Corporate Influence Research Articles

The UNFSS+2 Stocktaking moment: tracking progress amidst absent global targets?

This short communication discusses the need to transform food systems towards sustainability and focuses on recent political events. Especially the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) from 2021 and the respective stocktaking event, which took place in July 2023, are presented and critically analyzed as the process has faced criticism for its lack of transparency, corporate influence, and perceived disregard for human rights frameworks. In this context, the recent UNFSS +2 Stocktaking Moment (STM) in Rome aimed to assess developments in 2021. While over 100 countries presented their progress, many reports focused more on intentions rather than measurable achievements. The outcomes of the STM were perceived as mixed messaging, as no binding agreement or declaration was signed by member states. A major point of criticism is the absence of comparable targets and indicators for tracking and comparing progress across countries, which hinders effective global stocktaking. The paper also underlines the need for universally agreed-upon targets and indicators to provide a clear direction for food systems transformation. It proposes the development of a roadmap with intermediate targets and gradual steps. Alignment with international frameworks such as the Agenda 2030 and the Rio Conventions is also recommended. Collaboration among policymakers, marginalized groups, civil society, scientists, and business leaders is highlighted as being crucial, ensuring inclusive participation and addressing diverse perspectives. Furthermore, the importance of addressing food systems injustices (such as unfair trade practices, exploitative working conditions, and the disproportionate impact of climate change), particularly in Africa, is highlighted. Overall, the paper highlights the challenges and complexities involved in transforming food systems towards sustainability and calls for concerted efforts to address these issues at both global and local levels.

LITIGATION AND LEGITIMACY IN ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF INFRACONSTITUTIONAL LEGISLATION

Environmental actions often involve conflicts of interest between companies that seek to maximize their profits and local communities that seek to protect their environment and quality of life, with an explicit asymmetric relationship between those involved, both due to the population’s lack of knowledge and the influence of large corporations. The purpose of this summary is to analyze the legitimacy of filing environmental actions in the light of infraconstitutional legislation in order to ascertain the accessibility of filing demands to the population. To this end, an analytical study will be presented, presenting the main characteristics regarding the proposition of environmental demands, in order to demonstrate the possibilities brought by the legislation. In addition, a document analysis of laws, rules and regulations related to the filing of individual and collective claims was carried out. In view of the results obtained, it is concluded that despite the legislator’s intention to provide the individual with the possibility of litigating individually or collectively, this is hampered by the population’s lack of information and the lack of resources to pay for the progress of processes of this magnitude.

How does export VAT rebates policy affect corporate investment efficiency? Evidence from corporate tax stickiness

VAT rebates have gained prominence as a significant tax incentive policy. This study aims to illuminate how adjustments to the export VAT rebate rate influence corporate investment efficiency from the perspective of tax stickiness. The results show that the implementation of export VAT rebates significantly improves corporate investment efficiency, especially for firms experiencing underinvestment. Tests exploring potential channels reveal that raising export tax rebates mitigates corporate tax stickiness, thereby enhancing investment efficiency. Further analysis indicates that the positive effect on investment efficiency is more pronounced for firms with limited access to external financing and for non-high-tech firms. Our findings suggest that adjustments to tax rebates in export markets play a vital role in alleviating tax stickiness and improving investment efficiency.

Analysis of the Influence of Service Quality, Emotional Satisfaction and Company Image on Customer Loyalty of Indihome PT Telkom Indonesia (Persero) Tbk

This study aims to analyze the influence of quality service (X1), emotional satisfaction (X2), and image of the company (X3) as variables free and loyal customers (Y) as variables bound. Data collection techniques include a questionnaire with a sample of as many as 145 people. The data analysis technique used To determine the influence between variables in the study is PLS-SEM. Research results show that Quality of Service influences customers' Emotional Satisfaction. Quality of Service and Emotional Satisfaction influence Corporate Image. Corporate Image influences Customer Loyalty. Quality of Service and Emotional Satisfaction have no influence on Customer Loyalty to Indihome at Plasa Telkom Banjarmasin.

How corporate rent-seeking affects outward FDI——Empirical evidence based on A-share listed manufacturing companies

This study examines the theoretical mechanism of corporate rent-seeking's influence on enterprises' Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) behavior and empirically tests its impact on OFDI. The results show that corporate rent-seeking increases OFDI significantly. This conclusion is still valid after employing a series of robust analyses. The channel mechanics test finds that corporate rent-seeking reduces enterprise profitability and thereby induces OFDI. Heterogeneity tests find that these effects exist mainly among private enterprise and enterprise without political connection. Our findings enrich the literature on the determinants of OFDI and complement the research on the motivation of internationalization in emerging market countries.

