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Transnational Corporations (transnational + corporation)
Selected AbstractsNetworks, Scale, and Transnational Corporations: The Case of the South Korean Seed IndustryECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006Sook-Jin Kim Abstract: In light of recent theoretical scholarship that has incorporated scale with networks perspectives, this article examines the potential of a scalar networks-based approach to understanding the global strategies and activities of transnational corporations (TNCs), through a comparative case study of two TNCs that were involved in the recent transformation of the South Korean seed industry. The comparative study demonstrates that a foreign TNC's mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of major South Korean seed companies in 1998,1999 in the context of structural adjustment (TNC's material politics of scale) was an outcome of complex relations and the intermingling of various actor-networks that were embedded in various scales. A domestic TNC's responses to the M&As, on the other hand, illustrate how the TNC's struggle to reshape power relations through a discursive politics of scale enabled it to extend and enrich its networks and power relations with farmers, politicians, the general public, and the government. Material and discursive uses of scale in the business strategies of TNCs are shaped by complex actor-networks that are embedded in specific sociocultural and institutional contexts and influence new configurations of networks and power relations, and a scalar networks-based approach helps one understand this complexity of TNCs' activities. [source] Transnational Corporations and Repression of Political Rights and Civil Liberties: An Empirical AnalysisKYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 1 2004Matthias Busse Summary Transnational Corporations are often accused by non-governmental organisations of ignoring fundamental democratic rights, such as civil liberties and political rights, in the countries of their investments. This paper attempts to explore empirically the complex relationship between foreign investment and democracy in a systematic way, using different econometric techniques. In contrast to the public discussion over recent years and the view held by non-governmental organisations, the results show that enhanced democratic rights are associated with higher foreign investment in the 1990s. Interestingly, this positive link does not hold for the 1970s and 1980s, when a substantial portion of foreign investment went to countries with repressive governments. [source] Mapuche Resistance to Transnational Corporations: Reformulating Strategies of StruggleANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 2 2000Rosamel Millaman Reinao First page of article [source] Transnational corporations: international citizens or new sovereigns?BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW, Issue 4 2003Dennis A Rondinelli The expanding public roles of transnational corporations in private foreign aid, in self-regulation and private certification of business practices, not to mention helping shape public policy, can be viewed as evidence of corporate citizenship and social responsibility or as a threat to democratic decision making and national sovereignty. Dennis A Rondinelli suggests that new systems of countervailing power may be needed to encourage further corporate citizenship while preventing potential abuses of political and economic power. [source] Migration and Policies in the European Union: Highly Skilled Mobility, Free Movement of Labour and Recognition of DiplomasINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 1 2001João Peixoto This article evaluates the relationship between highly skilled mobility (especially by individuals with university-level degrees) and migration policies. Data from the European Union (EU) and Portugal (in particular) provide the empirical basis of the research. EU policies regarding the free circulation of individuals which aim to build the "common market" for economic factors (including labour) are reviewed, as are the more specific recognition of diplomas policies for professional and academic purposes, and recent levels of international mobility in both the EU and Portugal. The article also enumerates the main obstacles that, from a political and legal or social and cultural perspective, explain the low mobility revealed by those figures. Obstacles include the broad denial of citizenship rights; the necessity of assuring a means of sustenance; linguistic and technical exigencies for diploma recognition; the social attributes of work (more explicit in the service sector); and the institutional nature of national skilled labour markets. The main exception to the low mobility rule , movements of cadres in the internal labour markets of transnational corporations , together with flows in other multinational organizations, are also reviewed. In these, migrations are relatively exempt from political constraints and, significantly, avoid the recognition procedures adopted by the EU. In other words, it seems that the entry of highly skilled individuals in a transnational corporation, and not their citizenship in a Europe without frontiers, is what enables them to achieve effective mobility. [source] Oil transnational corporations: corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainabilityCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2008Felix M. Edoho Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR) occupies the center stage of the debate on the operations of transnational corporations in the developing countries. The quest for profit maximization as the overriding value at the expense of corporate social responsibility puts some transnational corporations on a collision path with their Niger Delta host communities, who are demanding environmental sustainability. Militant groups have shut down flow stations and taken oil workers hostage. Unresponsiveness of oil firms to community demands for CSR is heightening the volatility of the Nigerian oil industry. The problem will intensify until oil firms initiate authentic CSR strategies to address the environmental havocs emanating from their operations. At the core of such strategies is recognizing the host communities as bona fide stakeholders and addressing their socioeconomic needs. