675 research outputs found
A Decolonial Critique of the Racialized âLocalwashingâ of Extraction in Central Africa
Responding to calls for increased attention to actions and reactions âfrom aboveâ within the
extractive industry, we offer a decolonial critique of the ways in which corporate entities and multinational institutions propagate racialized rhetoric of âlocalâ suffering, âlocalâ consultation, and âlocalâ fault for failure in extractive zones. Such rhetoric functions to legitimize extractive intervention within a set of practices that we call localwashing. Drawing from a decade of research on and along the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline, we show how multi-scalar actors converged to assert knowledge of, responsibility for, and collaborations with âlocalâ people within a racialized politics of scale. These corporate representations of the racialized âlocalâ are coded through long-standing colonial tropes. We identify three interrelated and overlapping flexian elite rhetoric(s) and practices of racialized localwashing: (a) anguishing, (b) arrogating, and (c) admonishing. These elite representations of a racialized âlocalâ reveal diversionary efforts âfrom aboveâ to manage public opinion, displace blame for project failures, and domesticate dissent in a context of persistent scrutiny and criticism from international and regional advocates and activists
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Encouraging Investors to Enable Corporate Sustainability Transitions: The Case of Responsible Investment in France
This paper studies the case of the socially responsible investment (SRI) industry in France. This case accounts for how the SRI category and practices have successfully moved from the margins of the industry in the late 1990s to become mainstream over two decades. We bring to the forefront the importance of three complementary factors in the process of causing corporations to transition toward more sustainable businesses: the role of investors and, in particular, institutional investors; the importance of the presence of a clear category definition and of intermediary organizations, providing ratings, scores, and other calculative devices; and the role of governments and regulators. With other studies, this case stresses the fundamental influence of investors in how corporations manage sustainability transitions
Promotion Determinants in Corporate Hierarchies: An Examination of Fast Tracks and Functional Area
This chapter estimates a dynamic reduced-form model of intra-firm promotions using an employerâemployee panel of over 300 of the largest corporations in the United States in the period from 1981 to 1988. The estimation conditions on unobserved individual heterogeneity and allows for both an endogenous initial condition and sample attrition linked to individual heterogeneity in demonstrating the relative importance of variables that influence promotion. The role of the executiveâs functional area in promotion is considered along with the existence and source of promotion fast tracks. We find that while the principal determinant of promotions is unobserved individual heterogeneity, functional area has a high explanatory power, resulting in promotion probabilities that differ by functional area for executives at the same reporting level and firm. No evidence is found that an executiveâs recent speed of advancement in pay grade has a positive causal impact on in-sample promotions after conditioning on the executiveâs career speed of advancement, except for the lowest level executives the data. Fast tracks appear to largely result from heterogeneity in persistent individual characteristics, not from an inherent benefit in recent advancement itself
Together forever? Explaining exclusivity in party-firm relations
Parties and firms are the key actors of representative democracy and capitalism respectively and the dynamic of attachment between them is a central feature of any political economy. This is the first article to systematically analyse the exclusivity of party-firm relations. We consider exclusivity at a point in time and exclusivity over time. Does a firm have a relationship with only one party at a given point in time, or is it close to more than one party? Does a firm maintain a relationship with only one party over time, or does it switch between parties? Most important, how do patterns of exclusivity impact on a firmâs ability to lobby successfully? We propose a general theory, which explains patterns of party-firm relations by reference to the division of institutions and the type of party competition in a political system. A preliminary test of our theory with Polish survey data confirms our predictions, establishing a promising hypothesis for future research
Student-Parent attitudes towards Filipino migrant teachers in Indonesia
Using ethnographic data gleaned from a foreign managed Christian school in Indonesia, this article situates the ethnic prejudices of Indonesian Chinese parents and students towards Filipino teachers within the organizational and cultural politics of private schooling. It is argued that the commoditization of education as a form of market consumption alongside the masculinized international curriculum help shape the feminization of teachers from the Philippines. Catering to the aspirations of the countryâs minority ethnic Chinese, privately managed schools actively recruit trained teachers from the Philippines, many of whom are female and are perceived by students and their parents as exhibiting negative symbolic capital. In the process of their employment, they encounter occasional moments of less than complete success and challenges in their jobs. This article situates this prejudice within the cultural politics of masculinized Chinese schooling in Indonesia, while seeking to shed light on the role of Filipino work migrancy in Indonesiaâs formal employment sector
The moderating role of transformational leadership on HR practices in M&A integration
Scant research exists examining the effect of HRM practices on employee behavior in M&A integration and the role that leaders play within this. This paper develops a conceptual framework that focuses on the moderating role of transformational leadership on the achievement of human integration and organizational identification in M&A integration. We argue that communication, employee involvement, teamwork, and training and development have a positive effect on employee behavior and their identification with the newly formed organization. Moreover, we argue that transformational leadership behaviors will moderate the implementation of HRM practices in M&As, leading to positive employee behavior and employee identification in the new organization. We suggest that further research is necessary to test propositions of the present study in order to achieve finer-grained understanding of the role of transformational leadership on the achievement of human integration and organizational identification in M&A integration
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Work, Power and Performance: Analysing the 'reality' game of The Apprentice
This article addresses the relationship between the British version of the reality television programme The Apprentice and the shifting working cultures of contemporary neoliberalism. It explores how the programme enacts, through ritualized play, many skills required by the âflexibleâ work economy: emotional commitment, entrepreneurial adaptability, a combination of team conformity and personal ambition. In particular, it highlights how newly calibrated requirements of sociality, âpassionâ, and power-as-charisma are negotiated by the programme in relation to broader emergent norms of neoliberal governmentality. However, the article simultaneously argues against overly deterministic deployments of governmentality theory, suggesting it be both supplemented by other tools (media rituals and the affective role of passion), and reoriented back towards a Foucauldian emphasis upon the instability of power. This can, it argues, both enable the programmeâs appeal to be more effectively understood and help us comprehend the spaces and places where neoliberal governmentality fails, wholly or partly, to be foregrounded
Nose to Tail: Using the Whole Employment Relationship to Link Worker Participation to Operational Performance
Although many employers continue to adopt various forms of worker participation or employee involvement, expected positive gains often fail to materialize. One explanation for the weak or altogether missing performance effects is that researchers rely on frameworks that focus almost exclusively on contingencies related to the workers themselves or to the set of tasks subject to participatory processes. This study is premised on the notion that a broader examination of the employment relationship within which a worker participation program is embedded reveals a wider array of factors impinging upon its success. I integrate labor relations theory into existing insights from the strategic human resource management literature to advance an alternative framework that additionally accounts for structures and processes above the workplace level â namely, the (potentially implicit) contract linking employees to the organization and the business strategies enacted by the latter. The resulting propositions suggest that the performance-enhancing impact of worker participation hinges on the presence of participatory or participation-supporting structures at all three levels of the employment relationship. I conclude with implications for participation research
Measuring the Potential Power Elite in the UK and Sweden
This paper proposes a methodology for using survey data to understand the composition of elites, through analysing the pool of potential members. An occupational-based measure of ‘potential power elite' (PPE) is created and compared with other measures of occupational advantage. It is argued that this measure can be utilised to explore if the processes causing certain social groups to be under-represented in elite positions are around selection or the population recruited from. We provide analysis of elite positions in the UK and Sweden, demonstrating differences in terms of the potential pool of elite members and the occupational histories of people of those employed in roles associated with elite recruitment. We argue that understanding the composition of the PPE provides a more nuanced analysis of the processes of meritocracy in accessing positions of power and social influence
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