Large Multinationals Research Articles

A Fifth core crime: Crime of ecocide as a new puzzle of the international criminal law

The protection of the environment and above all the climate and energy crisis that destroys human life is a topic of debate at an international level for the protection of ecocide. However, so far we do not have a concrete and perfect notion, given that the term ecocide was born from biological science and not from jurists. International criminal law and especially the International Criminal Court (ICC) once again takes on the leading role. A new article is needed to introduce ecocide to the other crimes already punished by the Court. The time is right and now ripe and the international necessity demands, with the help of international criminal law, to further evolve this branch of international law, to protect peoples, to punish those who destroy the environment both in the period of peace and war and above all the large companies and multinationals that are protagonists of this crime. The case is clear enough, the conduct is broad in our day but it certainly includes the mens rea a ignorance to be punished as a crime. Of course we also speak of restorative or restorative international justice for this crime because we have an ethical need and demand towards future generations to take clear positions for the protection and human life.

REDE DE PROPRIEDADE CORPORATIVA: CAPITALISMO HIERÁRQUICO NO CONTEXTO BRASILEIRO

ABSTRACT Several studies have indicated a type of hierarchical capitalism in Latin America, characterized by the presence of multinational and state corporations, diversified multi-enterprise groups, low-skilled labor, and segmented labor markets. From the perspective of ownership networks, we explore who the owners of large Brazilian corporations are. These networks reveal actors and groups with prominent positions in the structure and ownership of companies. Thus, this article proposes to 1) describe the ownership network of the largest Brazilian corporations; 2) analyze the density, average degree, modularity, and the number of components connected in this network; 3) analyze measures of weighted degree centrality, intermediation, and eigenvector; 4) identify and analyze subgroups in the network, and 5) relate the configuration of the ownership network with hierarchical capitalism in the Brazilian context. The results point to prominent positions of financial shareholders, the Brazilian state (state-owned firms), and groups composed mostly of large multinationals, financial firms, families, and state-owned firms, confirming that the ownership structure is strongly linked to these players.

DMI: DVA 2022 Awards

In a ceremony held in September, DMI celebrated the 2022 Design Value Award winners. These were teams that have delivered significant value through design or design management practices. The 10 winners fill out a distinguished list of international organizations including non‐profit agencies, government entities, large multinationals, and regional enterprises.

Atti XXIV Convegno Nazionale Tabagismo e SSN - The National Report on Tobacco Use 2022

The World Health Organization (WHO) on May 31st of each year celebrates the World No Tobacco Day, with the aim at informing citizens about the risks associated with the use of tobacco, the commercial practices implemented by large multinationals, the policies to reduce consumption and what people around the world can do to claim their own right to health and a healthy life. (...)

Atti XXIV Convegno Nazionale Tabagismo e SSN - The National Report on Tobacco Use 2022

The World Health Organization (WHO) on May 31st of each year celebrates the World No Tobacco Day, with the aim at informing citizens about the risks associated with the use of tobacco, the commercial practices implemented by large multinationals, the policies to reduce consumption and what people around the world can do to claim their own right to health and a healthy life. (...)

Small and medium-sized enterprises response to Covid-19: The effect of external openness and procedural management

Crisis management research is strongly influenced by the behaviour of large multinationals with few insights into how small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) mitigate the negative effects of exogenous shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Inspired by the capability-based view on crisis management, we postulate that management openness and degree of interactivity determine SME crisis response. We test our theoretical model with an original dataset of 902 Swedish SMEs compiled from a telephone-based survey conducted in June 2020. We find that formalised procedures for crisis management and openness to input from others, particularly external actors, enhances an organisation’s ability to make a decisive rapid response. We discuss our findings and suggest that formalised procedures and openness are important components of an SME’s rapid response capability.