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Environmental Narratives on Protection and Production: Nature-based Conflicts in R7iacute;o San Juan, NicaraguaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2000Anja Nygren This article focuses on local processes and global forces in the struggle over the fate of forests and over the contested claims of protection and production in a protected area buffer zone of Río San Juan, Nicaragua. The struggle over control of local natural resources is seen as a multifaceted process of development and power involving diverse social actors, from agrarian politicians and development agents to a heterogeneous group of local settlers, absentee cattle raisers, timber dealers, transnational corporations, and non-governmental organizations. The initial interest is in the local resource-related discourses and actions; the analysis then broadens to include the larger political-economic processes and environment-development discourses that affect the local systems of production and systems of signification. The article underlines environmental resource conflicts as one of the major challenges in subjecting structures of social power to critical analysis. [source] Organizational Challenges and Strategic Responses of Retail TNCs in Post-WTO-Entry ChinaECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2009Wance Tacconelli abstract In the context of a market characterized by the enduring legacy of socialism through governmental ownership of retail businesses, the continued presence of domestic retailers, and increasing levels of competition, this article examines the organizational challenges faced by, and the strategic responses adopted by, a group of leading food and general merchandise retail transnational corporations (TNCs) in developing networks of stores in the post-WTO-entry Chinese market. On the basis of extensive interview-based fieldwork conducted in China from 2006 to 2008, the article details the attempts of these retail TNCs to embed their operations in Chinese logistics and supply networks, real estate markets, and consumer cultures,three dimensions that are fundamental to the achievement of market competitiveness by the retail TNCs. The article illustrates how this process of territorial embeddedness presents major challenges for the retail TNCs and how their strategic responses vary substantially, indicating different routes to the achievement of organizational legitimacy in China. The article concludes by offering an analysis of the various strategic responses of the retail TNCs and by suggesting some future research propositions on the globalization of the retail industry. [source] Managing the Transnational Law Firm: A Relational Analysis of Professional Systems, Embedded Actors, and Time,Space-Sensitive GovernanceECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2008James R. Faulconbridge Abstract This article argues that the relational approach can be particularly effective for addressing debates about the varieties of capitalism and the dynamics of institutional contexts. Using the case study of transnational law firms and data gathered through interviews with partners in London and New York, it makes two arguments. First, it suggests that the relational approach's focus on the behavior of key agents when new or different work practices are encountered helps explain the management of institutional heterogeneity by transnational corporations (TNCs). Such an approach reveals the peculiarities of professionals and professional service managers and how they affect the response of globalizing law firms when home- and host-country business practices diverge. Second, the article shows how relational approaches can help disaggregate descriptions of national institutional systems to reveal the importance of studying their constitutive practices. Understanding these microlevel variations, which is missed by macrolevel categories like Anglo-American, is essential for explaining how firms cope with institutional heterogeneity. The author therefore argues that a better understanding of the effects of TNCs on national business systems can be facilitated by further developing the actor- and practice-focused analyses promoted by relational approaches. [source] Networks, Scale, and Transnational Corporations: The Case of the South Korean Seed IndustryECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006Sook-Jin Kim Abstract: In light of recent theoretical scholarship that has incorporated scale with networks perspectives, this article examines the potential of a scalar networks-based approach to understanding the global strategies and activities of transnational corporations (TNCs), through a comparative case study of two TNCs that were involved in the recent transformation of the South Korean seed industry. The comparative study demonstrates that a foreign TNC's mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of major South Korean seed companies in 1998,1999 in the context of structural adjustment (TNC's material politics of scale) was an outcome of complex relations and the intermingling of various actor-networks that were embedded in various scales. A domestic TNC's responses to the M&As, on the other hand, illustrate how the TNC's struggle to reshape power relations through a discursive politics of scale enabled it to extend and enrich its networks and power relations with farmers, politicians, the