Corporate Interests Research Articles

ESG practices: the key to organizational sustainability

The study addresses the relevance of ESG practices as key to organizational sustainability, generating long-term value, improving efficiency, and managing risks. The research focuses on the question of how ESG practices contribute to organizational sustainability, requiring an understanding of the integration of ESG dimensions into corporate strategies and their impact on sustainability. Using an integrative systematic review, the study provides a comprehensive view of research on ESG practices and organizational sustainability, highlighting a growing academic and corporate interest in this area. The analysis reveals that, despite the recognition of the benefits of ESG practices, there is a gap in understanding how these are implemented daily and the challenges faced by organizations. Furthermore, the absence of studies on the ideal balance between ESG practices to optimize organizational sustainability is emphasized. It concludes with the need for more research to elucidate the specific contribution of ESG practices to organizational sustainability, suggesting a positive movement towards their integration into business strategies, under the aegis of greater regulatory guidance and transparency in ESG reporting.

The Pashtun Borderlands, 1944–1947

In the 1940s the Afghan dynasty in Kabul and newly independent rulers in Pakistan did not meet the challenges of building enduring representative political institutions and sustainable national economies. The dynamics of post-war globalized political and economic relationships undermined perceived elements of colonial-era stability. Borderland individuals and communities buffeted by post-war uncertainties and traumas from the Partition of British-India in August 1947 often ignored or resisted state-building efforts too often seen as lacking political legitimacy or local benefit. State institutional failures of governance in the 1970s that preceded subsequent decades of regional instability were foreshadowed in the 1940s. By 1950, the working of global capital, including in the form of American corporate interests, complicated any state notions that foreign funded economic development schemes might substitute for substantial structural political and social reforms.

A paradigm shift?-On the ethics of medical large language models.

After a wave of breakthroughs in image-based medical diagnostics and risk prediction models, machine learning (ML) has turned into a normal science. However, prominent researchers are claiming that another paradigm shift in medical ML is imminent-due to most recent staggering successes of large language models-from single-purpose applications toward generalist models, driven by natural language. This articleinvestigates the implications of this paradigm shift for the ethical debate. Focusing on issues like trust, transparency, threats of patient autonomy, responsibility issues in the collaboration of clinicians and ML models, fairness, and privacy, it will be argued that the main problems will be continuous with the current debate. However, due to functioning of large language models, the complexity of all these problems increases. In addition, the articlediscusses some profound challenges for the clinical evaluation of large language models and threats to the reproducibility and replicability of studies about large language models in medicine due to corporate interests.

THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY AND THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE OF 1770: TOWARDS A CORPORATE COLONIAL BIOPOLITICS

ABSTRACT The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 took 10 million lives. The British East India Company’s (EIC) extraction of resources and imposition of brutal tax policies in Bengal exacerbated the disaster. By exploring the intersections of corporate interests, colonialism, and biopolitics, this paper provides a new perspective on the Bengal famine of 1770 by introducing and visualizing it through a unique theoretical framework—corporate colonial biopolitics. Adopting Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics, my focus is primarily on the corporate colonial biopolitical strategies enforced by the Company, which led to dispossession, violence, and resource extraction exploiting Bengal’s landscape and impeding the region’s progress and development. The essay unveils the racist policies and profit-driven principles of the EIC and how they prioritized generating revenues, financing its military, and exporting food grain even at the peak of the famine. I point out how the EIC systematically dismantled the Indian agricultural system, fueling deindustrialization in India and ultimately making the region vulnerable to famines. The Bengal famine of 1770 remains unexplored by geographers despite being the first colonial famine in India. One of the primary objectives of this paper is to bridge this gap by shedding light on the geographical dimensions of this pivotal historical catastrophe.

An NLP-based novel approach for assessing national influence in clause dissemination across bilateral investment treaties.

International investment agreements (IIAs) promote foreign investment. However, they can undermine crucial health programs, creating a dilemma for governments between corporate and public health interests. For this reason, including clauses that safeguard health has become an essential practice in IIAs. According to the current literature, some countries have played a pivotal role in leading this inclusion, while others follow the former ones. However, the existing literature needs a unique approach that can quantify the influence strength of a country in disseminating clauses that explicitly mention health provisions to others. Following an NLP (Natural Language Processing)-based text similarity analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), this study proposes a metric, 'Influence' (INF), which provides insights into the role of different countries or regions in the propagation of IIA texts among BITs. We demonstrate a comprehensive application of this metric using a large agreement dataset. Our findings from this application corroborate the evidence in the current literature, supporting the validity of the proposed metric. According to the INF, Germany, Canada, and Brazil emerged as the most influential players in defensive, neutral, and offensive health mentions, respectively. These countries wield substantial bargaining power in international investment law and policy, and their innovative approaches to BITs set a path for others to follow. These countries provide crucial insights into the direction and sources of influence of international investment regulations to safeguard health. The proposed metric holds substantial usage for policymakers and investors. This can help them identify vital global countries in IIA text dissemination and create new policy guidelines to safeguard health while balancing economic development and public health protection. A software tool based on the proposed INF measure can be found at https://inftool.com/.

