Gute Geschäfte mit schlechtem Gewissen? Ökonomische, politische und ethische Aspekte der Tätigkeit deutscher Unternehmungen in der VR China

"In diesem Artikel wird die Bedeutung ökonomischer, politischer und ethischer Aspekte der Tätigkeit ausländischer Unternehmungen in China dargestellt. Die Ergebnisse einer empirischen Untersuchung unter 14 Tochtergesellschaften deutscher Unternehmungen zeigen, dass diese zwar von hoher Relevanz sind, von den betrachteten Unternehmungen aber nur unzureichend wahrgenommen werden. Insbesondere die enge Verzahnung von Wirtschaft und Politik und der die chinesische Gesellschaft in hohem Maße prägende Konfuzianismus erfordern eine detaillierte Analyse sozio-politischer Interessengruppen und die Entwicklung eines systematischen und proaktiven Public Affairs Management." (Autorenreferat)"In this paper the impact of economic, political and ethical influences on foreign direct investment in China are examined. An empirical study among 14 German multinational corporations shows that these aspects have strong influences but are recognized to a certain degree, only. Particularly, the amalgamation of economics and politics and the strong influence of Confucianism require a detailed analysis of relevant stakeholders and a systematic and proactive public affairs management." (author's abstract

Mitigating Election Violence and Intimidation: A Political Stakeholder Engagement Approach

Political parties and candidates are key stakeholders in the election process. They compete for public office using campaigns through party-based platforms to convince electorates for their votes. Thus, parties and candidates could potentially be destructive in the election process. Drawing on the stakeholder theory and stakeholder engagement literature, this paper develops a political stakeholder engagement framework to create, communicate, deliver and exchange sustainable political strategies to political stakeholders to mitigate election violence and intimidation. The paper outlines a definition, the process of political stakeholder engagement and the application of the developed framework to the fiercely contested US 2016 presidential election. The analysis and lessons from the US case suggests the importance of the political stakeholder engagement process as an integral part of sustainable election governance

Seeking legitimacy through CSR: Institutional Pressures and Corporate Responses of Multinationals in Sri Lanka

Arguably, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are influenced by a wide range of both internal and external factors. Perhaps most critical among the exogenous forces operating on MNEs are those exerted by state and other key institutional actors in host countries. Crucially, academic research conducted to date offers little data about how MNEs use their CSR activities to strategically manage their relationship with those actors in order to gain legitimisation advantages in host countries. This paper addresses that gap by exploring interactions between external institutional pressures and firm-level CSR activities, which take the form of community initiatives, to examine how MNEs develop their legitimacy-seeking policies and practices. In focusing on a developing country, Sri Lanka, this paper provides valuable insights into how MNEs instrumentally utilise community initiatives in a country where relationship-building with governmental and other powerful non-governmental actors can be vitally important for the long-term viability of the business. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and CSR literature, this paper examines and contributes to the embryonic but emerging debate about the instrumental and political implications of CSR. The evidence presented and discussed here reveals the extent to which, and the reasons why, MNEs engage in complex legitimacy-seeking relationships with Sri Lankan institutions

Comparative study of conventional, reactive-distillation and pervaporation integrated hybrid process for ethyl tert-butyl ether production

Ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) is widely used as an oxygenate additive to gasoline; however, a drawback in the conventional ETBE manufacture is the energy intensive product recovery process, making ETBE expensive. The purification process of ETBE involves the separation of ETBE, mixed C4 hydrocarbons and unreacted ethanol. The unreacted ethanol forms azeotropic mixtures with ETBE that are difficult to separate by distillation. In this work, a comparative study between the conventional process to produce ETBE and two alternative intensified processes is presented by means of process simulation in Aspen Plus. One of the alternative methods for improving the separation and purification section of ETBE is the use of a hybrid distillation-pervaporation process with alcohol-selective membranes, which allows to reach the target ETBE purity (95.2 wt%) with a lower energy consumption and at the same time the permeate stream, with a high ethanol content, is recycled back to the reaction section. Alternatively, the production of ETBE by means of reactive distillation is analyzed for the same basis of calculation. The results show that the reactive distillation allows a significant increase in the conversion of the reactants, but in contrast the energy consumption is higher than in the other processes evaluated.Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science under the projects CTM2013-44081-R (MINECO, Spain-FEDER 2014–2020), CTQ2015-66078-R and CTQ2016-75158-R is gratefully acknowledged. Adham Norkobilov also thanks the SILKROUTE Project for a PhD scholarship funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus Mundus Action 2 Programme