Levers for a corporate transition to a plastics circular economy

AbstractWith the global economy not yet 10% circular, businesses are key stakeholders in designing new forms of resource use, especially large multinationals. However, compared with the wealth of studies on ‘born sustainable’ start‐ups, there is minimal case study or interview based research into how incumbent companies are approaching this transition. Focusing on plastics, we ask: how does one incumbent multinational company approach the circular economy transition? This paper presents a case study of the incumbent multinational chemical company Dow, a leading plastics manufacturer. Varied external stressors and drivers for the circular economy act upon a company (which also has its own imperatives), resulting in tentative steps towards circular economy. To date, these steps have tweaked the existing system rather than radically altering the business model. For companies, like for the entire global economy, this transition has only just begun. This paper identifies key drivers, enablers and barriers of the circular economy, none of which are fixed or immutable. Knowing which levers for change are available and effective could help policy makers to shift gear to enable quicker progress towards circularity. Overall, broad based support and engagement is needed to progress the circular economy, hence all stakeholders have roles to play in demanding and enacting circular practices.

METODOLOGÍA DE AUTOMATIZACIÓN DEL DISEÑO GRÁFICO PARA PYMES. HERRAMIENTAS PARA EL DISEÑO GRÁFICO AUTOMÁTICO

Design automation has become a necessary objective in all companies, from the largest multinationals to the smallest SMEs. Today's parametric variational CAD tools, as a support for product information, allow both dimensional control and configuration management.

Ethical Implications of AI-Driven IoT Systems: Perspectives From Data Practitioners

The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises tremendous opportu-nities across domains through hyperconnected intelligent sys-tems but also introduces opaque complexity, posing new socio-technical risks around ethics and accountability. As innovative applications harnessing IoT data expand, additional empirical insight is needed into the practical challenges, priorities, and governance needs perceived by the developers and managers who implement these AI-driven technologies. This study adopted qualitative methods, conducting semi-structured interviews with 26 professionals involved in AI and IoT projects across large multinationals and startups spanning sectors like autonomous vehicles, smart cities, logistics, and fintech. A detailed thematic analysis elicited key tensions around privacy, algorithmic fairness, transparency, and unintended impacts when operationalizing high-level principled AI guidelines under real-world constraints. Practitioners emphasized current governance gaps in managing risks emerging specifically from AI modeling utilizing continuous IoT data flows and called for tailored oversight processes that can evolve with technical advancement. Findings highlight priorities around novel monitoring procedures, incentives guiding respon-sible innovation investment, tools demonstrating trustworthiness, and cross-industry infrastructure for investigability and redress across increasingly interconnected AI-IoT ecosystems. Forward-looking policy formulations must synthesize multidisciplinary, evidence-based insights that resonate with on-the-ground decision drivers balanced against long-term considerations.

THE EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT IN MULTI NATIONAL CORPORATIONS

Training and development is significant a part of the human resource development. It will be assuming ever important role in wake of the development of knowledge domain which has resulted in increasing competition, rise in customer’s belief of quality and repair along with a subsequent got to lower costs. It is also become more vital worldwide so as to organize workers for brand spanking new jobs. A multinational corporation (MNC) has services other assets in a minimum of one country aside from its home country such companies possess offices and/or factories in numerous countries and normally have a centralized head office where they coordinate world-wide super vision. Very large multinationals have budgets that larger than those of the many small nations. Training and development is important aspect in every organization increase in competitiveness and advancement of technology leads need for training and development. Keywords: Employees Training & Development, MNC, Human Resource Development.

Populist Gullibility: Conspiracy Theories, News Credibility, Bullshit Receptivity, and Paranormal Belief

The present research examines the relationship between populist attitudes—that construe society as a struggle between the “corrupt elites” versus the “noble people”—and beliefs in unsubstantiated epistemic claims. We specifically sought to assess the often assumed link between conspiracy beliefs and populist attitudes; moreover, we examined if populist attitudes predict conspiracy beliefs in particular, or rather, credulity of unsubstantiated epistemic claims in general. Study 1 revealed that populist attitudes are robustly associated with conspiracy mentality in a large multination study, drawing samples from 13 European Union (EU) countries. Studies 2 and 3 revealed that besides conspiracy beliefs, populist attitudes also predict increased credulity of obscure and politically neutral news items (regardless of whether they were broadcasted by mainstream or alternative news sources), receptivity to bullshit statements, and supernatural beliefs. Furthermore, Study 3 revealed that these findings were mediated by increased faith in intuition. These studies support the notion of populist gullibility: An increased tendency of people who score high on populist attitudes to accept obscure or unsubstantiated epistemic claims as true, including nonpolitical ones.