Capture and corporate cooptation: the role of the Mexican Foundation for Health in public health policy

IntroductionCorporate capture responds to efforts to strengthen regulation or prohibition of commercial determinants of health [tobacco, alcohol, sugar-sweetened beverages, ultra-processed products (UPFs), commercial milk formula, and pharmaceuticals], in an attempt to interfere with public health policies that threaten the commercial, economic, and political interests of major industries. This manuscript proposes the characterization of the corporate capture of public health in Mexico, exercised through the Mexican Foundation for Health (FUNSALUD).MethodologyAn analysis of FUNSALUD and its stakeholders was carried out under the framework of commercial determinants of health, using a qualitative methodology, and executed in five stages: document analysis from 1985 to 2021; identification and characterization of stakeholders; semi-structured interviews; classification of corporate strategies; and relationship mapping.ResultsActors in the pharmaceutical, food, tobacco, alcohol, commercial milk formula, and sugar-sweetened beverage industries were identified as corporate members of FUNSALUD. We identify six corporate strategies used to interfere in public health and food policies, highlighting the role of a revolving door bureaucracy in the case of the Ministry of Health.ConclusionThe Mexican Foundation for Health has functioned as a front organization created by the private sector to influence public policy decision-making, protect corporate interests, and oppose international recommendations to combat non-communicable diseases.

Calculation and Cause Analysis of Hidden Unemployment—A Case Study of the Northeast State-Owned Forest Areas in China

The Northeast State-owned Forest Areas comprise the largest region of resources in China. The transformation of the Northeast State-owned Forest Areas is due to various stimuli, such as policies, systems, and markets. In the context of ecological construction and the reform of the state-owned forest system in Northeast China, these have undergone a transformation in terms of economy, society, and ecology. However, a mismatch persists between employment and industrial structures, leading to hidden unemployment. This study employs the framework of hidden unemployment theory, utilizing the Cobb–Douglas production function to quantify the hidden unemployment rate, revealing the relationship between transformation and hidden unemployment. Through this analysis, the underlying causes of hidden unemployment in Northeast China’s state-owned forest regions are scrutinized. There is a bidirectional causal relationship between ecological transformation and hidden unemployment, while there is a unidirectional causal relationship between economic transformation and hidden unemployment. Variance decomposition analysis highlights the substantial contribution of social transformation, followed by economic transformation, with ecological transformation playing a comparatively smaller role. Based on the above research, this article proposes expediting the reforms within the forest industry groups, facilitating the separation of governmental and corporate interests. Additionally, it advocates for strategic forestry development planning to effectively absorb surplus labor, and proposes three policy directives aimed at supporting forest area employees, including provisions for job transfers and reemployment opportunities.

Uses for Wines and Vinegars from Marco de Jerez: Between Culinary Tradition and Haute Cuisine

An analysis of the wines and vinegars from the city of Jerez de la Frontera, center of a tradition that dates backs hundreds of years in the viticultural area of Marco de Jerez. Ethnography was resorted to as a method, describing the culinary processes which make use of such products, either in traditional or haute cuisines, and assessing the consumers’ perceptions regarding these uses. The results exhibit the deep meaning and importance of the culinary uses of wine and vinegar from Jerez in everyday cooking and haute cuisine, and also the exporting and international vocation of the place, with a background of social agents with opposing positions and preferences, where the interests of large corporations prevail over local preferences.

Cornelius Castoriadis’ agonistic theory of the future of work at Amazon Mechanical Turk

ABSTRACT Digital innovations are rapidly changing the contemporary workplace. Big Tech companies marketing algorithmic management increasingly decide on the Future of Work. Political responses, however, often focus on managing the impact of these technologies on workers. They leave the question of how these technologies are designed or how workers can determine their own futures unanswered. This approach risks surrendering the Future of Work debate to techno-determinist imaginaries aligned with corporate interests. Using Cornelius Castoriadis’ early writings on worker struggles in French Tayloristic factories and his later oeuvre on conflictual social imaginaries, I propose an agonistic approach to the Future of Work. Not merely companies implementing workplace technologies, but also workers themselves possess agency in determining the Future of Work. Workers’ frequent contestations against machinic surveillance and technologically mediated coordination of the labour process disclose an alternative Future of Work in which technologies are used to enhance worker autonomy rather than bureaucratic control. Worker struggles at Amazon Mechanical Turk illustrate this agonistic dynamic: Amazon mobilizes algorithmic management to fragment and control a workforce of globally dispersed remote workers, but the latter form online social communities and create counter-technologies to reappropriate control over the labour process.

