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The June special issue on Politics & MNCs is now available online: June 2018; 71(6) with free access to the special issue introduction by Stewart Clegg, Mike Geppert and Graham Hollinshead.
We hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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JUNE 2018 ISSUE
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Human Relations special issue:
Politicization and political contests in contemporary multinational corporations
Guest Editors: Stewart Clegg, Mike Geppert and Graham Hollinshead
CONTENTS
FREE ACCESS: Politicization and political contests in contemporary multinational corporations: An introduction
Stewart Clegg, Mike Geppert and Graham Hollinshead
Human Relations 71(6): 745‒765. First Published April 13, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718755880
Abstract
This article looks at core arguments in international business, organization studies and surrounding academic fields that focus on the study of politicization and political contests in and around multinational corporations (MNCs). Two evident streams of debate are identified. Equally evident is that these streams hardly connect. One stream is mainly interested in studying politicization from the outside, whereas the other is mainly interested in politicization from within. As a way of connecting both streams, we introduce the circuits of power framework. Next, we introduce the contributions of our Special Issue, followed by concluding comments which distinguish five emergent themes. First, we show how the application of the circuits of power framework sheds new light on the study of political contests of MNCs. Second, we highlight that the role of nation states has not lost its significance as, for example, political corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches would have us believe. Third, dominant ideologies play an important role in establishing and controlling circuits of power in and around MNCs. Fourth, it is vital to take labour issues into account in this field of study. Fifth, there is increasing evidence that asymmetric and hierarchical forms of organizing do not disappear in new MNC network forms.
Keywords: circuits of power, employment and labour relations, political contests within and around multinational corporations, politicization of multinational corporations, transnational social spaces
Political ideology and the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry
Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey, Roy Suddaby and Kevin O'Gorman
Human Relations 71(6): 766‒795. First Published September 8, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717718919
Abstract
How might political ideology help to shape an organizational field? We explore the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry through analysis of one of its leading actors, Hilton International (HI), conceived by Conrad Hilton as a means of combatting communism by facilitating world peace through international trade and travel. While the politicized rhetoric employed at hotel openings reflected institutional diversity, it resonated in parallel with a strong anti-communist discourse. We show that through astute political sensemaking and sensegiving, macro-political discourse that is ideological and universalizing may be allied to micro-political practices in strategic action fields. Our study illuminates the processes of early-stage post-war globalization and its accompanying discourses, demonstrating that the foundation of a global industry may be ideologically inspired. Our primary contribution to theory is specific acknowledgement of the importance of political ideology as a particular 'social skill', helping to determine how international business has been 'won'.
Keywords: discourse, global hotel industry, macro-politics, micro-politics, power, rhetoric
Transnational power and translocal governance: The politics of corporate responsibility
Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee
Human Relations 71(6): 796‒821 First Published September 19, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717726586
Abstract
In this article, I provide a critical analysis of the politics of corporate social responsibility. I argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations to exercise power in the global political economy. Using the global extractive industries as a context, I focus on conflicts between communities, the state and multinational corporations that arise owing to the negative social and environmental impacts of mining and extraction. In particular, I analyse the role of political corporate social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives in managing conflicts and argue that these initiatives cannot take into account the needs of vulnerable stakeholders. Power asymmetries between key actors in the political economy can diminish the welfare of communities impacted by extraction. Several governance challenges arise as a result of these power asymmetries and I develop a translocal governance framework from the perspective of vulnerable stakeholders that can enable a more progressive approach to societal governance of multinational corporations.
Keywords: corporate social responsibility, governance, marginalized stakeholders, multinational corporations, power
Competition for control over the labour process as a driver of relocation of activities to a shared services centre
Petr Mezihorak
Human Relations 71(6): 822‒844. First Published September 18, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717727047
Abstract
New approaches to studying multinational corporations sensitive to issues of power and politics often neglect the way power and politics in corporations shape workplaces, specifically labour processes and modes of their control. The article presents a case study of a firm's relocation of activities to a shared services centre. The relationships among the shared services centre, its client departments and the headquarters involve an ongoing combination of cooperation and competition, resulting in increased managerial control over labour processes and changes in corporate governance. The shared services centre established as a support unit aims to strengthen its position in the organizational structure by gaining control over labour processes and their modification. Competition with client departments for control over labour processes leads to the introduction of controlling mechanisms, norms and standards both in the centre and in client departments. These rules, on the one hand, limit uncertainty; on the other hand, they drive the fragmentation of labour processes, rendering them more codifiable and less complex. These effects make labour processes easier to control and, eventually, to relocate, which is advantageous for the headquarters. Changes in labour processes thus shape the relationships within the corporation and the space for power struggles and politics.