How does business power operate? A framework for its working mechanisms

AbstractThe global financial crisis of 2008, its following bank bailouts, and associated corporate impunity sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the structural power of business and the question of “who rules?” in capitalist societies. This new wave of scholarship mitigated some of the problems of the original, theory-driven discussions from the 1970s and 1980s. But despite significant advancements in the empirical identification of business power, we lack a unified framework for studying its working mechanisms. So-called hybrid approaches, drawing on instrumental and structural power for their analyses, display high potential for such a unified and easily applicable framework. We build on this hybrid tradition and propose a novel model that integrates instrumental and structural power analysis into a basic framework. With this, we recalibrate the often rigid division between instrumental and structural power forms and emphasize the role of perceptions as key for understanding the dynamics of business power over time. We illustrate this parsimonious framework by an analysis of the plans of the Dutch government to abolish a dividend tax in 2018 that would have benefited a number of large multinationals but collapsed before implementation.

The determinants of group membership in organized crime in the UK: A network study

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore the determinants of co-membership in organised crime groups in a British police force. We find that co-membership of OCGs is higher among individuals who share the same ethnicity and nationality; who have committed acts of violence; and who perpetrate the vast majority of their crimes in the same area. We also find a homophily tendency in relation to age and gender, and that task specialisation within groups is driven by the type of activity. We interpret some results as conforming to the argument that recruitment from a small area and similar ethnic/national background increases cooperation and reduces the likelihood of opportunistic behaviour in a context of rather effective policing. Our findings do not conform to the suggestive image of OC members as ‘urban marauders’ and OCGs as large and powerful multinationals. OCGs tend to be small, localised and formed by people with the same background.

Defining the systemic development of the Finnish pulp and paper industry’s business network

Companies operate in a nested and complex system where global challenges shape their environments and put pressure on business activities. Systemic understanding of the past and ongoing changes within a national industry help to analyze the global influences and identify phenomena that reshape business collaborations. To address this issue in the case of a forest sector, this study constructs a systemic picture of the historical development of the Finnish pulp and paper industry’s business network and analyzes it qualitatively through the Actors-Resources-Activities framework. Books discussing the history of the Finnish forest industry were used as secondary data, which were analyzed with a theory-based content analysis method. The analysis revealed four development phases during which the network has evolved from rather simple one emphasizing cooperation organizations (1st) to a more complex one with stronger roles of the state and individual influencers (2nd), and then emphasizing export and advocacy associations (3rd), before returning to be rather simple, based around three large multinationals and the EU playing an important role (4th). The industry is concerned about securing its key resources, with varying foci. Research and technological innovation activities play an important role together with cooperative interactions. Overall, actors favor a business-as-usual strategy, which is overruled only by a radical change in the operating environment, leading to notable changes in the network. Thus, a suggestion for all actors within the forest sector is that actively detecting and interpreting change signals in the whole environment can help actors in pursuing sustainable activities.

The impact of corporate social responsibility on the environmental performance of large organizations in Serbia

Background: Modern business operations, which have resulted in a significant growth of major companies, both those operating within their national boundaries and multinational ones, have contributed to an increased exploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, harmful gas emissions, drinking water scarcity, deforestation and many other negative consequences for the entire environment. This resulted in the emergence of the concept of CSR, first in large multinationals, which had sufficient funds to address this issue, and, in most cases, had contributed to environmental pollution. Purpose: The authors of this paper investigate whether there is a relation between the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and environmental performance in Serbia. Study design/methodology/approach: The research was conducted from November 2019 to August 2021 in large organisations on a sample of 165 companies. The author used Smart PLS software for data processing. Finding/conclusions: The research results show that the application of the concept of CSR influences significantly the environmental performance in large organisations in Serbia. Limitations/future research: The authors only investigated large companies, while the relationship between CSR and environmental performances in SMEs is a potential for future research.

