accompanied by a change in the participation of the HR department to the decision-making process and/or in the delegation of responsibilities between the HR department and the line management.

The authors’ results contribute to the debate on the relationship between HRM and institutional context in two ways. First, they show that an extended VoC framework can explain the differentiation among European countries with regard to HRM domains. Notably, the correlation between the structure of the HR function and the intensity of HRM practices generates a clusterization of European countries based on at least three models of capitalism. Second, it emerges from the analysis that a substantial shift occurred with respect to the previous wave of the survey together with an increase of similarities between countries.

The paper argues that the form, structure and ideologies of elites are embedded in particular forms of capitalism. Whilst elites in these different societies are engaged in a common task of ensuring that their position is sustained and protected in the light of economic and political uncertainties, the way in which they are able to do this is shaped by the particular forms of legitimation, coordination and cohesion that are embedded in particular institutional trajectories, path dependencies and complementarities. However, the paper emphasizes that these institutional structures are dependent on particular international economic orders and when these change either over the short or the long term, elites often find themselves struggling to maintain their position without significant changes. The paper examines firstly how the long-term change from Keynesianism to neo-liberalism in the international economic order led to changes in the terrain on which elites in different countries formed and exercised power and secondly how the immediate and drastic short-term changes in the global economy arising from the financial crisis has impacted on elites.

Choosing Varieties of Capitalism as the title of their 2001 edited volume, Peter Hall and David Soskice monopolized a label that was much too broad for the project they were actually reporting. Their project was in line with a style of research, which may be called “bringing yet another factor back in”. That term stems from another pioneering edited volume emerging – like Hall and Soskice's volume – from the Harvard circuit: Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol's (1985) Bringing the State Back In. Following that volume, a number of other factors were “brought back in”: classes, geopolitics, finance and so on.

Critiques of international business (IB) have long pointed to the weaknesses in the understanding of context. This has ignited debate on the understanding of institutions and how they “matter” for IB. Yet how institutions matter ultimately depends on how IB applies institutional theory. It is argued that institutional-based research is dominated by a narrow set of approaches, largely overlooking institutional perspectives that account for institutional diversity. This paper aims to forward the argument that IB research should lend greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional configurations by bringing political economy “back in” to the IB domain.

Using principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the authors provide IB with a taxonomy of capitalist institutional diversity which defines the landscape of political economies.

The authors show institutional diversity is characterised by a range of capitalist clusters and configuration arrangements, identifying four clusters with distinct modes of capitalism as well as specifying intra-cluster differences to propose nine varieties of capitalism. This paper allows IB scholars to lend closer attention to the institutional context within which firms operate. If the configurations of institutions “matter” for IB scholarship, then clearly, a quantitative blueprint to assess institutional diversity remains central to the momentum of such “institutional turn.”

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of institutional theory, serving as a valuable resource for the application of context within international business. Further, our taxonomy allows international business scholars to utilise a robust framework to examine the diverse institutional context within which firms operate, whilst extending to support the analysis of broader socioeconomic outcomes. This taxonomy therefore allows international business scholars to utilise a robust framework to examine the institutional context within which firms operate.

The paper argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”. Big data platforms are shaping the processes of production, labour, the price of products and market conditions. “Digital platforms” and “big data” have become an integral part of the processes of production, distribution and exchange relations. These twin pillars are central to the capitalist accumulation processes. The article argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”.

As a conceptual paper, this paper follows critical methodological lineages and traditions based on non-linear historical narratives around the conceptualisation, construction and transition of the “Marxist theory of capital accumulation” in the age of platform economy. This paper follows a discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which an artificial intelligence (AI)-led platform economy helps identify and conceptualise new forms of capitalist accumulation. It engages with Jørgensen and Phillips' (2002) contextual and empirical discursive traditions to undertake a qualitative comparative analysis by exploring a broad range of complex factors with case studies and examples from leading firms within the platform economy. Finally, it adopts two steps of “Theory Synthesis and Theory Adaptation” as outlined by Jaakkola (2020) to synthesise, adopt and expand the Marxist theory of capital accumulation under platform capitalism.

This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within the platform capitalism. The findings suggest that an AI led platform economy creates new forms of capitalist accumulation. The article helps to develop theoretical understanding and conceptual frameworks to understand and explain these new forms of capital accumulation.

This study builds upon the limited theorisation on the AI and new capitalist accumulation processes. This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within platform capitalism. The article helps to understand digital and platform capitalisms in the lens of digital labour and expands the theory of capitalist accumulation and its new forms in the age of datafication. While critiquing the Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation, the article offers alternative approaches for the future.