Business Empire Research Articles

A Case Study: Miniso

MINISO was founded in 2011 by Chinese entrepreneur Ye Guo Fu and Japanese designer Miyake Junya. Initially claiming to be a famous Japanese brand, despite operating in china. In such short period, this company has detonated as an emerging business empire with 1,800 stores in 40 countries, delivering an heterogenous collection of affordable, curated goods, challenging the physical pessimists. MINISO is now emerging as one of the top market brands. MINISO tag line is– “let consumers around the world buy better quality products at lower prices”. At the time of establishment of MINISO, the physical economy was in decline due to the rise of e-commerce. Physical economy had applied a monopolistic influence on the market depend on its sales channel advantage. Even though MINISO was a success by providing the actual value of the products, and focuses on quality improvements. MINISO estimate to open 6000 stores worldwide. The purpose of this study is to present a reality check to the power of physical retailer in the rise of the digital marketing. MINISO is brick-and-mortar-only business model built around the reality of a world with e-commerce. Over careful consideration of the customer and a unique artistic product, it achieves to do what online stores cannot: deliver an experience.

A business empire and its migrants: Royal Dutch Shell and the management of racial capitalism

This paper traces the category “expatriate” in the Royal Dutch Shell Group of Companies, focusing on two key moments of corporate structural change in the 1950s and 1990s. The paper examines how the “expatriate” was materially and narratively produced by the corporation, by employees labelled expatriate and by spouses. It interrogates continuities and transformations, and their power effects, inquiring who became an expatriate, for what purposes, what meaning the category was inscribed with, and how it was lived. The central argument of the paper is that the Shell “expatriate” has a postcolonial genealogy: its constitution, functions, and lived experience cannot be understood without accounting for histories of European imperialism. The category initially reified imperial power relations – indeed, was instrumental to their racialised production. The mid‐century “racial break” prompted changes, yet did not result in the wholesale decolonisation of corporate mobilities and managerial hierarchies as imperial differentiations and logics continued to work in the postcolonial corporation, if in adapted and ambiguous ways. Similarly, the Shell “expatriate” was a gendered construct that not only denoted husbands’ corporate control but increasingly depended on women's organisational, emotional, and social labour, until its gendered destabilisation in the 1990s. The shifting and fragmented category “expatriate” thus reflects how racialised and gendered logics were (re)worked, by and for corporate management, in contested and ambiguous ways. More generally, the paper historicises contemporary managerial arrangements of multinational firms, which depend squarely on migration, and shows them to be central to the postcolonial production of racial capitalism. It thereby contributes to furthering the dialogue between postcolonial and economic approaches in geography.

