Apologies for any cross-postings
Human Relations special issue call for papers:
Politicization and political contests in contemporary multinational corporations
Guest Editors:
Stewart Clegg (UTS, Sydney, Australia),
Mike Geppert (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany),
Graham Hollinshead (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Submission deadline: 30 September 2016; please do not submit papers before 1 September 2016
View the call for papers online here: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Politics%20and%20MNCs.html
Objective
It is perplexing that mainstream studies, particularly in the domains of international business and economics, have either neglected to discuss issues of power and politics in multinational corporations (MNCs) or have addressed them in a rather one dimensional and rationalistic fashion, narrowly focusing on managerial, functional or transactional ideas.
There is now, however, a growing and welcome recognition of the observations made by more critical scholars that MNCs constitute inherently political institutional entities. Socio-political studies of MNCs draw long-overdue attention to the conceptual primacy of a concern with the interests, ideologies, identities and careers of key actors entangled within the social fabric of the politicized corporation's power relations, and also outside its formal boundedness (Geppert and Dörrenbächer, 2014). Recent theoretical departures in the field are casting incisive light on the micro-political determinants of the social construction of the MNC (Morgan and Kristensen, 2006; Becker-Ritterspach et al., 2015) and in particular show that the power relations and constitution of interests on the part of the actors concerned have a fundamental impact on the transfer of employment practices within MNCs (Ferner et al., 2012). Other studies point to the crucial role of increased competition and its impact both on organizational politics (Becker-Ritterspach and Dörrenbächer, 2011) and conflicts within the MNC (Blazejewski and Becker-Ritterspach, 2011), demonstrating that the MNC constitutes a fundamentally 'contested terrain' (Edwards and Bélanger, 2009).
Accordingly, this special issue intends to deepen the above discussions by capturing new developments within contemporary MNCs, based on macro-level challenges, including issues such as financialization, global production networks (GPNs) and the emergence of new types of MNCs originating from emerging market economies. Moreover, we are interested in contributions that apply new conceptual and methodological approaches that will illuminate everyday processes within contemporary MNCs, researching political contestation and politicization, utilizing approaches such as critical realism, discourse and ethnomethodological analysis, actor network and structuration theory as well as critical institutionalist approaches. In seeking to unravel the dynamics of power relations in the contemporary MNC (Andersson and Holm, 2010), we are particularly interested in extending critical institutionalist theory building (Munir, 2015) focused primarily on actors in order to place power and politics centre-stage. In particular, we suggest that there are fruitful encounters for critical approaches that analyse the social construction and deconstruction of structures and institutions of the MNC as a site of socio-political contestation.
Scope, aims and themed questions
The special issue aims to bring to the fore the ubiquity of power relations in modern MNC organizations. Previous scholarly contributions in the field of international business and related areas have tended to regard power as being 'stored' in external institutional, or internal organizational structures. By contrast, the point of departure of the current call regards power in the MNC as being primarily relational, manifested as a product of continuously socially constructed relationships between key actors, flowing through different circuits (Clegg 1989; Clegg et al., 2006). The premise that MNC organization and management are fundamentally politicized is of considerable significance from a scholarly perspective, as it serves to breach the disciplinary shackles that have obscured meaningful insight into MNC praxis.
The study of politicization and political contests in contemporary MNCs raises questions about the role of identities and ideologies of primary stakeholders as well as the dominant external social and economic relations that contribute to the formation of normative and structural orders within international corporations. Accordingly, we look for papers that shed light on the emergence of a transnational capital class which shares a common set of elite interests and is engaged in a regime of global capital accumulation (see e.g. Carroll, 2010; Murray and Scott, 2012). Similarly we wish to attract studies that consider the patterns of domination resulting from post- or neo-colonialism and the pervasive financialization of capitalist societies pertinent to comprehending the shaping of power relationships between HQs and subsidiaries.