VALUE-BASED MANAGEMENT, LONG TERM SUSTAINABILITY AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Today’s companies, especially large multinationals, are supposed to be financially successful in accordance with the shareholders’ expectations, to operate in compliance with the requirements of sustainable development, taking into account the interests of future generations, as well as to act in a socially responsible manner, serving the interests of key stakeholders, including the interests of the community. In such circumstances, managers are expected to create enough value to satisfy all these interests. The adoption of Value-Based Management (VBM) approach has contributed to a better understanding of shareholders and managers and the alignment of their interests. In this paper, we analyze the compatibility of VBM with the requirements of other stakeholders, including the requirements regarding sustainability and corporate social responsibility. In this context, it could be said that a broader concept of VBM further enhances the interest-based logic behind the corporations’ functioning, but at the same time it enables the integration of the requirements related to sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Social metabolism and bioeconomy Dialogue of knowledge

The general objective of the article is to characterize two analytical categories such as social metabolism and bioeconomy from the perspective of ecological economics as bridges for discussion, critique, and solution of the problems of the 21st century. The methodology is qualitative, the method is a documentary review, and its type is exploratory. The main conclusion is that to solve the problems of the present it is necessary to generate theoretical frameworks such as qualitative and quantitative methods that seek a dialogue of knowledge, since the difficulties that exist are due among other things to the way in which capitalism has mutated for the benefit of large multinationals and not necessarily for human societies with harmful effects on the environment. Therefore, Ecological Economics and Metabolisms are approaches that, being anchored in interdisciplinary discourses, can contribute to generating solutions to problems.

DMI: DVA 2021 Awards

As the longest‐standing global institution of its kind, DMI holds an exclusive position in the design and design management landscape. For over 45 years, DMI has been an active advocate for the strategic value of design. The organization brings together designers, educators, researchers, and leaders from every design discipline, every industry, and every corner of the planet to facilitate transformational organizational change and design‐drive innovation. Find more about the Institute at www.dmi.org.The 2021 DMI Design Value Awards recognize teams that have delivered significant value through excellence in design or design management practices. The 14 dmi:Design Value Award winners are exemplars in their fields: a distinguished list of teams that include non‐profit organizations, government agencies, large multinational corporations, hospitals, and regional enterprises.In a ceremony held online, DMI celebrated the 2021 Design Value Award winners. These were teams that have delivered significant value through design or design management practices. The 14 winners fill out a distinguished list of international organizations including non‐profit agencies, government entities, large multinationals, and regional enterprises.

The Degree of Internationalization and Firm Productivity: Empirical Evidence from Large Multinationals

AbstractThis paper examines whether the S‐shaped and M‐shaped hypotheses explain the internalization firm's productivity relationship. The internationalization–performance (I–P) literature uses accounting‐based performance indicators in order to examine such a relationship. In contrast to the mainstream literature, productivity and its components (efficiency and technical change) are used as a firm's performance measures. Utilizing a semi‐parametric model based on artificial neural network techniques, accounting for potential heterogeneity, firms’ productivity, efficiency and technical change levels are estimated. The innovative methodological framework is applied in a sample of large, experienced non‐financial firms over the period 1992–2019. The empirical evidence suggests that firms’ internationalization in relation to their productivity and efficiency levels exhibits an inverted U‐shaped relationship. This finding corresponds to the last two stages of the S‐shaped and M‐shaped hypotheses. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that internationalization has a positive nonlinear effect on firms’ innovation capacity (technical change). Overall, the empirical findings from data‐driven techniques applied, support the view that the effect of internationalization on firms’ productivity levels is asymmetric.

The tax-efficient use of debt in multinational corporations

Affiliates of multinationals borrow a considerable amount from their parent company, even when the parent is located in a high-tax country. This is at odds with standard theories of a tax-efficient capital structure. We set up a model that analyzes the functioning of the internal capital market and investigates the trade-off between tax savings and capital market frictions within the group. We test the model on data of the universe of German multinationals. The empirical analysis largely supports our model in that: (i) smaller multinationals often rely on parental debt financing; (ii) larger multinationals are more likely to use internal banks; (iii) parental debt and external debt are substitutes and the mix depends on the relative cost of raising capital through the parent and the affiliates; (iv) local and within-group tax incentives play an important role in determining all three types of debt.