The Circus

The Circus A Bowdoin Van Riper The Circus 2018 Written, produced, and directed by Sharon Grimberg for The American Experience. Distributed by WGBH Boston. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/circus/ 224 minutes "Friday, I tasted life," Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend in May 1866. "It was a vast morsel. A circus passed by the house—I still feel the red in my mind, though the drums are out." Red and drums, the poet's deft shorthand for the indescribable spectacle that rolled through the streets of Amherst, Massachusetts on that long-ago spring morning, capture the essence of the American circus. It is bold and brash, vibrant and percussive, immersive and overwhelming. It is exoticism incarnate, rolling through the countryside on a thousand wheels, capable of turning the heads even of jaded city-dwellers and making even the vibrant greens of the New England countryside in springtime feel as bland as the sepia-toned bookend scenes of The Wizard of Oz. In its golden age, bracketed roughly by the Civil War and World War I, the tent-based roadshow circus brought American face-to-face with the thrilling, the exotic, and the extreme. It immersed them, for a day or two of each year, in a world of topsy-turvy where the unimaginable somehow became real before their eyes. Written, produced, and directed by Sharon Grimberg for the 30th season of The American Experience—the Public Broadcasting System's indispensable series of historical documentaries—The Circus follows the rail-based, tented roadshows from their meteoric rise in the late 1860s to their final collapse in the mid-1950s. Four hours long, it is split into two equal parts. The first is dominated by P. T. Barnum and, especially, James Bailey, and reaches a climax as they merge their separate, competing operations to form the self-proclaimed "Greatest Show on Earth." The five Ringling Brothers of Baraboo, Wisconsin make a brief appearance late in Part One: upstart competitors who, even the most casually circus-aware viewer knows, are destined for greatness. Part Two, though it begins with Bailey's triumphant European tour in the years bracketing 1900, is really the story of the Ringlings' absorbing the Barnum & Bailey show after Bailey's death and merging it with their own. The Circus, in other words, is not a cinematic history of "the circus" as an enterprise, but of "the circus"—the greatest of them all, that set the terms of the game, and that every lesser show of the era aspired, in some way, to emulate. The central argument of The Circus, eloquently and forcefully presented even though it is never explicitly framed as such by Grimberg or articulated by narrator Sam Waterston, is that Barnum and Bailey (and the Ringling Brothers after them) transformed the circus business into the circus industry. Backed by circus historians whose talking-head commentary lends scholarly ballast to the film, Grimberg argues that Barnum did for the entertainment industry what Vanderbilt did for railroads, Carnegie for steel, and Rockefeller for petroleum. He was a natural showman, but also a savvy empirebuilder who exploited economies of scale and the power of horizontal and vertical integration. Like the other business empires of the Gilded Age, Barnum's was built on rapidly advancing technology. The amount of railroad track in the United States had doubled over the 1860s, and the Central Pacific and Union Pacific had met in Utah in 1869, forming the first of what would soon be several transcontinental lines. Barnum looked at a burgeoning rail network and saw opportunity. American circuses had traditionally traveled on horse-drawn wagons, which severely limited the distance they could cover in a day. Time spent in transit meant expenses but not income, and their itineraries were therefore filled with one-night stands in one-horse towns, playing to relatively small crowds. America's railroad network, Barnum realized in the early 1870s, was expansive and robust enough that a circus designed for rail travel could cover hundreds of miles in a night, bypassing the smaller towns and playing only in the larger (and thus more lucrative ones). His partner, William Cameron Coup, acquired 60 custom-built rail cars...

Working Apart, Together: The Challenges of Co-Work

Attracting contingent workers, teleworkers, small start-up teams and the self-employed, co-working spaces have grown from corner coffee shops and internet cafes, to business empires with thousands of members in urban locations. Yet the rise of co-working in the twenty-first century has received only limited attention in CSCW, despite co-workers' copious use of distributed collaborative tools. CSCW has more frequently addressed the challenges of working together, apart - that is, how we might support or otherwise transpose rich collocated interactions into distributed environments. This paper explores the challenges of working alone and apart, yet together, based on observational study and interviews at three large co-working spaces in New York City. Using a sociomaterial approach, we identify and explore core tensions visible in the site between participation in a distributed work team and in a distinct, collocated community, which we label the co-working paradox. This includes local configurations of digital and physical materials that shift locus of participation, that blend work and home, and manage employer visibility. We use these themes to suggest a generative return to certain core concepts in studies of distributed work - namely, common ground, workspaces, and placefulness - to further study and design for the growth of these unique environments.

Unlocking the Myths of Asset Size Expansion of China's Large SOEs - Theory and Evidence

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to illustrate the incentives of the exponential growth of the asset size of China’s large state-owned enterprises in the past decades. We come up with the views that there are 3 types of incentives that lead to the expansion of asset size of large SOEs in China. First, the SOE manager is interested in maximizing her/his own private control of benefits through expanding the asset size of SOEs, which we call the business empire building effect. Second, the state seeks more tax revenue through the larger asset size of SOEs, which could be called the state predatory effect. Third, state benevolent effect in which the state is also concerned with ‘social welfare’ in terms of increasing labour hiring or larger asset size of SOEs for the sake of social stability. The empirical evidences presented in the end are broadly consistent with the theories proposed in the paper. Our empirical results are also robust when the simultaneous equation techniques are used. In the end of the paper, we also use the IV regression in order to resolve the problems of endogeneity.

