The changing role of business leaders in global governance: An empirical study of the role of business leaders in shaping the UN Sustainable Development Goals

This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of companies lobbying for more activist government public policy intervention to advance sustainable development. While there is a degree of agreement that the world faces pressing sustainable development challenges, there is less agreement about how best to organise to tackle them. One area of ongoing debate has been how far to rely on markets versus government intervention. Proponents of more government intervention have argued that increased corporate power in global governance since the rise of economic globalization has made it harder for governments to intervene. In this context, the phenomenon of some companies lobbying for more government intervention holds the promise of being a potentially helpful development. The thesis therefore explores, firstly, whether such action can be understood as a helpful development, and, secondly, how the occurrence of such action might be accounted for. If such action can be judged helpful, understanding more about what accounts for its occurrence could help those who might be interested to try to encourage more of it. The thesis examines these questions in relation to the empirical case of corporate lobbying during the process to develop the UN Sustainable Development Goals over the period 2012-2015, using a critical hermeneutics research methodology. The study principally focuses on two distinct but interconnected lobbying processes over the period 2012-2015 – one coordinated by the UN Global Compact, and the other coordinated by Unilever in partnership with other organisations. The study examines a comprehensive dataset in relation to corporate lobbying for the SDGs, including 12 key public domain documents and a further 13 non-public domain documents communicating private sector views about the development of the SDGs to policymakers, observations of nine meetings between business leaders and policymakers and 13 meetings between business executives discussing their approach to coordinating their lobbying activities, 57 interviews with corporate representatives involved in the lobbying processes (including 13 CEOs or chairpersons) and a further 395 related documents. The thesis builds on and offers a contribution by further developing the literatures on both Corporate Political Activity and Political CSR (and the latter’s linked literatures on Deliberative Lobbying and Responsible Leadership). The thesis does so by employing and further developing Paul Ricoeur’s theory of the self, motivated action and the ethical intention. On the basis of the analysis of texts undertaken, following critical hermeneutics principles, the thesis argues for a particular interpretation, but acknowledges that other interpretations could also be valid. The thesis firstly proposes that such lobbying action can be judged a helpful contribution to advancing sustainable development, but with caveats. The thesis secondly proposes that the occurrence of such action might be accounted for by arguing for a narrative that links the existence of governance gaps arising from economic globalization, the level of personal exposure of senior executives to manifestations of these governance gaps, and the nature of the intersubjectively-shaped hermeneutic horizon with which senior executives interpret these manifestations they encounter. Lobbying governments to make public policy interventions to advance sustainable development appears a rational response to senior executives whose intersubjectively-shaped sense of the good aimed at in everyday action emphasises a responsibility to create long-term value for all stakeholders, rather than just shareholders, and that sometimes advancing social welfare requires exercising power-in-common through the state, rather than just the pursuit of self-interest and the limiting of state intervention to protect the autonomy of the individual. The thesis identifies a range of different kinds of encounters with others and otherness over a lifetime that can shape a senior executive’s hermeneutical horizon and sense of the good aimed at in everyday action, further elaborating on the proposals made by Ricoeur in his theory of solicitude. The thesis concludes by summarising the contributions to theory it makes, as well as outlining a series of implications for practice and further research

Chromosome-Specific Single-Locus FISH Probes Allow Anchorage of an 1800-Marker Integrated Radiation-Hybrid/Linkage Map of the Domestic Dog Genome to All Chromosomes

We present here the first fully integrated, comprehensive map of the canine genome, incorporating detailed cytogenetic, radiation hybrid (RH), and meiotic information. We have mapped a collection of 266 chromosome-specific cosmid clones, each containing a microsatellite marker, to all 38 canine autosomes by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). A 1500-marker RH map, comprising 1078 microsatellites, 320 dog gene markers, and 102 chromosome-specific markers, has been constructed using the RHDF5000-2 whole-genome radiation hybrid panel. Meiotic linkage analysis was performed, with at least one microsatellite marker from each dog autosome on a panel of reference families, allowing one meiotic linkage group to be anchored to all 38 dog autosomes. We present a karyotype in which each chromosome is identified by one meiotic linkage group and one or more RH groups. This updated integrated map, containing a total of 1800 markers, covers >90% of the dog genome. Positional selection of anchor clones enabled us, for the first time, to orientate nearly all of the integrated groups on each chromosome and to evaluate the extent of individual chromosome coverage in the integrated genome map. Finally, the inclusion of 320 dog genes into this integrated map enhances existing comparative mapping data between human and dog, and the 1000 mapped microsatellite markers constitute an invaluable tool with which to perform genome scanning studies on pedigrees of interest

Cross-Sector Collaboration, Institutional Gaps, and Fragility: The Role of Social Innovation Partnerships in a Conflict-Affected Region

The authors aim to contribute to the literature on subsistence marketplaces and the marketing field in general by exploring social innovation partnerships in a fragile country characterized by institutional gaps—specifically, by considering the role of cross-sector collaboration in conflict-affected areas. The empirical setting consists of coffee partnerships in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the authors collected data from and about companies, nongovernmental organizations, and cooperatives using both primary and secondary sources, including a field trip, interviews, and group discussions with farmers and their families. They show results at the organizational level (i.e., buildup of managerial capacities, transfer of financial-administrative skills, and improved functioning of cooperatives), the farmer level (i.e., better prices, livelihoods, and access to markets as well as increased revenues), and the community level (i.e., reduced tensions and collaboration between previously hostile groups as well as the creation of new governance modalities). The study suggests that partnerships may offer a systemic approach to addressing institutional gaps, which is necessary in such “extreme” contexts. The authors close with a discussion of further implications for research and public policy