Corporate Power Research Articles

Exploring Perspectives Towards the Gambling Industry and Its Marketing Strategies Among Young People in Western Australia.

The gambling industry utilises a range of strategies to attract and retain customers and limit meaningful gambling reform. Industry marketing strategies have demonstrated appeal to young people; however, little is known regarding how young people perceive and engage with gambling and industry marketing strategies in a Western Australian context. Young people's perspectives are vital to effectively respond to the harmful impacts of such commercial determinants on health and social outcomes. Constructivist Grounded Theory guided data collection and analysis of online group interviews with 25 young people aged 12 to 17 years old residing in Western Australia. Eligible participants received parent or caregiver consent, had lived in WA for at least 5 years, had access to technology, and able to communicate in English. Five key themes were constructed regarding young people's perspectives towards gambling and industry marketing strategies in Western Australia: exposure to gambling marketing is pervasive and inescapable in multiple environments; industry appeal to young people through culturally valued identities; gambling is normalised and embedded in the everyday; corporate power and government reciprocity protects commercial gambling interests; personalising responsibility for preventing gambling harms. This research provides further evidence about young people's everyday exposure to gambling and the need for comprehensive approaches to protect them from industry marketing. SO WHAT?: Findings reinforce the ubiquity of young people's exposure to gambling and the highly engaging and sophisticated tactics used by industry to engage young people in their harmful products. Researchers, advocates, practitioners and policymakers can use these findings to further advocate for increased restrictions on children's exposure to gambling marketing.

Incentive Contracting in the Shadow of Litigation Risk: Evidence from Universal Demand Laws

We hypothesize and show that the impact of a regulatory shock depends both on the shock itself and on how firms respond, which can itself depend on the firm's governance attributes. To explore this, we use the staggered passage of Universal Demand (UD) laws, which insulate managers from derivative lawsuits. We find that, on average, firms respond to UD laws by increasing risk-taking incentives (vega), thereby compensating for weaker external discipline, and incentivizing valuable risky investments. Corporate governance, institutional ownership, and CEO power influences the likelihood of adjusting compensation. The firms that do boost vega subsequently experience greater innovation, and a stronger market response to new product announcements. Our results help to reconcile extant findings on the effects of UD laws by showing that the beneficial impact of the laws is conditional on firms’ strengthening their CEOs’ risk-taking incentives, a choice affected by their latent governance arrangements.

Transnational corporate power, neo-colonialism and investigative journalism: a conversation with Matt Kennard

Purpose This viewpoint aims to contribute to understanding corporate power in two key respects. First, it provides insight into the ways in which transnational corporations continue to operate as vehicles for neo-colonial projects, which are underpinned by exploitation and racial hierarchies. Second, it highlights the significance of investigative journalism in providing a crucial empirical resource for both activists engaged in holding power to account and scholars engaged in critical research into corporate power and civil society activism. Design/methodology/approach This viewpoint combines an interview with an investigative journalist and the academic commentary provided by the authors in response to the interview. Findings This viewpoint highlights contemporary mutations in the concentration of corporate power, along three broad themes: the growth of transnational institutions critical to enabling and supporting abuses of transnational corporate power and neo-colonialism; the emergence of corporate-run political territories secured by private security organisations; and the corporate attack on progressive politics. It also analyses the important role of investigative journalism in advancing knowledge of transnational corporate power as well as its role in holding such power to account and the urgent need for new forms of independent journalism to support union activism, whistleblowing and other forms of democratic activism. Research limitations/implications This viewpoint engages with an alternative tradition of social critique and the critique of corporate power, which has been underrepresented in the field of international business. Practical implications This study highlights the significance of investigative journalism in providing a crucial empirical resource for both activists engaged in holding power to account and scholars engaged in critical research into corporate power and civil society activism. Social implications These implications entail developing a critique of transnational corporate power and neo-colonialism, enriching democtratic oversight and journalism, and supporting freedom of expression and democratic activism. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, minimal research has explored the critical role of investigative journalism in uncovering and holding transnational corporate power accountable. This paper therefore offers a highly original contribution by addressing this significant yet underexamined area.