The Boarding Pass: Pathways to Corporate Networks in Early Twentieth-century Australia

Networks are an enduring feature of Australian economic life. Connections between firms and individuals have long provided access to new knowledge and resources, while also maintaining the wealth and interests of a small group. This article examines the network of board members of large Australian corporations in the 1910s. Social network analysis is used to identify the structure of the network, and prosopography is used to understand the characteristics of the group and the possible pathways through which interlocking directorates developed. The evidence reveals a heavily interlocked business sector in Australia in the 1910s. Multiple directorships were the result of professional skills, prior business experience, kinship, marriage, class, gender and empire. By combining a range of sources, this approach integrates different types of Australian history. It reimagines the Australian economy by revealing that power was relational, and that the economic sphere was a stratified and interdependent space.

The Paradox of Isabel dos Santos

Throughout the world, the sons and daughters of many state leaders attract media attention for their exploits. Like other famous children of politicians, Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the former president of Angola (1979-2017), is the object of much media scrutiny regarding her investments and lavish spending habits. We rely on a systematic study of newspaper articles by Angolan and international media, readers’ comments, social media and websites to examine the conflicting portrayals of Isabel from 2010 to 2018. This period covers celebratory depictions of Isabel during the growth of her business empire to her dismissal as head of Sonangol after her father left the presidency. We argue that the change in portrayals of Isabel over time offers insight into the dimensions of dynastic politics in authoritarian settings. Whereas her position as wealthy presidential daughter ironically reinforced patriarchal political oligarchy, her downfall demonstrates the limits of hereditary politics in Angola.

The case of the ‘Spurious Drugs Kingpin’: shifting pills in Chennai, India

ABSTRACTThis paper recounts the tale of a ‘Spurious Drugs Kingpin’ and his scandalous business empire of relabelling and recirculating expired medicines in the south Indian city of Chennai. At the time the story broke, in the first half of 2010, questions of drug safety dominated media headlines and public discussion. However, a closer investigation suggests a more complicated picture. While relabelling expired medicines was certainly a crime, it is far from clear if their relabelling and subsequent redistribution constituted a public health danger. If actually existing unsafe drugs did not fuel this drug safety scandal, what did? I argue this case illuminates two things: (1) the illusory nature of certainties about drug safety and (2) how ambiguity about the safety of expired drugs facilitates policing not of relations within the pharmacological world, but instead of social and economic relations. This episode matters because it illuminates how, within apparent attempts to police the safety of circulation of drugs, drugs themselves are neither subject nor object, but instead the ground upon which market battles are waged.

Exhibition Review: Andrew Norman Wilson: Kodak

Andrew Norman Wilson: Kodak . Document. Chicago, Illinois: January 11–February 23, 2019. Andrew Norman Wilson’s thirty-two-minute video Kodak (2018) was the beating heart of his eponymous exhibition at DOCUMENT in Chicago. A series of prints that take inspiration from various Kodak products hung in an adjacent gallery while a stack of giveaway posters—of the company’s first digital camera from 1973 printed on recto and a text by Nick Irvin on verso—prepared those who entered a dark, curtained gallery. Irvin’s text introduced the video’s protagonist Rich as a mentally unstable former Kodak employee who became blind as a result of a workplace accident. These details emerge slowly, however, and in short bursts, like flickers of images that stitch together the stories of the character Rich and Kodak’s legendary founder George Eastman [Image 1]. IMAGE 1. Still from Kodak (2018) by Andrew Norman Wilson; © 2018 Andrew Norman Wilson; courtesy the artist and DOCUMENT. “Your time is up,” alerts the high-pitched and tinny voice of a woman, beginning a narrative that is driven primarily by sound rather than images. A long minute passes with only darkness to accompany her increasingly aggravated chastising, dramatically peaking with “You have to stop now!” The first discernable image finally surfaces—a portrait of a bespectacled Eastman. A shaky voice that stands in for Eastman implores, “What is a photograph?” He answers himself: “. . . a dream, a reminder of how little you can actually capture.” Responsible for popularizing photography through consumer-grade technology, Eastman, as recorded in history and presented in this well-researched video, successfully tapped into the consumer’s desire to hold onto the fleeting moments of their mortal lives. Spiked with nostalgia, Eastman’s steady ruminations on life, photographic processes, and his business empire provide …

A Case Study - Doyen in American Hospitality Industry: Entrepreneur Spirit of Mike Chaudhari

This case study narrates management principles adopted by Mike Chaudhari in his hospitality industry encompassing over four dozen hotel units in America. Mike's hotel business is over three decade old and evolved from a scratch. By humble beginning of first hotel in Arizona, USA in 1990s, his business empire portfolio includes about fifty hotel properties across USA.