Corporate interest groups and their implications for global food governance: mapping and analysing the global corporate influence network of the transnational ultra-processed food industry.

A major challenge to transforming food systems to promote human health and sustainable development is the global rise in the manufacture and consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). A key driver of this dietary transition is the globalization of UPF corporations, and their organized corporate political activity (CPA) intended to counter opposition and block government regulation. UPF industry CPA and the corporate interest groups who lobby on their behalf have been well described at the national level, however, at the global level, this network has not been systematically characterized. This study aims to map, analyse, and describe this network, and discuss the implications for global food policy action on UPFs, global food governance (GFG), and food systems transformation. We conducted a network analysis of the declared interest group memberships of the world's leading UPF corporations, extracted from web sources, company reports, and relevant academic and grey literature. Data on the characteristics of these interest groups were further extracted for analysis, including year founded, level, type, and headquarter location. We identified 268 interest groups affiliated with the UPF industry. The UPF manufacturers Nestlé (n = 171), The Coca-Cola Company (n = 147), Unilever (n = 142), PepsiCo (n = 138), and Danone (n = 113) had the greatest number of memberships, indicating strong centrality in coordinating the network. We found that this network operates at all levels, yet key actors now predominantly coordinate globally through multistakeholder channels in GFG. The most common interest group types were sustainability/corporate social responsibility/multistakeholder initiatives, followed by branding and advertising, and food manufacturing and retail. Most corporate interest groups are headquartered where they can access powerful government and GFG decision-makers, nearly one-third in Washington DC and Brussels, and the rest in capital cities of major national markets for UPFs. The UPF industry, and especially its leading corporations, coordinate a global network of interest groups spanning multiple levels, jurisdictions, and governance spaces. This represents a major structural feature of global food and health governance systems, which arguably poses major challenges for actions to attenuate the harms of UPFs, and to realising of healthy and sustainable food systems.

Fostering pro‐environmental behavior at work: A self‐determination theory perspective

AbstractWith a growing corporate interest in pursuing public goods, numerous firms today endeavor to practice corporate social responsibility. Utilizing a multilevel structural equation modeling approach, we investigated the topic of employees' pro‐environmental behavior, contributing to the growing literature on “green” issues in the workplace. We incorporated self‐determination theory to examine how individuals' perceptions regarding their corporate environmental policies reflected in firm‐level green psychological climate influence their environment‐specific self‐regulation, and whether support of autonomy, relatedness, and competence psychological needs moderates this relationship. The relationship between environment‐specific self‐regulation and employees' engagement in pro‐environmental behavior was also further explained. Analysis of the data from 649 employees working in 37 major South Korean companies revealed that firm‐level green psychological climate is positively related to employees' environment‐specific self‐regulation and that environment‐specific self‐regulation is also positively related to their pro‐environmental behavior. Moreover, while we found that the positive association between firm‐level green psychological climate and employees' environment‐specific self‐regulation was stronger when they had a higher level of relatedness need satisfaction, interactions between firm‐level green psychological climate with autonomy and competence need satisfaction did not demonstrate any significant effects. Theoretical and practical contributions together with suggestions for related future research are discussed as well.

The New Normalcy and the Pandemic Threat: A Real Option Approach

This paper delves into the evolving post-pandemic business arena, focusing on how liability options and social norms are reshaping industry structures. We anticipate lasting transformations due to the emergence of new safety standards that bridge the gap between corporate interests and societal welfare. To foster these changes, effective post-lockdown economic policies could encompass not only rigorous social standards but also specific financial incentives. Examples of such incentives include tax relief for businesses implementing comprehensive health protocols and subsidies for those transitioning to remote work or modifying production layouts to minimize infection risks. Our analysis delineates two predominant operational frameworks for firms in this new environment: the liability and property regimes. These are determined by each firm’s financial outcomes and the extent of damages incurred, all measured against societal expectations. Firms within the liability regime may exhibit only partial compliance, often attributed to ambiguous standards and prevailing uncertainties, potentially leading to a dip in profits. In contrast, entities operating under the property regime are likely to engage in more extensive organizational restructuring. A key insight from our study is the paradigm shift in investment behavior, increasingly influenced by risk management, particularly in the strategic choice between liability and property rules. This shift is evident in how firms now prioritize managing potential external liabilities, such as environmental hazards or evolving regulatory landscapes, in their investment decisions. Consequently, the traditional growth-centric investment paradigm is being supplemented by strategies that emphasize safeguarding against various external risks, marking a significant realignment in corporate investment philosophies post-pandemic. This transition underscores the intricate interplay between economic policies, corporate strategies, and societal dynamics in the contemporary business milieu.