Related to the former, our special issue aims to address questions that include the power of MNCs in relation to the host countries in which their subsidiaries are based, relations that are often described as 'asymmetrical' (Clark and Geppert, 2006) or 'hegemonic' (Levy 2008), notably in the context of emerging economies. Within newly emerging 'transnational social spaces' (Morgan, 2001) power relations are being constructed through the relational interplay of various transnational actors, elites, devices and discourses. We wish to explore the role of key actors, their conflicting perceptions and sensemaking, the powerful boundaries that they construct to constrain social and economic relations, manage resistances to change, channel the powers of knowledge flows and innovation and deploy dominant ideologies. In addition, the national and transnational institutions operating to constitute power and political behaviour in MNCs require consideration.
The special issue will place emphasis on various forms of contemporary MNCs in both service and manufacturing sectors. Here we are in particular interested in new empirical studies focusing on the impact of GPNs (Kaplinsky, 2000) through which MNCs project systems of governance to co-ordinate and control networks of production across socially embedded and regionally dispersed organizational units. In accord with Levy (2008) we believe that GPNs are reflective of an era of transnational development in which not only that which is produced and consumed has become commodified through neo-liberal discourses but also the organizations engaged in these processes and relations. We would therefore encourage submissions that concentrate on new evolutions in the socially constructed international division of labour as well scholarly reflections on how GPNs and contemporary MNC constructions have served to perpetuate hegemonic and neo-colonial tendencies.
Additionally, this special issue should attract contributions that concentrate on newly emerging political 'contests' (Edwards and Bélanger, 2009); for instance, those between the groups of actors occupying various social spaces manifesting the politicization of MNCs at local, national and international levels (Ferner et al., 2012). Submissions that study MNCs headquartered in emerging economies are particularly welcome. Papers might concentrate on pressing issues such as how multi-layered dominance effects between headquarters and subsidiaries are played out across unchartered institutional and geographical spaces and whether qualitatively different forms of resistance are encountered when the subsidiaries are embedded in a more robust and mature institutional environment than the 'parent'.
Finally, another vital line of inquiry for submissions would relate to the question of how contemporary MNCs are divided and politicized on the basis of discursive orientations adopted by constituent groups according to differential linguistic capabilities (Riad, 2005; Vaara et al., 2005). Papers might draw on recent discursive departures in the study of MNCs but also cast some new and more radical theoretical light on MNC organization, placing social actors at the centre of debate, drawing upon a full range of social science disciplines to engender critical insight and empirically informed discussion.
Given these considerations, we seek submissions from a wide range of social science disciplines for potential contributions, e.g. from sociology, political economy, social psychology, economic geography, organization theory, organizational behaviour, international management, human resource management and industrial relations.
We welcome conceptual and empirical contributions that critically explore, but are not limited to, any of the following themed questions:
· What are the meanings of power, politics and politicization within different contemporary and historical contexts of MNCs?
· How does the existence of a transnational business elite have an impact on the normative frames available to contemporary MNCs?
· What is the impact of financialization on power and political processes in contemporary MNCs?
· What are the micro-political consequences of global standardized management approaches in local plants?
· What is the nature of micro-political game playing across the contemporary MNC? Do we find new games played in MNCs originating from emerging economies?
· How do global production networks (GPNs) and similar modern MNC constructions, manifest asymmetry/unequal power relations across constituent elements?
· Can western conceptual constructs be generalised across non-western societies? If not, what changes in theorising and methods for the study of the politicised MNC are needed?
Contributors should note:
· This call is open and competitive, with the submitted papers being subject to double-blind review by experienced scholars in the field.
· Submitted papers must be based on original material not accepted for publication by, or under consideration for publication with, any other journal or publication outlet.
· For empirical papers based on data sets from which multiple papers have been generated, authors must provide the guest editors with copies of all other papers based on the same data to ensure a unique intellectual contribution is being made.