Keywords: competition, control, global value chain, labour, labour process, multinational corporation, outsourcing, power, shared services, work
Dynamisms of financialization: Circuits of power in globalized production networks
Isabel Pedraza-Acosta and Jan Mouritsen
Human Relations 71(6): 845‒866. First Published April 17, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717751612
Abstract
This article analyses the dominant ideological mode of rationality of financialization, its operationalization via accounting devices and deployments in political intra- and inter-organizational processes, and its dynamisms in global production networks. It asks how are political processes informed and conditioned by calculative devices that mediate financialization processes? Drawing on a study of a French multinational corporation whose accounting devices – one concerning performance that requires suppliers to be 'poor' and another concerning risk that requires suppliers to be 'rich' – the article focuses on the dynamic of circuits of power. Accounting devices provide one-sided incentives by categorizing suppliers as costs, silencing the industrial rationality of the network where suppliers are the capabilities and skills needed by the multinational corporation. Such tensions put the network at risk, as when the suppliers went bankrupt, the multinational corporation was devoid of its industrial competencies. Financialization is ambiguous. Its devices are not inherently facilitative of systemic powers but reflect an ideological mode of rationality and political processes that produce overflows. The associated circuits of power show that systemic power is never eternal but dynamic. Circuits of power develop ambiguous political processes that push disruptive dynamisms of financialization processes in global production networks. Financialization produces costly tensions.
Keywords: accounting, calculative devices, dominant ideological modes of rationality, financialization, global production network, multinational corporations, MNC, political processes, risk
The politics of cultural capital: Social hierarchy and organizational architecture in the multinational corporation
Orly Levy and B Sebastian Reiche
Human Relations 71(6): 867‒894. First Published October 9, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717729208
Abstract
How is social hierarchy in multinational corporations (MNCs) culturally produced, contested and reproduced? Although the international business literature has acknowledged the importance of culture, it gives little consideration to its role in constructing social hierarchies and symbolic boundaries between individuals and groups within MNCs. We take a Bourdieusian approach to understanding the role of cultural capital in structuring the social hierarchy in the MNC under two contrasting organizational architectures: hierarchical and network architecture. We argue that cultural capital serves as an instrument of power and status within the MNC, influencing access to valuable resources such as jobs, rewards and opportunities. Our framework further suggests that the transition from hierarchical towards network architecture sets in motion a high-stakes political struggle between headquarters and subsidiary actors over the relative value of their cultural capital in a bid to preserve or gain dominance and to determine the 'rules of the game' that order the social hierarchy in the MNC. We elaborate on this political struggle by theorizing about the relative dominance of cultural versus social capital, the content and relative value of firm-specific and cosmopolitan cultural capital, and the convertibility of cultural capital into other forms of capital under hierarchical and network architectures.
Keywords: Bourdieu, cultural capital MNC, multinational corporation, organizational architecture, social capital, social hierarchy
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Contested compliance regimes in global production networks:
Insights from the Bangladesh garment industry
Fahreen Alamgir and Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee
Human Relations First Published March 26, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718760150
Abstract
This article reports the findings of a field study on the emergence of collective agreements led by global brands enacting compliance measures to improve safety and working conditions in the Bangladesh garment industry. We explore how key actors in the Bangladesh garment sector who constitute the local production system of the global supply chain experienced the implementation of global agreements on factory safety. We argue that global safety compliance measures through multi-stakeholder initiatives provide legitimacy to multinational corporations and their global brands but do little to address the structural problems arising from exploitative pricing and procurement practices, which are the key reasons for deplorable working conditions in garment factories. Our findings indicate that neoliberal development policies of the state, where local economies are incorporated into global production networks, resulted in differential treatment and regulation of specific populations that comprise garment factory workers. The reconfiguration of state power to meet the demands of global supply chains also involved use of state violence to suppress dissent while undermining labour rights and working conditions. Our article contributes to the politicization of multinational corporations in global production chains by showing how contestations between workers, factory owners, the state, trade unions and multinational corporations create new private forms of governance and new regimes of compliance in the industry.
Keywords: corporate social responsibility, garment industry, global compliance regimes, global supply chains, private governance
Dynamisms of financialization: Circuits of power in globalized production networks
Isabel Pedraza-Acosta and Jan Mouritsen
Human Relations, first published April 17, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717751612
Abstract
This article analyses the dominant ideological mode of rationality of financialization, its operationalization via accounting devices and deployments in political intra- and inter-organizational processes, and its dynamisms in global production networks. It asks how are political processes informed and conditioned by calculative devices that mediate financialization processes? Drawing on a study of a French multinational corporation whose accounting devices – one concerning performance that requires suppliers to be 'poor' and another concerning risk that requires suppliers to be 'rich' – the article focuses on the dynamic of circuits of power. Accounting devices provide one-sided incentives by categorizing suppliers as costs, silencing the industrial rationality of the network where suppliers are the capabilities and skills needed by the multinational corporation. Such tensions put the network at risk, as when the suppliers went bankrupt, the multinational corporation was devoid of its industrial competencies. Financialization is ambiguous. Its devices are not inherently facilitative of systemic powers but reflect an ideological mode of rationality and political processes that produce overflows. The associated circuits of power show that systemic power is never eternal but dynamic. Circuits of power develop ambiguous political processes that push disruptive dynamisms of financialization processes in global production networks. Financialization produces costly tensions.
Keywords: accounting, calculative devices, dominant ideological modes of rationality, financialization, global production network, multinational corporations, MNC, political processes, risk
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Claire
Claire Castle, Managing Editor, Human Relations, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org Telephone: +44 (0)7432740583 Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Human Relations is one of 50 Journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
2-year impact factor: 2.622 Ranked: 4/96 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 58/193 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.027 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 50/186 in Management
Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017)