Toward a Simple Theory of Costs and Benefits of Internal Bureaucratic Control over Large SOEs in China

This paper constructs a simple model to reveal the trade-off between decentralized and centralized governance structure of large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China. Our model shows that the delegation of decision making authority to SOE managers would enhance their initiative in terms of local investment while in meanwhile might lead to the ex-post moral hazard problem. The business empire building effect causes the misalignment between SOE managers’ personal interests and organizational interests as a whole. We introduce a mechanism so called constrained-delegation approach to illustrate the issues that by eliminating some of SOE managers’ empire building investment choices, the trade-off between centralization and decentralization with respect to the loss of control vs local initiative could be resolved. In the end of this paper, we also discuss the policy implications of such constrained-delegation organizational structure with particular reference to the rationale of the party-committee control within large SOEs in China.

Founding an Ethnic Chinese Business Empire in Colonial Asia: The Strategic Alliances of Major Oei Tiong Ham, 1895–1905

Founding an Ethnic Chinese Business Empire in Colonial Asia: The Strategic Alliances of Major Oei Tiong Ham, 1895–1905

“Believe Me,” We Do Not Have a Foreign Emoluments Clause Violation

"Believe Me," We Do Not Have a Foreign Emoluments Clause Violation Scotty Nicole Teal Introduction An increasingly globalized world has brought a stronger need to protect the U.S. government from foreign corruption.1 With the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, this need has only expanded.2 Having elected a billionaire, reality star, real estate mogul, and international business owner3 as the leader of a world super power, the U.S. government can be vulnerable to negative foreign influence. The Framers of the constitution sought to protect the government from this type of problem by adding the Foreign Emoluments clause (Emoluments Clause) to the Constitution in 1787.4 President Trump was sued in New York District Court for allegedly violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause.5 In its brief, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)6 alleged that the [End Page 717] president's international businesses and real estate holdings positioned him to receive money from foreign governments.7 These business interests, or entanglements, could "sway"8 or create an opportunity for negative foreign influence in violation of the Emoluments Clause.9 CREW states that these "entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious threat to the Republic."10 CREW argued that President Trump violated the Emoluments Clause because the clause "cover[s] anything of value, monetary or nonmonetary."11 In defense of the president, the Department of Justice (DOJ) contended that the president had not received illegal emoluments because an Emoluments Clause violation occurs only when the president receives compensation or gifts from a foreign country because of his official duty as president.12 Neither of these emoluments definitions gets at the core of an Emoluments Clause violation. The Emoluments Clause, intended to prevent negative foreign influence in a globalizing world, acts as a builtin protection. It was created by the Framers to avoid the negative impact that foreign wealth could have on the U.S. government. This article argues that while foreign corruption in the form of payments to the president might be exactly what the Framers originally intended to avoid, President Trump is not violating the Emoluments Clause; President Trump's interests both domestically and globally that increase his wealth are not a violation of the clause. This article argues that because the world has become more globalized, any Emoluments Clause violation should occur only if there is a real possibility that the president will actually be influenced and engage in political action based on the potential for financial windfall. Thus, would a reasonable president in this situation actually be influenced to act in favor of foreign powers? Part II of this article explains the CREW case and the competing definitions of emoluments. Part III addresses the functionalist and [End Page 718] formalist approaches to constitutional interpretation and ultimately advocates for a functional approach to the Foreign Emoluments Clause.13 Part IV examines the clause's text and emoluments' meaning in a global world. Part V explores the Foreign Emoluments Clause's original intent. Part VI discusses the Supreme Court's interpretation of the clause. Part VII discusses past practices regarding the executive branch's interpretation. Finally, Part VIII discusses the clause's future implications and possible remedies. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, et al. v. Trump The U.S. people elected Donald J. Trump as president in 2016.14 Immediately, articles surfaced about possible Emoluments Clause violations.15 This culminated in a suit by CREW that alleged President Trump's personal ownership of the Trump Organization, including its interests in the united states and in twenty foreign countries, is a violation of that clause because ownership involves President Trump receiving money from foreign governments.16 In its complaint, CREW explained that President Trump "personally benefits from business dealings, and Defendant is and will be enriched by any business in which they engage with foreign governments and officials."17 First, because President Trump owns a massive business empire comprising of hotels, buildings, restaurants, and other real estate, he has daily opportunities to do business with foreign officials.18 Although the president has placed this organization in a trust, he still has universal access to...