general public, and the government. Material and discursive uses of scale in the business strategies of TNCs are shaped by complex actor-networks that are embedded in specific sociocultural and institutional contexts and influence new configurations of networks and power relations, and a scalar networks-based approach helps one understand this complexity of TNCs' activities. [source] The Strategic Localization of Transnational Retailers: The Case of Samsung-Tesco in South KoreaECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2006Neil M. Coe Abstract: This article contributes to the small but growing geographic literature on the internationalization of retailing by exploring the strategic localization of transnational retailers. While it has long been recognized that firms in many different sectors localize their activities to meet the requirements of different national and local markets, the imperative is particularly strong for retail transnational corporations (TNCs) because of the extremely high territorial embeddedness of their activities. This embeddedness can be seen through the ways in which retailers seek to establish and maintain extensive store networks, adapt their offerings to various cultures of consumption, and manage the proliferation of connections to the local supply base. We illustrate these conceptual arguments through a case study of the Samsung-Tesco joint venture in South Korea, profiling three particular aspects of Samsung-Tesco's strategic localization: the localization of products, the localization of sourcing, and the localization of staffing and strategic decision making. In conclusion, we argue that the strategic localization of transnational retailers needs to be conceptualized as a dynamic that evolves over time after initial inward investment and that localization should be seen as a two-way dynamic that has the potential to have a wider impact on the parent corporation. [source] Concepts in Social and Spatial MarginalityGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2000Assefa Mehretu The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual taxonomy of marginality resulting from two counterposed structural conditions within laissez-faire on the one hand and controlled markets on the other. Marginality is a complex condition of disadvantage that individuals and communities may experience because of vulnerabilities which may arise from unequal or inequitable environmental, ethnic, cultural, social, political and economic factors. A typology of marginality is based on two primary and two derivative forms. The primary forms are contingent and systemic. The derivative forms are collateral and lever-aged. Contingent marginality is a condition that results from competitive inequality in which individuals and communities are put at a disadvantage because of the dynamics of the free market whose uncertain and stochastic outcomes affect them adversely. Systemic marginality is a socioeconomic condition of disadvantage created by socially constructed inequitable non-market forces of bias. Collateral marginality is a condition experienced by individuals or communities who are marginalized solely on the basis of their social and/or geographic proximity to individuals or communities that experience either contingent or systemic marginality. Lever-aged marginality is a contingent or systemic disadvantage that people/communities are made to experience when their bargaining position in free markets is weakened by dominant stakeholders like transnational corporations which are able to leverage lucrative concessions by using the threat of alternative, often cheaper and marginalized (contingent or systemic) labour pools to which they can potentially take their business. [source] Portfolios of mobility: the movement of expertise in transnational corporations in two sectors , aerospace and extractive industriesGLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 1 2008JANE MILLAR Abstract This article is about how UK-based transnational corporations source expertise and move highly skilled people among their sites. TNCs rely heavily on their internal labour markets for skills. We examine patterns and trends in the ways that TNCs in two sectors, aerospace and extractives, dynamically orchestrate and deploy their networks of expertise internationally to address the demands of different markets. We chart the types of mobility that exist, identify how and why they are used, and explore some of the institutional, industrial, organizational and technological factors that influence these trends. We show that different types of mobility play distinct roles in organizations. Companies respond to mobility calls from diverse stimuli by linking together mobility options into portfolios of moves that represent negotiated responses to industrial and individual requirements. [source] The Transnational Capitalist Class and Contemporary Architecture in Globalizing CitiesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005LESLIE SKLAIR The focus of this article is on the role of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) in and around architecture in the production and marketing of iconic buildings and spaces, in global or world cities. The TCC is conceptualized in terms of four fractions: (1) Those who own and/or and control the major transnational corporations and their local affiliates (corporate fraction). In architecture these are the major architectural, architecture-engineering and architecture-developer-real estate firms. In comparison with the major global consumer goods, energy and financial corporations the revenues of the biggest firms in the architecture industry are quite small. However, their importance for the built environment and their cultural importance, especially in cities, far outweighs their relative lack of financial and corporate muscle. (2) Globalizing politicians and bureaucrats (state