Cultural and Cybernetic Control Matter Corporate Sustainability: The Role of Strategy

This research study explores the relationship between cultural and cybernetic control, cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy, and corporate sustainability. Utilizing a quantitative methodology, data is collected from a diverse sample of companies representing different industries in Indonesia. Validated questionnaires are used to measure cultural control, cybernetic control, cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy, and corporate sustainability performance. The collected data is analyzed using statistical techniques such as regression analysis or correlation tests to examine the connections between the variables. The findings of this study will enhance our understanding of how cultural and cybernetic control mechanisms, in conjunction with cost leadership and differentiation strategies, influence corporate sustainability. The outcomes will provide valuable insights and recommendations for organizations aiming to improve their sustainability practices and optimize their competitive strategies.

Disentangling the corporate effect on subsidiary performance

AbstractResearch SummaryCorporate parents are important to subsidiary performance, but prior strategy research presents mixed results about the extent to which parents drive subsidiary performance differences. Drawing on the corporate strategy literature, we argue that corporate parents’ influence depends on the size of the corporate portfolio that determines subsidiaries’ access to finite corporate resources and the contextual conditions—industrial relatedness and institutional distance—that favor or constrain the applicability of said resources. We find support using a variance decomposition analysis and data on 12,336 subsidiaries of 854 multinational firms. Our study demonstrates that the corporate effect varies according to the structure of the corporate portfolio and the subsidiaries in it. We reconcile theoretical arguments and empirical findings regarding the relative importance of corporate parents to subsidiary performance.Managerial SummaryA core objective of corporate managers is understanding those channels most salient to subsidiary performance. The implicit assumption is that the corporate parent matters, but how much so remains unclear, especially since corporate parents cannot contribute equally to all subsidiaries. We demonstrate that the corporate parents of small subsidiary portfolios play a significant role in explaining subsidiary performance differences vis‐à‐vis parents of larger portfolios. We also show how this relative importance increases when subsidiaries exhibit higher industrial relatedness to and institutional distance from the parent. Our findings offer insights into the role of corporate parents in multiunit firms that operate across multiple industries and geographic locations, as well as the need to consider the heterogeneity of corporate influence within and between subsidiary portfolios.

Board demographic, structural diversity, and eco‐innovation: International evidence

AbstractResearch question/issueWe examine whether and how board diversity, measured by demographics (i.e., board gender, cultural diversity, tenure, social capital, expertise, and age) and structural diversity (i.e., board independence, size, board seat accumulation‐chair, board compensation, and board meeting frequency), influence corporate eco‐innovation.Research findings/insightsUtilizing a global sample of publicly listed companies for the period 2004–2019, we find that a one‐standard deviation increase in demographic and structural diversity translates into 4.66% and 7.11% higher corporate eco‐innovation, respectively. Furthermore, we discover that demographic and structural diversity promotes eco‐innovation by offsetting the negative effects of political risk. In an additional analysis, we find evidence that, in the absence of greater external monitoring (institutional investors and analyst following), organizations benefit more from the monitoring role of board diversity.Theoretical/academic implicationsBy adopting the concept of “bundling the governance mechanisms,” our study adds to the ongoing discourse about the function of board diversity in addressing corporate climate footprints by offering original evidence that board diversity heterogeneity—demographic and structural diversity—matters for corporate eco‐innovation.Practitioner/policy implicationsGiven the increasing pressure on companies to manage their environmental impacts and carbon footprints, our paper has significant ramifications for those involved in promoting eco‐innovative business practices, such as policymakers, regulators, and practitioners.

Corporate Political Activity: Taxonomies and Model of Corporate Influence on Public Policy.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people a year. The products and services of unhealthy commodity industries (UCIs) such as tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and beverages and gambling are responsible for much of this health burden. While effective public health policies are available to address this, UCIs have consistently sought to stop governments and global organisations adopting such policies through what is known as corporate political activity (CPA). We aimed to contribute to the study of CPA and development of effective counter-measures by formulating a model and evidence-informed taxonomies of UCI political activity. We used five complementary methods: critical interpretive synthesis of the conceptual CPA literature; brief interviews; expert co-author knowledge; stakeholder workshops; testing against the literature. We found 11 original conceptualisations of CPA; four had been used by other researchers and reported in 24 additional review papers. Combining an interpretive synthesis of all these papers and feedback from users, we developed two taxonomies - one on framing strategies and one on action strategies. The former identified three frames (policy actors, problem, and solutions) and the latter six strategies (access and influence policy-making, use the law, manufacture support for industry, shape evidence to manufacture doubt, displace, and usurp public health, manage reputations to industry's advantage). We also offer an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of UCI strategies and a model that situates industry CPA in the wider social, political, and economic context. Our work confirms the similarity of CPA across UCIs and demonstrates its extensive and multi-faceted nature, the disproportionate power of corporations in policy spaces and the unacceptable conflicts of interest that characterise their engagement with policy-making. We suggest that industry CPA is recognised as a corruption of democracy, not an element of participatory democracy. Our taxonomies and model provide a starting point for developing effective solutions.