The dividend policy of business entities and the analogy of law

Author discovers uncertainty that generates ambiguous administrative and judicial law enforcement on the issue related to the limits of business entity freedom in the creation and implementation of dividend policy. Importance of such insufficiently clearly regulated by corporate legislation aspects of the dividend policy as the scope of corporation's powers and limitations in determining frequency of making decisions on dividend payments and timing of the actual distribution of profits among the corporation's participants is shown. Special relevance of the doctrinal study and regulatory clarification of the relevant legal parameters of the dividend policy of domestic corporations is associated by the author with the need to overcome the negative consequences of the sanctions impact of unfriendly foreign states. The presented author's approach is aimed at ensuring greater variability of corporate and legal interaction and increasing the efficiency of business entities. Special technical and legal tools were used in the study, including the method of analogy, as well as civilistic means of analysis and synthesis, comparison and generalization. The idea of the possibility and practicability of flexible negotiation of this uncertainty based on the normative construction of the analogy of law, on the basis of the general principles and meaning of civil legislation, as well as through the analogical use of explanations on understanding of the imperativeness and optionality of legal norms contained in the Resolution of the Russian Federation Supreme Arbitration Court Plenum dated March 14, 2014 No. 16 «On freedom of contract and its limits» is argued. As a result, conceptual admissibility of «nonmonotonic» dividend accruals, not linked to calendar quarters has been proved, as well as the possibility of large delays in the actual payment of declared dividends in comparison with the periods pre-established by norms. Main conditions for the implementation of such a measure of freedom in determining dividend policy are identified, namely its focus on achieving a balance of corporate interests and availability of an actually generated net profit for a business entity.

Optimizing Corporate Interests: A Comprehensive Study on Tax Planning Strategies for Company a Under the Framework of Enterprise Income Tax Law

In terms of taxation, as one of the main sources, corporate income tax is 20% according to the newest financial reports. Therefore, conducting tax planning and developing a series of corporate income tax planning plans is crucial for maximizing corporate interests. This paper is based on the Enterprise Income Tax Law, with Company A as the research object. In response to the development of the company in the past three years, literature review and case analysis methods are used to plan for enterprise income tax payment of the company, in order to reduce taxes and increase profits. This article introduces the company's overview, financial situation, and existing problems, such as not fully utilizing tax preferential policies Failure to reasonably distinguish or plan expenses, resulting in exceeding tax amounts and failing to recognize revenue methods for various sales, has led to corresponding planning plans to reduce risks while reducing expenses, which not only reduces the taxable amount of corporate income tax but also increases profits.

Adapting to Turbulence: How Global Retail Giants Navigate Trade Wars and Reshape International Trade Norms

More than just a part of the economic landscape, retailing has a profound impact on society, culture, and the market economy. As an integral part of the economic ecosystem, retailing provides goods and services to consumers and is also an enabler of economic growth, closely linked to other industries. Global retail giants play an important role in international trade by increasing supply chain transparency and encouraging suppliers to comply with ethical labor practices and environmental standards. This commitment to sustainability and social responsibility is consistent with the emphasis on fair labor practices and environmental stewardship in international trade norms. However, significant challenges arise when confronted with the trade-off between national interests and the interests of transnational corporations on the global stage. Governments often aim to protect domestic industries and jobs, which may conflict with the interests of global retailers in having smooth access to global markets. Finding the right balance between these interests remains a perennial challenge in international trade discussions. In addition, the burgeoning trade war between the United States and China has had varying degrees of impact on the retail industry. Therefore, this dissertation will delve into the new challenges and changes faced by retail giants in the context of the trade war.

Impact of Corporate Interests on Infant Feeding Practices and Maternal Child Health.

Impact of Corporate Interests on Infant Feeding Practices and Maternal Child Health.