Identifikasi Integritas Pada Komunikasi Kwee Tjie Hoei Dalam Film Love And Faith

This research will specifically trace the communication made by Kwee Tjie Hoei or Karmaka Surjaudjaja which is manifest in the national film titled with "Love and Faith (2015)". This film is packed in the form of a romantic drama genre that tells the biopic Karmaka Surjaudjaja when building the business empire of PT OCBC NISP which at that time was in a crisis. The researcher is based on Communication Theory of Identity which was triggered by Michael Hecth (2004) and Aristotle's Rhetoric to examine the message conveyed in the film. The research paradigm is based on constructivism, while the method used in this study is Sara Mills discourse analysis and this type of research is qualitative descriptive. The analytical unit used in the study were scenes in a movie show, so the researcher was able to identify the integrity of Kwee Tjie Hoei shown in several stages of identity.

Role of Leadership and Corporate Governance: The Case of Tata Group and Infosys

Is your job secured? Do layoffs happen? How long do you plan to work in the same organization? How is your performance rated? These are the set of typical questions asked to bottom-level employees working in multinational corporations. Possibly, gone are the days when an employee used to engage with a firm for a long period of their career. Attrition rate is becoming higher in many firms due to endless reasons. But how far do such trends apply to top-level or C-suite employees? Are they equally impacted such as middle- and bottom-level employees in various circumstances or taken care well by founders and boards of the organization? In this case study, an attempt was made to see if we can get some answers to these questions by considering the recent issues that happened in Tata Group and Infosys during recent times. Expulsion of Cyrus Mistry from Tata Group in 2016 and Infosys 2017 saga rocked the Indian corporate image worldwide and raised issues concerning corporate governance practices. The journeys of an insider chairman of a conglomerate and a technocrat CEO were cut short by two business tycoons Ratan Tata and Narayana Murthy in a much unexpected manner which brought a bad reputation to them. It raises issues regarding leadership styles and roles in such business empires. Transparency, accountability and security are the three pillars of corporate governance, which seem to have failed in these two organizations. It also raises a serious question of credibility, integrity and business ethics of leaders in handling these two issues with the verbal criticism which continued for days in public forum.

The Donbas War and politics in cities on the front: Mariupol and Kramatorsk

This paper compares politics in two cities, Mariupol and Kramatorsk, located near the frontline between Ukraine-controlled Donetsk Oblast and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The DPR controlled these cities in the spring of 2014, but Ukraine recaptured them. Both cities are company towns, in which owners/managers of dominant factories, nicknamed job-givers, have a decisive voice in the city’s decision-making. This paper compares how leaders of the two cities reacted to the expansion of Rinat Akhmetov’s business empire before the Donbas War, and to DPR paramilitaries during the war. The two cities diverged decisively in the post-war reconstruction because Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko succeeded in splitting two major companies and making one of them pro-presidential in Kramatorsk. As a result, electoral politics in Kramatorsk became highly competitive, while one-party dominance of the Opposition Bloc (former Party of Regions) continues in Mariupol.