Power and Other Commercial Determinants of Health: An Empirical Study of the Australian Food, Alcohol, and Gambling Industries.

Commercial determinants of health (CDoH) represent a critical frame for exploring undue corporate and commercial influence over health. Power lenses are integral to understanding CDoH. Impacts of food, alcohol, and gambling industries are observable CDoH outcomes. This study aims to inform understanding of the systems and institutions of commercial and/or corporate forces working within the Australian food, alcohol, and gambling industries that influence health and well-being, including broader discourses materialised via these systems and institutions. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with key-informants on Australian public policy processes. Interviewees were current and former politicians, political staff members, regulators and other public servants, industry representatives, lobbyists, journalists, and researchers with expertise and experience of the Australian food, alcohol, and/ or gambling industries. Interviews sought participants' perceptions of Australian food, alcohol, and gambling industries' similarities and differences, power and influence, relationships, and intervention opportunities and needs. Strategies and tactics used by Australian food, alcohol and gambling industries are similar, and similar to those of the tobacco industry. They wield considerable soft (eg, persuasive, preference-shaping) and hard (eg, coercive, political, and legal/economic) power. Perceptions of this power differed considerably according to participants' backgrounds. Participants framed their understanding of necessary interventions using orthodox neoliberal discourses, including limiting the role of government, emphasising education, consumer freedom, and personal choice. Food, alcohol, and gambling industries exercise powerful influences in Australian public policy processes, affecting population health and well-being. Per Wood and colleagues' framework, these manifest corporate, social, and ecological outcomes, and represent considerable instrumental, structural, and discursive power. We identify power as arising from discourse and material resources alike, along with relationships and complex industry networks. Addressing power is essential for reducing CDoH harms. Disrupting orthodox discourses and ideologies underpinning this should be a core focus of public health (PH) advocates and researchers alike.

Pro-Con Debate: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Industry-Sponsored Research.

Pro: Nearly all new devices and drugs come from industry that provides two-thirds of the funding for medical research, and a much higher fraction of clinical research. Realistically, without corporate-funded studies, perioperative research would stagnate with little innovation and few new products. Opinions are ubiquitous and normal, but do not constitute epidemiologic bias. Competent clinical research includes many protections against selection and measurement bias, and the publication process provides at least moderate protection against misinterpretation of results. Trial registries largely prevent selective data presentation. Sponsored trials are particularly protected against inappropriate corporate influence because they are usually codesigned with the US Food and Drug Administration, and analyses are based on formal predefined statistical plans, as well as being conducted with rigorous external monitoring. Novel products, which are essential for advances in clinical care, largely come from industry, and industry appropriately funds much of the required research. We should celebrate industry's contribution to improvements in clinical care. Con: While industry funding contributes to research and discovery, examples of industry-funded research demonstrate bias. In the setting of financial pressures and potential conflict of interest, bias can influence the type of study design, hypotheses being tested, rigor and transparency in data analysis, interpretation, as well as reporting of the results. Unlike public granting agencies, industry does not necessarily provide funding based on unbiased peer review following an open call for proposals. The focus on success can influence the choice of a comparator, which might not be ideal among the possible alternatives, the language used in the publication, and even the ability to publish. Unpublished negative trials can result in selected information being withheld from the scientific community and the public. Appropriate safeguards are needed to ensure that research addresses the most important and relevant questions, that results are available even when they do not support the use of a product produced by the funding company, that populations studied reflect the relevant patients, that the most rigorous approaches are applied, that studies have the appropriate power to address the question posed, and that conclusions are presented in an unbiased manner.