· The guest editors will select a limited number of papers to be included in the special issue. Other papers submitted to the special issue may be considered for publication in other issues of the journal at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
· To be considered for this special issue, submissions must fit with the Aim and Scope of Human Relations (http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/about_journal/aims.html ) as well as this call for papers.
· Papers should also adhere to the submission requirements: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper.html
· Papers should be submitted through the online system: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hr
· Please indicate in your covering letter that your article is intended for this special issue.
Please direct questions about the submission process, or any administrative matter, to the Editorial Office: humanrelationsjournal@tavinstitute.org.
References
Andersson U and Holm U (2010) Managing the Contemporary Multinational, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.
Becker-Ritterspach F, Blazejewski S, Dörrenbächer C and Geppert M (2015) Micropolitics in the Multinational Corporation: Foundations, Applications and New Directions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Becker-Ritterspach F and Dörrenbächer C (2011) An Organizational Politics Perspective on Intra-Firm Competition in Multinational Corporations. Management International Review 51(4): 533–559.
Blazejewski S and Becker-Ritterspach F (2011) Conflict in headquarter–subsidiary relations: a critical literature review and new directions. In Dörrenbächer C and Geppert M (eds) Politics and Power in the Multinational Corporation: The Role of Institutions, Interests and Identities, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 139–190.
Brighton A (2002) Management speak: a master discourse. Critical Quarterly 44(3): 1–3.
Carroll WK (2010) The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class: Corporate Power in the 21st Century, London, Zed Books.
Clark E and Geppert M (2006) Socio-political processes in in international management in post- socialist contexts: knowledge, learning and transnational institution building. Journal of International Management 12(3): 340–357.
Clegg SR (1989) Frameworks of Power, London, SAGE.
Clegg SR, Courpasson D and Phillips N (2006) Power and Organizations, London, SAGE.
Edwards PK and Bélanger J (2009) The MNC as a contested terrain. In Collinson S and Morgan G (eds) Images of the Multinational, Oxford, Wiley: 193–216.
Ferner A, Edwards T and Tempel A (2012) Power, institutions and the cross-national transfer of employment practices in multinationals. Human Relations 65(2): 163–187.
Geppert M and Dörrenbächer C (2014) Politics and Power within Multinational Corporations: Mainstream Studies, Emerging Critical Approaches and Suggestions for Future Research. International Journal of Management Reviews 16(2): 226–244.
Kaplinsky R (2000) Spreading the Gains from Globalisation: What Can Be Learned From Value Chain Analysis? IDS Working Paper 110, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Levy DL (2008) Political Contestation in Global Production Networks. Academy of Management Review 33(4): 943–962.
Morgan G (2001) The Multinational Firm: Organizing across institutional and national divides. In Morgan G, Hull Kristensen P and Whitley R (eds) The Multinational Firm: Organizing Across Institutional and National Divides, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1–24.
Morgan G and Kristensen PH (2006) The contested space of multinationals: Varieties of institutionalism, varieties of capitalism. Human Relations 59(11):1467–1490.
Munir KA (2015) A Loss of Power in Institutional Theory. Journal of Management Inquiry 24(1): 90–92.
Murray G and Scott J (2012) Financial Elites and Transnational Business: Who Rules the World? Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.
Riad S (2005) The Power of 'Organisational Culture' as a Discursive Formation in Merger Integration. Organization Studies 26(10): 1529–1554.
Vaara E, Tienari J, Piekkari R and Santti R (2005) Language and the circuits of power in a merging multinational corporation. Journal of Management Studies 42(3): 595–623.
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015.
Human Relations is in the FT50 list of journals used to rank Business School research rank, including both the Global MBA and EMBA rankings, which takes effect January 2017.
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OTHER CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Organizing feminism: Bodies, practices and ethics – submit by 30 November 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Organizing%20feminism.html
Special issue: The changing nature of managerial work – submit by 31 January 2017
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Managerial%20work.html
Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays:
- Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria.
- Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal's scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Twitter: @HR_TIHR