fraction). These are the politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of administrative power and responsibility who actually decide what gets built where, and how changes to the built environment are regulated. (3) Globalizing professionals (technical fraction). The members of this fraction range from the leading technicians centrally involved in the structural features of new building to those responsible for the education of students and the public in architecture. (4) Merchants and media (consumerist fraction). These are the people who are responsible for the marketing of architecture in all its manifestations. (There is obviously some overlap between the membership of these fractions.). My conclusion is that many global and aspiring global cities have looked to iconic architecture as a prime strategy of urban intervention, often in the context of rehabilitation of depressed areas. The attempt to identify the agents most responsible for this transformation, namely the TCC, and to explain how they operate, suggests that deliberately iconic architecture is becoming a global phenomenon, specifically a central urban manifestation of the culture-ideology of consumerism. L'article porte sur la classe capitaliste transnationale (TCC) au sein et à la périphérie de l'architecture, et sur son rôle dans la production et la commercialisation de constructions et espaces iconiques dans les villes mondiales ou planétaires. Cette classe se conceptualise en quatre fractions: (1) Ceux qui détiennent et/ou contrôlent les principaux groupes transnationaux et leurs sociétés affiliées locales (fraction économique): En architecture, il existe de grands cabinets d'architecture, d'ingénierie en architecture et d'architectes promoteurs immobiliers. Par rapport aux grosses sociétés multinationales de la finance, de l'énergie ou des biens de consommation, les recettes des plus importants cabinets sont assez faibles; pourtant, leur place dans l'environnement construit et la culture, notamment en milieu urbain, compensent largement leur impact relativement mince sur le plan financier et économique. (2) Les acteurs politiques et bureaucratiques de la mondialisation (fraction étatique): Il s'agit des politicients et bureaucrates à tous les niveaux de responsabilié et de pouvoir administratifs qui décident effectivement de ce qui est construit et où, ainsi que de la régulation des changements apportés à l'environnement construit. (3) Les acteurs professionnels de la mondialisation (fraction technique): Leur diversité va des techniciens de renom, surtout impliqués dans les caractéristiques structurelles des nouveaux bâtiments, à ceux qui sont chargés d'enseigner l'architecture aux étudiants et d'éduquer le public. (4) Marchands et médias (fraction consumériste): Ce sont les personnes responsables de la commercialisation de l'architecture dans toutes ses manifestations. Ces quatre fractions présentent bien sûr des intersections. On peut déduire que bon nombre de villes planétaires , ou aspirant à le devenir , ont opté pour une architecture iconique comme première stratégie d'intervention urbaine, souvent dans un contexte de réhabilitation de zones en déclin. Identifier les principaux agents responsables de cette transformation (la TCC) et expliquer leur mode de fonctionnement conduit à suggérer qu'une architecture délibérément iconique devient un phénomène mondial, plus précisément une manifestation urbaine essentielle de l'idéologie-culture du consumérisme. [source] Migration and Policies in the European Union: Highly Skilled Mobility, Free Movement of Labour and Recognition of DiplomasINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 1 2001João Peixoto This article evaluates the relationship between highly skilled mobility (especially by individuals with university-level degrees) and migration policies. Data from the European Union (EU) and Portugal (in particular) provide the empirical basis of the research. EU policies regarding the free circulation of individuals which aim to build the "common market" for economic factors (including labour) are reviewed, as are the more specific recognition of diplomas policies for professional and academic purposes, and recent levels of international mobility in both the EU and Portugal. The article also enumerates the main obstacles that, from a political and legal or social and cultural perspective, explain the low mobility revealed by those figures. Obstacles include the broad denial of citizenship rights; the necessity of assuring a means of sustenance; linguistic and technical exigencies for diploma recognition; the social attributes of work (more explicit in the service sector); and the institutional nature of national skilled labour markets. The main exception to the low mobility rule , movements of cadres in the internal labour markets of transnational corporations , together with flows in other multinational organizations, are also reviewed. In these, migrations are relatively exempt from political constraints and, significantly, avoid the recognition procedures adopted by the EU. In other words, it seems that the entry of highly skilled individuals in a transnational corporation, and not their citizenship in a Europe without frontiers, is what enables them to achieve effective mobility. [source] The International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association social responsibility working group and human rightsINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 2005Jenny Owens This chapter describes how the oil and gas industry is responding to one specific challenge to sustainable development , the promotion of human rights. The human rights activities and practices of the industry fall into three categories: direct responsibility, shared responsibility and indirect influence. Specific responses to human rights issues are illustrated through case studies from some of the member companies of