Pro-Con Debate: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Industry-Sponsored Research

ProNearly all new devices and drugs come from industry that provides two-thirds of the funding for medical research, and a much higher fraction of clinical research. Realistically, without corporate-funded studies, perioperative research would stagnate with little innovation and few new products. Opinions are ubiquitous and normal but do not constitute epidemiologic bias. Competent clinical research includes many protections against selection and measurement bias, and the publication process provides at least moderate protection against misinterpretation of results. Trial registries largely prevent selective data presentation. Sponsored trials are particularly protected against inappropriate corporate influence because they are usually codesigned with the US Food and Drug Administration, and analyses are based on formal predefined statistical plans, as well as being conducted with rigorous external monitoring. Novel products, which are essential for advances in clinical care, largely come from industry, and industry appropriately funds much of the required research. We should celebrate industry’s contribution to improvements in clinical care. ConWhile industry funding contributes to research and discovery, examples of industry-funded research demonstrate bias. In the setting of financial pressures and potential conflict of interest, bias can influence the type of study design, hypotheses being tested, rigor and transparency in data analysis, interpretation, as well as reporting of the results. Unlike public granting agencies, industry does not necessarily provide funding based on unbiased peer review following an open call for proposals. The focus on success can influence the choice of a comparator, which might not be ideal among the possible alternatives, the language used in the publication, and even the ability to publish. Unpublished negative trials can result in selected information being withheld from the scientific community and the public. Appropriate safeguards are needed to ensure that research addresses the most important and relevant questions, that results are available even when they do not support the use of a product produced by the funding company, that populations studied reflect the relevant patients, that the most rigorous approaches are applied, that studies have the appropriate power to address the question posed, and that conclusions are presented in an unbiased manner.

Active imitation or passive reaction: research on the peer effect on trade credit

PurposeUsing a sample of manufacturing firms listed in China between 2007 and 2019, first, this paper aims to examine whether peer firms influence corporate trade credit supply. Next, the authors examine the channels through which peer firms influence corporate trade credit supply by testing the predictions of rivalry and information theories. Furthermore, the authors examine the heterogeneity of the industry peer effect on corporate trade credit supply. Finally, the authors examine the economic consequences of the industry peer effect on corporate trade credit supply.Design/methodology/approachThe sample includes all manufacturing firms listed on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen securities exchanges for the sample period from 2007 to 2019, and the data come from the China Stock Market & Accounting Research database. The authors use the fixed effects method to examine the industry peer effect on trade credit supply. The results are robust to a series of robustness tests. To address the potential endogeneity problem, the authors adopt appropriate instruments by estimating instrumental variable models (two-stage least square). The authors use Heckman’s two-stage model to mitigate the sample selection bias.FindingsThe authors provide strong empirical evidence showing that the industry peer effect on trade credit supply exists in the manufacturing sector. It is also found that both competitive rivalry-based and information-based theories can provide explanations of the industry peer effect on trade credit supply. This process is both active imitation and passive reaction. Additional analysis suggests that the industry peer effect on trade credit supply is more pronounced for state-owned firms, firms with low customer concentration and firms with high geographical proximity. The amplification effect and spillover effect are the economic consequences of the industry peer effect on trade credit supply. In other words, the trade credit supply based on peer effect will not only increase the liquidity risk of the firm per se but also induce and increase the liquidity risk of the industry.Originality/valueThe study makes some important contributions. First, the authors find robust evidence that peer firms’ trade credit supply is an important factor in explaining corporate trade credit supply, which extends the literature by connecting the firm’s trade credit supply with the peer effect. Second, the study provides a new micro-perspective for understanding that firms use trade credit supply as a tool of competition, which proves the importance of rivals’ decision-making as a determinant of corporate decisions. Third, the authors examine the industry peer effect on trade credit supply, which not only helps to guide firms to pay more attention to the potential risk and spillover effects of the trade credit supply decision-making relevance but also helps to clarify the industry interaction phenomenon of corporate decision-making behavior. It is an important practical significance to play a role as a bridge between the microlevel of the firm and the meso-level of the industry. Finally, the study provides inspiration for the formulation of industry norms and policies.