“Think tank XXI века” (Часть первая)

When Alexander Dynkin took up the position of Director of IMEMO in 2006, he had a clear program of action. The main point of this program was the transformation of the Institute into a modern world-class think tank, capable of deeply and objectively analyzing the processes of world development and the current situation. This was possible only on the basis of fundamental scientific research. Another task was to raise the prestige of IMEMO in public opinion, in the media space and in government bodies. Finally, the new director intended to attract talented young people to the Institute. Acting in this direction, the Academician A. Dynkin initiated a number of structural changes in IMEMO, aimed at optimizing scientific and scientific-organizational work. With designation of Alexander Dynkin as Director, the volume of expert-analytical notes and materials sent to the Administration of the President of Russia, the Security Council, the Government of the Russian Federation, to the relevant committees of the State Duma, ministries and departments has sharply increased. In 2007, the Institute sent a total of 65 analytical notes and materials to these bodies (38 in 2006), which served the purpose of the new Director to restore IMEMO’s position as Russia’s leading center of expertise in the field of modern world development. All these materials were prepared in reliance on a thorough analysis of the strategic, political and economic realities, providing for the national interests of Russia, which, as historical experience shows, do not always coincide with corporate interests of the ruling elite. The reports at the IMEMO Academic Council were devoted to the most important problems of the world and Russian economy, international relations, including the issues of strategic stability, and modern society of the West, the East and Russia. This article presents three reports, which, in the author’s opinion, remain relevant up to the present. The authors of these reports are Rostislav Kapelyushnikov and Alexey Arbatov.

Current Situation and Countermeasure Analysis of Transfer Pricing in International Tax Avoidance

This article introduces the main ways of international tax avoidance and points out that transfer pricing is the most commonly used means of multinational corporations. The paper briefly introduces the definition and different types of transfer pricing, then confirms that as a means of tax avoidance, the nature of transfer pricing is still in the category of not violating the law. On this basis, the article analyzes the causes of transfer pricing, and tries to find a balance between the host country and multinational enterprises by assigning and dividing different responsibilities and obligations, to achieve the common development of international economy. The key point is not simply to recommend that countries or regions strictly crack down on and prohibit transfer pricing, but to seek a method acceptable to both host countries and multinational enterprises from the basis of its creation, taking into account the interests of multinational corporations so that the problem can be solved more effectively.

ACCOUNTABILITY, FLEXIBILIZAÇÃO E QUALIDADE TOTAL:

The text analyzes the influence of the concepts of accountability, flexibility and total quality on Brazilian educational policies and, mainly, on the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) and the reform of Secondary Education. It is a bibliographical and documentary, qualitative research, whose theoretical-conceptual perspective is Historical-dialectical Materialism. A contextualization is carried out on the rise of neoliberal policies, New Public Management and managerialism and their consequences on educational policies, highlighting the large-scale evaluation policies issued since 1990. The presence of business sectors in the construction and implementation of the BNCC and the reform of Secondary Education, returning education to private corporate interests. Therefore, these educational policies express the hegemonic project of the social form of capital which seeks, once again, to adjust education to the interests of the market, under the logic of flexible pedagogy and the accountability of social beings for the results of their historical existence.

Conflicts and litigation between odnodvortsy and landowners of the Oryol province at the end of the XVIII - first half of the XIX centuries

Introduction. In the presented work, the author made an attempt to analyze the materials of court proceedings between odnodvortsy and landowners of the Livensky district of the Oryol province during the period under study as an example of the struggle of the corporate organization of a odnodvortsy community against large landowners. An important feature of this phenomenon was not only the related position of the odnodvortsy community, but the interrelation of individual clans within rural society and their defense of common interests before patrimonial owners and landowners from the general class of former service people. Materials and methods. This work is the result of a study of legal and judicial materials dating back to the last quarter of the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. The main sources for this study were court proceedings in the Livensky district and Yeletsk district courts. The main methodology is based on the use of general historical approaches in the study of the social model of behavior of the odnodvortsy social group in defending private and general corporate interests. Results. The materials of the trials between the odnodvortsy and landowners of the region under study provided very important and valuable information about the mentality of the odnodvortsy and their attitude towards large landowners who came from the general stratum of the service population of the Central Black Earth Region in the 17th century. Odnodvortsy initiated litigation with their neighboring landowners in cases where the latter came from the service population and once had common or adjacent properties with the ancestors of odnodvortsy. Land conflicts began to arise en masse only in the first half of the XIX century, which indicated the future depletion of the fund of free agricultural land. Conclusion. The study of land conflicts between odnodvortsy and landowners of the Livensky district of the Oryol province helped to reveal the mental attitudes of these class groups and determine the general social aspirations of the local population in resolving pressing issues. The majority of odnodvortsy felt common roots with local small landowners, who historically went back to the class of the service population of the 17th century. Thus, in most cases it was a showdown within the former one class group of the population, which over time significantly stratified, both in property terms and in the field of social status.