the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association. The chapter demonstrates that the oil and gas industry has achieved substantial progress in establishing and implementing human rights policies and practices. However, the debate between industry, representatives of civil society and governments over the roles, responsibilities and accountability for human rights of transnational corporations in general, and of the oil and gas industry in particular, continues. While under international law the responsibility to protect human rights rests primarily with governments, companies and others, including non-governmental organisations and multilateral organisations, can support human rights. The industry recognises the need to develop measures to help address human rights challenges and that this effort will require co-operation and shared responsibility among all relevant actors. [source] Is China turning Latin?JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2010China's balancing act between power, dependence in the lead up to global crisis Abstract China's apparent escape from the external constraints of peripheral late industrialisation in the build up to the global economic crisis of 2007,2009 has been recent and remains tenuous. Before its spectacular trade surpluses of the 2000s, China's external accounts reflected many of these constraints. Even in the midst of the surplus surge, external vulnerabilities of a peripheral nature have persisted. Besides the issue of export dependence, which is the conventional focus of most crisis-related studies on China, vulnerabilities have been more profoundly related to the dominance of foreign ownership in China's export sector and to the relatively subordinate position of this export sector within the massive rerouting of international production networks via China that followed the East Asian crisis, in large part led by Northern transnational corporations. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Crossing Borders: Globalization as Myth and Charter in American Transnational Consumer MarketingAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 2 2000Kalman Applbaum In this article, I explore the strategic practices and cultural theories of marketing managers in three U.S.-based transnational corporations (TNCs) as seek to meaningfully direct their products across national borders. While cultural anthropologists have lately focused on local adaptation and appropriation of TNCs' products to local meanings, the reverse process by which TNCs co-opt local meanings to a universalizing evolutionary paradigm,in what they have come to regard as a consumption-led new global order,has not been examined. Globalization is explored as a key cultural concept driving marketing managers' practices,the myth and charter behind large TNC border crossings. [consumer marketing, globalization, transnational corporations, United States] [source] How green is the valley?THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 3 2005Foreign direct investment in two Norwegian industrial towns Since the early 1900s, foreign direct investments (FDIs) have greatly affected Norwegian society, especially peripheral communities. This article analyses how transnational corporations (TNCs) use territory down to the local level, and how this complex relationship between firms and spaces is shaped by attributes related to the TNC and the characteristics of the local economy. An extensive literature discusses different types of effects and spillovers, such as vertical supply linkages and spin-offs, but theoretical explanations of outcomes are more difficult. The literature links positive as well as negative outcomes to local conditions and to the investment motives of the entity making the FDI, but says little about how these vary with types of business, communities and national economies, and how these interactions generate different outcomes. We conclude that FDIs have different abilities to transform an area. We argue that FDI can trigger path-dependent dependency when it is dominated by economic capital and path-dependent development when it consists of a balance of economic capital, social networks and knowledge. This variation in the effects of FDI is illustrated by an empirical analysis of two industrial towns in Western Norway, one with natural resources and the other with intangible technology resources. Depuis le début des années 1900, les investissements directs à l'étranger (IDE) ont grandement marqué la société norvégienne, notamment dans les communautés périphériques. Cet article présente une analyse de la façon dont les entreprises transnationales (ETN) exploitent le territoire y compris le niveau local. Il tente aussi d'expliquer comment la relation complexe entre les entreprises et les espaces dépend des attributs propres aux ETN et des caractéristiques de l'économie locale. Un courant important de la littérature étudie les nombreuses incidences et répercussions des ETN, comme les relations d'offre verticale et les effets indirects. Cependant, les discussions qui s'ensuivent présentent généralement peu d'explications d'ordre théorique concernant les résultats. La littérature associe les résultats positifs ou négatifs directement aux conditions locales et aux motivations qui poussent une entreprise à placer ses capitaux dans un IDE. Elle aborde à peine la question sur comment les résultats peuvent varier selon les types d'entreprises, de communautés et d'économies nationales, et comment ces interactions produisent des résultats différents. En conclusion, nous rappelons que les IDE disposent de plusieurs possibilités de transformer un milieu. Un investissement peut produire une dépendance au sentier qui accentue la soumission quand le capital économique domine, et une dépendance au sentier qui accentue le développement quand il offre un équilibre entre le capital économique, les réseaux sociaux et