The Cost of Doing Politics: How Partisanship and Public Opinion Shape Corporate Influence by Jane L. Sumner

The Cost of Doing Politics: How Partisanship and Public Opinion Shape Corporate Influence <i>by Jane L. Sumner</i>

MODERN FASHION INDUSTRY: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS FOR KAZAKHSTAN

Purpose of the study is to identify the features and trends of the modern fashion industry and determine promising areas for further development and activation of the Kazakhstani fashion industry.Methodology. The study is based on the methods of system analysis, dialectic-logical approach, analysis of statistical data, review of scientific and journalistic literature and expert interviewing.Originality / value of the study. The authors of the article identified topical issues in the development of the fashion industry in Kazakhstan, taking into account global trends in the development of this industry and opportunities for further development of the fashion sector in the country. The recommendations proposed by the authors are of practical interest and will give impetus to further scientific analysis in this area.Results of the study. The authors of the article analyzed the statistical data on the development of the clothing industry in Kazakhstan for five years. It is concluded that the fashion industry in Kazakhstan is developing at a slow pace, despite the existing opportunities and great potential. The most important features and trends of the global fashion industry, such as globalization of resources, creation of strategic partnerships and alliances, strengthening of the influence of transnational corporations, growth of knowledge intensity, predominant focus on the budget price segment, and rapid increase in the digitalization of the industry, have been identified and analyzed. Based on the results of the analysis, promising directions for the development of the Kazakhstani fashion industry were substantiated – creation of strategic partnerships and alliances, active promotion of national brands, as well as co-branding, targeting, and increased digitalization of the industry.

Document analysis of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World’s scientific outputs and activities: a case study in contemporary tobacco industry agnogenesis

BackgroundTobacco corporation Philip Morris International launched the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), a purportedly independent scientific organisation, in 2017. We aimed to systematically investigate FSFW’s activities and outputs, comparing...

Inclusive diets within planetary boundaries

Inclusive diets within planetary boundaries

What did the scientific literature learn from internal company documents in the pharmaceutical industry? A scoping review

AbstractObjectiveTo identify all scientific papers that used internal industry documents in the pharmaceutical sector and analyze what and how the scientific literature learned about corporate influence in the pharmaceutical sector through these internal documents.DesignScoping review.MethodsUsing different series of keywords, we searched six databases, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, Business Source Complete, and PAIS, for peer‐reviewed journal articles analyzing pharmaceutical corporations' internal documents. We completed the scoping review using a purposive snowball sampling method to extract relevant case studies and peer‐reviewed journal articles from relevant articles' reference lists when our search keywords failed to capture them. To analyze the content of the literature and better categorize the types of corporate strategies at play in the pharmaceutical sector, we used categories of ghost‐management previously developed in the literature.ResultsWe identified 37 peer‐reviewed papers in the final results. All the articles included in the final results are published in English. Almost all articles obtained most of their internal document data through legal proceedings. All 37 articles unveil dynamic ghost‐management strategies that pharmaceutical corporations employ to safeguard their corporate interest. The strategies identified relate to scientific capture (n = 28), professional capture (n = 16), regulatory capture (n = 6), media capture (n = 3), market capture (n = 4), technological capture (n = 2), civil society capture (n = 4), and others (n = 2).ConclusionThe scientific literature using internal documents confirmed widespread corporate influence in the pharmaceutical sector. While the academic literature used internal documents related to only a handful of products, our research results, based on ghost‐management categories, demonstrate the extent of corporate influence in every interstice of pharmaceutical markets, particularly in clinical research and clinical practice. It also allows us to better refine the conceptual categories of ghost‐management to better map corporate influence and conflict of interest.

Conflicts of interest (CoI) and undue corporate influence in public health: from the international context to local interventions

Conflicts of interest (CoI) and undue corporate influence in public health: from the international context to local interventions

Responding to a societal crisis: How does corporate social responsibility engagement influence corporate reputation?

While both an “insurance” and “penance” effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been discussed within prior literature, it is unclear how a firm’s CSR engagement in response to a societal crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts its short-term and long-term corporate reputation. Drawing from case examples of firms’ responses to the recent COVID-19 pandemic and from relevant aspects of crisis management theory, expectancy violations theory, and signaling theory, this paper presents a conceptual framework of corporate reputation change during and after a societal crisis that describes how the direction and speed of a firm’s visible CSR engagement during a societal crisis can change its corporate reputation. Specifically, this paper suggests that firms who exceed stakeholder expectations with lower pre-crisis levels of visible CSR engagement have greater opportunities for increasing their short-term corporate reputations while firms with higher pre-crisis levels of visible CSR engagement are at greater risk for experiencing a decline in their short-term corporate reputations. These changes in short-term corporate reputations are expected to diminish over time, though this depends upon whether firms return to their pre-crisis levels of visible CSR engagement. Finally, building on the case examples and conceptual framework presented, this manuscript concludes with practical guidelines for managers of firms preparing to navigate future societal crises and provides an alternative pathway for both qualitative and quantitative inquiry that has the potential to illuminate important insights for both organizational studies and firms.