Government Support, Entrepreneurial Activity and Firm Growth

Systematization of the literary sources and ap-proaches for solving the problem of the impact of government support on entrepreneurial activity, growth, and optimism indicates that neither the support of state governments nor the support of local governments has a significant impact on the entrepreneurial activity in that state. However, the results show that both the support of state governments and the support of local governments have a significant impact on firm perfor-mance and owner’s outlook for the future

Organizational Ambidexterity and the Emerging-to-Advanced Economy Nexus: Cases from Private Higher Education Operators in the United Kingdom

The expansion of advanced-market economy (AME) firms into emerging-market economies (EME) is well documented. In recent decades, EME companies have moved increasingly into AMEs, especially within the manufacturing sector, as well as other important AME sectors such as higher education (HE). However, the latter have received less attention. This study conducts an in-depth qualitative analysis of two EME HE organizations operating in the international HE sector in London. The argument applies a theoretical framework of organizational ambidexterity with which to examine the contexts and complexities in collaborations between EME-HE and AME-HE firms. These argument surfaces, inter alia: differing dynamics in relation to institutional frameworks and sense making; myopic internationalization; tensions regarding organizational reputation, place, partner, and product legitimization; unfulfilled reverse innovation and “explorative-pull” phenomena. Overall, the article develops novel conceptual frameworks of practical relevance, which inform EME-AME firm collaborative operations in AME settings. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Supply chain knowledge management:a literature review

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the role of knowledge management in supply chain management by reviewing the published literature. A total of 58 selected referred journal articles were systematically analyzed. This review identifies various theoretical and methodological characteristics of the way in which knowledge management applications are proposed in the supply chain context. The review shows that little evidence exists of the positive relation between the use of IT solutions and firms’ performance. Some issues remain unexplored such as the problem of knowledge obsolescence in supply chain management. A deeper understanding of the knowledge accumulation process could give new insights. The paper concludes with some future directions for theory construction and empirical research

Does It Really Work? Re-Assessing the Impact of Pre-Departure Cross-Cultural Training on Expatriate Adjustment

Cultural adjustment is considered to be a prerequisite for expatriate success abroad. One way to enhance adjustment is to provide employees with knowledge and awareness of appropriate norms and behaviors of the host country through cross-cultural training (CCT). This article analyzes the impact of pre-departure CCT on expatriate adjustment and focuses on variations in participation, length and the comprehensiveness of training. Unlike previous research, the study focuses on the effectiveness of pre-departure CCT for non-US employees expatriated to a broad range of host country settings. Employing data from 339 expatriates from 20 German Multinational Corporations (MNCs) the study finds CCT has little if any effect on general, interactional or work setting expatriate adjustment. However, a significant impact of foreign language competence was found for all three dimensions of expatriate adjustment. We used interviews with 20 expatriates to supplement our discussion and provide further implications for practice

Using involvement to enhance employee engagement in IT firms: Examining leadership initiatives in a key developing national context

Many organisational leaders increasingly use employee involvement to serve their interests, spurred by the unitarist rationale of leader‐member exchange (LMX). Existing research into employee involvement and participation (EIP) management has mainly focused on manufacturing firms in advanced economies and has not kept pace with developments in settings where practice is primarily governed by organisational leaders plus greater use is made of informal and technologically assisted EIP. Consequently, this paper investigates the management of EIP in IT firms at the forefront of these developments in India. The findings reveal how an array of informal initiatives, including social media, are being used to permeate traditional LMX and EIP boundaries to reinforce unitarist leadership goals. Limitations to some of these initiatives are elucidated, as they are unevenly used and contested by employees. Thus, the paper contributes to critiques of LMX as an ancillary framework for EIP

Expatriate utilization, subsidiary knowledge creation and performance: the moderating role of subsidiary strategic context

Little research examines the mechanisms for the relationship between expatriate utilization and subsidiary performance. Building on the knowledge-based view of the firm, we propose a multi-stage mediation model to explain how expatriate staffing promotes subsidiary financial performance. Our results underscore that expatriate utilization has an indirect, mediated effect on subsidiary financial performance through its links with subsidiaries’ knowledge creation and product performance. Adopting a moderated mediation approach, we also find that the indirect relationship between expatriate utilization and subsidiary product performance via subsidiary knowledge creation is strengthened by the context of transnational strategy as a moderating contingency