‘Nagas can't sit lotus style’: Baba Ramdev, Patanjali, and Neo-Hindutva

ABSTRACTThis article is a preliminary attempt to understand the dynamics of how Patanjali and Baba Ramdev represent ‘Hindu nationalism’, or Hindutva (Hinduness) in Nagaland, India. One can read Baba Ramdev's foray into the region through the promotion of yoga, Ayurveda, and national health, as a form of ‘neo-Hindutva’ that is increasingly diffuse and moves away from a more militant pathway of established Hindutva designs. If one considers the work of Patanjali in Nagaland as an attempt to homogenise and unify a set of practices surrounding food and health practices, then, one can read this as an attempt to assert a singular somatic imagination, increasingly influenced by Hindutva ideas about the body, ‘the health of the nation’, and the promotion of swadeshi (indigenous goods) as patriotic duty. This article highlights the way Ramdev and Patanjali's business empire is trying to move beyond the ‘cow belt’ of north India, comprising mainly of ‘Hindu-Hindi’ into regions that are more diverse linguistically and historically, and culturally viewed as ‘un-Indian’.

Assessing the Receptiveness of Industrial Design Students to Business Programs: A Framework for Reinforcement and Implementation

Business subjects build strong foundation for those who aspire to venture into entrepreneurship having in- depth knowledge in management, finance and marketing. Business programs can provide strong foundation with contemporary and practical contexts that are relevant to everyday decision-making. The Industrial Design Program of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde envisions graduates of the program who are not just design- inclined but also competent individuals who are equipped with technical business skills utilizing their strong design foundation in building business empires that promote economic progress to communities they belong to. In this light, the proponent sees an opportunity to further affirm this contention by establishing how students of the program assess business subjects as influenced by how they perceive their professors’ qualifications and competencies and how these translate to a better appreciation on the relevance of these subjects to their profession as industrial designers. The results of the study affirm a high level of technical qualifications among the professors of the program having displayed above par competencies and employed methodologies that deliver an effective learning experience to students. On the other hand, the receptiveness of students was at a certain level influenced by how professors exude their expertise in business concepts and its relevance to the design practice. Preferences in improving students appreciation of the business programs were also given emphasis specifically a proposal on business organization exposure local or abroad, alignment of professors credentials to business and relaying experiential knowledge in business. The paper intends to integrate a student- centered approach in enhancing the current curriculum of the Industrial Design program and improving the competencies of business professors to promote a deeper appreciation on the relevance of business programs to the practice of the design profession. With these results, students and school administrators would have a better gauge and understanding on factors that affect perceptions and how these can be influenced to further enrich learning among students of the program.

Women entrepreneurship issues, challenges and empowerment through self help groups

Entrepreneurship is considered as one of the most important factors contributing to the economic development of the society. Entrepreneurs have been considered instrumental in initiating and sustaining socio-economic development. In India, concept of women entrepreneurship is of recent origin. Women have become aware about their rights and situations and entered in different fields of business. They have established their own successful business empires. They are contributing towards the growth of economy and improvement of their socio- economic conditions. Government of India has given due importance to women empowerment in the country and several schemes has been introduced for the upliftment of women entrepreneurs. Women workforce ratio in the country is increasing due to the increase in the women literacy rate in India.The concept of Self Help Groups (SHGs) is proved to be boon for the rural women in some states of India. It has not only raised their income but also their social status. This paper particularly focuses on various issues pertaining to women entrepreneur’s issues, challenges and future perspective in India.The women in rural areas are showing interest to become entrepreneurs because there is lot of financial facilities from the SHGs. SHGs are self-governed with decisions about production and marketing taken collectively, although the group leader is responsible for identifying potential marketing centers and consumer in formal groups. Informal groups empower rural women to manage rural industries and make decisions collectively for their common economic interests. The encouragement of women towards entrepreneurship leads to the development of the nation as they constitute half of the population. The study reveals the reasons for which they wanted to become entrepreneurs, the problems faced by them in the context of carrying out the entrepreneurial activities and suggestions to overcome the problems.

To Exist Serially: Black Radical Magazines and Beauty Culture, 1917–1919

ABSTRACT This article traces connections between black beauty culture and early issues of The Messenger and the Negro World by attending to two interdependent dimensions of seriality: first, its function as a mode of continuity and, second, its role as a technique of repetition that shapes subjects and groups. Analyzing these two forms of seriality illuminates how these magazines' serial methods for cultivating black radical individuals and communities depended upon and responded to the advertisements and discussions of black beauty culture that appeared in their pages. Madam C. J. Walker's business empire in particular represented alternative approaches to subject formation and continuity via consumption, education, and activism.