How transnational stakeholders impact multinational corporations in the context of globalization

Stakeholder theory faces two closely related challenges in the light of globalization. On the one hand, globalization has not only led many firms to explore and expand into different parts of the world, it has also created possibilities for non-traditional stakeholders to ‘knock on the doors’ of firms and make their concerns heard. On the other hand, the context of the multitude and complexity of novel stakeholder relationships that were not usually considered in stakeholder mappings renders the issue of corporate responsibility even more ‘political’ than stakeholder relationships have always been. However, exactly how such non-traditional stakeholders knock on the firms’ doors has insufficiently been explored in stakeholder theorizing. Stakeholder theory appears to have difficulty in explaining the potential leverage that stakeholder groups without a clear and direct stake in a firm may exert over that particular firm. We propose to speak of ‘boomerang politics’ as a general and overarching term in order to advance stakeholder theory in the light of the challenges from globalization by exploring how non-traditional stakeholders knock on firms’ doors

Activism in the global sports apparel industry

F. den Hond, F.G.A. de Bakker, P. de Haan (2010), The sequential patterning of tactics: Activism in the global sports apparel industry, 1988–2002, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Vol.30, No.11, pp.648-66

Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

F.G.A. de Bakker, F. den Hond, B.G. King, K. Weber (2013), Social Movements, Civil Society and Corporations: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead, Organization Studies Vol.34, No.3, pp.573-593 The relationships between social movements and civil society on the one hand, and the corporate world on the other hand, are often shaped by conflict over the domination of economic, cultural and social life. How this conflict plays out, in current as well as in historical times and places, is the central question that unites the papers in this special issue. In this essay, we review the differences and points of contact between the study of social movements, civil society and corporations, and offer an agenda for future research at this intersection that also frames the papers in the special issue. We suggest that three research areas are becoming increasingly important: the blurring of the three empirical domains and corresponding opportunities for theoretical integration, the institutional and cultural embeddedness of strategic interaction processes between agents, and the consequences of contestation and collaboration. The papers in this special issue are introduced in how they speak to these questions

IHC Caland in Burma

IHC Caland designed, built and operated material, ships and complete systems for offshore oil and gas, dredging and shipping industries. The relatively strong economic growth in Southeast Asia offered opportunities for IHC Caland and other specialised suppliers. In the summer of 1998, an IHC Caland subsidiary contracted for an offshore project in Burma’s territorial waters. The order was for several hundreds of millions euros, hence of considerable interest to the company. The contract led to public stir because it involved work in a country controversial for its human rights situation. Many human rights, environmental and union organisations expressed their outrage and tried to move IHC Caland to cancel the contract. A controversy was born. It took IHC Caland long resisted the claims made by the NGOs. It maintained that the morality of commercial agents is limited to abiding with all legal laws and regulations. It therefore argued that it had not committed any moral wrong and was allowed to do business with the Burma government

GRIMP: A web- and grid-based tool for high-speed analysis of large-scale genome-wide association using imputed data.

The current fast growth of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) combined with now common computationally expensive imputation requires the online access of large user groups to high-performance computing resources capable of analyzing rapidly and efficiently millions of genetic markers for ten thousands of individuals. Here, we present a web-based interface—called GRIMP—to run publicly available genetic software for extremely large GWAS on scalable super-computing grid infrastructures. This is of major importance for the enlargement of GWAS with the availability of whole-genome sequence data from the 1000 Genomes Project and for future whole-population efforts

Exercise and myocardial injury in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Objective: Troponin and high signal intensity on T2-weighted (HighT2) cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMRi) are both markers of myocardial injury in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The interplay between exercise and disease development remains uncertain in HCM. We sought to assess the occurrence of postexercise troponin rises and its determinants. Methods: Multicentre project on patients with HCM and mutation carriers without hypertrophy (controls). Participants performed a symptom limited bicycle test with hs-cTnT assessment pre-exercise and 6 hours postexercise. Pre-exercise CMRi was performed in patients with HCM to assess measures of hypertrophy and myocardial injury. Depending on baseline troponin (13 ng/L), a rise was defined as a >50% or >20% increase, respectively. Results: Troponin rises occurred in 18% (23/127) of patients with HCM and 4% (2/53) in mutation carriers (p=0.01). Comparing patients with HCM with and without a postexercise troponin rise, maximum heart rates (157±19 vs 143±23, p=0.004) and maximal wall thickness (20 mm vs 17 mm, p=0.023) were higher in the former, as was the presence of late gadolinium enhancement (85% vs 57%, p=0.02). HighT2 was seen in 65% (13/20) and 19% (15/79), respectively (p<0.001). HighT2 was the only independent predictor of troponin rise (adjusted odds ratio 7.9; 95% CI 2.7 to 23.3; p<0.001). Conclusions: Postexercise troponin rises were seen in about 20% of patients with HCM, almost five times more frequent than in mutation carriers. HighT2 on CMRi may identify a group of particularly vulnerable patients, supporting the concept that HighT2 reflects an active disease state, prone to additional injury after a short episode of high oxygen demand

Validation of resting full-cycle ratio and diastolic pressure ratio with [15O]H2O positron emission tomography myocardial perfusion

Fractional flow reserve (FFR) and instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) are invasive techniques used to evaluate the hemodynamic significance of coronary artery stenosis. These methods have been validated through perfusion imaging and clinical trials. New invasive pressure ratios that do not require hyperemia have recently emerged, and it is essential to confirm their diagnostic efficacy. The aim of this study was to validate the resting full-cycle ratio (RFR) and the diastolic pressure ratio (dPR), against [15O]H2O positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. A total of 129 symptomatic patients with an intermediate risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) were included. All patients underwent cardiac [15O]H2O PET with quantitative assessment of resting and hyperemic myocardial perfusion. Within a 2 week period, coronary angiography was performed. Intracoronary pressure measurements were obtained in 320 vessels and RFR, dPR, and FFR were computed. PET derived regional hyperemic myocardial blood flow (hMBF) and myocardial perfusion reserve (MPR) served as reference standards. In coronary arteries with stenoses (43%, 136 of 320), the overall diagnostic accuracies of RFR, dPR, and FFR did not differ when PET hyperemic MBF < 2.3 ml min−1 (69.9%, 70.6%, and 77.1%, respectively) and PET MPR < 2.5 (70.6%, 71.3%, and 66.9%, respectively) were considered as the reference for myocardial ischemia. Non-significant differences between the areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were found between the different indices. Furthermore, the integration of FFR with RFR (or dPR) does not enhance the diagnostic information already achieved by FFR in the characterization of ischemia via PET perfusion. In conclusion, the novel non-hyperemic pressure ratios, RFR and dPR, have a diagnostic performance comparable to FFR in assessing regional myocardial ischemia. These findings suggest that RFR and dPR may be considered as an FFR alternative for invasively guiding revascularization treatment in symptomatic patients with CAD

Q2Q^2 Independence of QF2/F1QF_2/F_1, Poincare Invariance and the Non-Conservation of Helicity

A relativistic constituent quark model is found to reproduce the recent data regarding the ratio of proton form factors, $F_2(Q^2)/F_1(Q^2)$. We show that imposing Poincare invariance leads to substantial violation of the helicity conservation rule, as well as an analytic result that the ratio $F_2(Q^2)/F_1(Q^2)\sim 1/Q$ for intermediate values of $Q^2$.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. C typos corrected, references added, 1 new figure to show very high Q^2 behavio