le savoir. Une analyse empirique permet de relever cette variation qui caractérise les incidences des IDE. Elle porte sur deux villes moyennes industrielles situées dans la partie occidentale de la Norvège. La première est riche en ressources naturelles tandis que l'autre est dotée de ressources technologiques intangibles. [source] M&As AND THE GLOBAL STRATEGIES OF TNCsTHE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 4 2002JOHN CANTWELL Most of the motivations for M&As that feature in the global strategies of transnational corporations (TNCs) are a means of reshaping competitive advantages within their respective industries. They have some effect on the TNCs of all or most industries and so to that extent they are not necessarily sector-specific. However, it may be that some of the motives which we outline affect some industries more than others, and in that sense they can be expected to be associated with a greater intensity of M&As in certain sectors than others. We identify the likelihood of M&As across industries, and discuss how the general factors that have promoted the recent M&A wave have had a bigger impact on the global strategies of TNCs in the industries in which the propensity to engage in M&As has been the highest. The regional dimension is also considered. [source] Responsibility Beyond Borders: State Responsibility for Extraterritorial Violations by Corporations of International Human Rights LawTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 4 2007Robert McCorquodale States routinely provide support and assistance to their corporate nationals in their global trade and investment ventures. While states may not intend to allow corporate nationals to violate human rights in their extraterritorial operations, by their actions or omissions, states may facilitate, or otherwise contribute to, a situation in which such violations by a corporation occur. This article investigates the extent to which the extraterritorial activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) that violate international human rights law can give rise to home state responsibility. The analysis shows that home states of TNCs have obligations under international law in certain situations to regulate the extraterritorial activities of corporate nationals or the latter's foreign subsidiaries and can incur international responsibility where they fail to do so. [source] Voluntary environmental initiatives: ISO14001 certified organisations in SingaporeASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2000Sanjeev Singh The value of environmental regulation through command and control measures has been questioned because of inflexibility and high cost. Voluntary environmental initiatives have been proposed as an alternative approach to save costs, overcome problems of inadequate enforcement and monitoring and to take advantage of the environmental leadership of transnational corporations (TNCs). Amongst voluntary environmental initiatives certified environmental management system standards have so far had most impact in Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia. This paper investigates the environmental policy statements of 52 ISO14001 certified organisations in Singapore and shows that the environmental commitments being made are no substitute for traditional environmental regulations. [source] Human Rights in Global Business Ethics CodesBUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2008EMILY F. CARASCO ABSTRACT The last decade has witnessed renewed attempts to regulate the conduct of transnational corporations. One way to do this is via global ethics codes. This paper examines seven such codes (the Sullivan Principles, UN Center for Transnational Corporations' Draft Code, OECD Guidelines, ILO's Tripartite Declaration, the Caux Round Table Principles for Business, Global Compact, and the United Nations Norms) to determine their coverage of human rights and concludes that if these initiatives succeed, particularly the more recent codes, transnational corporations may emerge as a major force in promoting human rights globally. [source] Environmental management of transnational corporations in India,are TNCs creating islands of environmental excellence in a sea of dirt?BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 2 2002Audun Ruud This paper discusses how and to what extent local environmental practices at affiliated units of transnational corporations (TNCs) are influenced by TNC headquarters (HQ). The study focuses on intra-firm dynamics of what is termed ,cross-border environmental management' of TNCs. The study documents that the environmental management of TNC-affiliated units in India are strongly influenced by HQ's environmental policies and standards. However, it is found that there are deviations in local practices from intentions and policy commitments stated at HQ. This can be particularly attributed to local economic and political factors. Cross-border environmental management is making a difference. However it is limited to affiliated TNC units and few additional external environmental impacts are documented. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [source] Transnational corporations: international citizens or new sovereigns?BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW, Issue 4 2003Dennis A Rondinelli The expanding public roles of transnational corporations in private foreign aid, in self-regulation and private certification of business practices, not to mention helping shape public policy, can be viewed as evidence of corporate citizenship and social responsibility or as a threat to democratic decision making and national sovereignty. Dennis A Rondinelli suggests that new systems of countervailing power may be needed to encourage further corporate citizenship while preventing potential abuses of political and economic power. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||