Globalizing opposition to pro-environmental institutions: The growth of counter climate change organizations around the world, 1990 to 2018.

More than two decades of social scientific research has identified the growing network of corporations, think tanks, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations that aim to obstruct climate change action within the United States. Conventional arguments emphasize the role of economic self-interest (e.g., wealthy and powerful corporations) in shaping the rise of an organized "counter climate change movement" that seeks to discredit evidence about anthropogenic climate change and derail solutions to address the problem. In this paper, we track the growth of counter climate change organizations around the world and emphasize the role of reactionary cultural dynamics in driving their emergence. As climate change discourse is infused in more areas throughout society, climate change issues become more salient in the public sphere, generating adversarial grievances, identities, and mobilization among oppositional groups. Drawing on panel logistic regression models for 162-164 countries from 1990 to 2018, we find that counter climate change organizations are most likely to develop in countries with more extensive state policies and structures oriented toward protecting the natural environment, net of a variety of factors that account for a country's economic interests or its overall capacity to produce domestic associations.

Platform gaslighting: A user-centric insight into social media corporate communications of content moderation

This paper delves into communications dynamics between social media platforms and their users as they navigate the opacity of governance policies. Using Meta and TikTok as case studies, we reveal that gaslighting – traditionally linked with relationship abuse where one partner undermines the validity of the other's experience – has become a pervasive communication strategy for platforms, manifesting in numerous instances where automated and human platform communications have directly contradicted users’ experiences, evidence and research. We analyse 36 diverse interview datasets and six public platform responses to content moderation issues, highlighting the systemic nature of this phenomenon within digital spaces. By moving beyond shadowbanning and isolated platform-to-user dialogue, we expand the scholarly understanding of platform gaslighting to encompass a broader spectrum of governance-related communications. Our dataset draws from seemingly disparate groups who share moderation experiences: Jewish creators engaged in combating antisemitism, Palestinian creators advocating for human rights and sex-positive creators, whose expertise and stories are dismissed and belittled by platforms. Our participants' experiences demonstrate that conceptualising platform communications as gaslighting can help expose corporate power imbalances in platform-user interactions, particularly in cases where platforms govern through undisclosed practices such as shadowbanning and de-platforming triggered by malicious flagging, along with ambiguous communication from their representatives. We demonstrate how the dismissal or minimisation of participants’ traumatic experiences by platforms’ automated processes and human teams is weaponised to inflict epistemic injustice, consolidate power, safeguard public image and evade accountability.

Integrated reporting in China: a mission approach

PurposeDrawing on a mission approach, this study investigates the application of integrated reporting (IR). It also explores its role in shaping organisations' internal processes in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN).Design/methodology/approachWe employed a case study method and collected data by conducting semi-structured interviews with CGN managers and analysing their reports and appropriate documents.FindingsOur findings reveal that the CGN is motivated by its mission and vision to adopt IR rather than by other common motivations, such as legitimacy, strategy and stakeholder pressure. IR practice contributes to implementing its mission and vision through direct and indirect methods, covering the changes in design archetypes and subsystems that meet the nature of reorientation changes that belong to first-order transition.Research limitations/implicationsThis study extends empirical evidence of IR at the firm level in China and provides in-depth insights into how IR is implemented in Chinese SOEs. Our findings may be helpful for policymakers to review and develop policies. For instance, the government might consider integrating IR frameworks into current reporting and mandate listed companies to adopt IR. However, our data are from one company, the only Mainland Chinese Company recognised by the IIRC database.Originality/valueThis study provides an innovative approach to analysing IR and offers managers insight into how IR practice benefits the mission’s implications.

When digital taxes come due: national digital taxes and the negotiation of the OECD inclusive framework

ABSTRACT What explains major shifts in international tax cooperation? Existing literature emphasises either the centrality of the United States for successful reform or the power of multinational corporations to exert downward pressure on global tax rates. Nonetheless, in 2021 members of the OECD Inclusive Framework (IF) agreed to tax some of the largest multinational companies based on their market activities rather than physical presence – a fundamental change to the international taxation regime that the U.S. government and U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) had long opposed. We argue that the spread of digital value chains has exposed the activities of MNCs to greater regulatory activity, allowing governments to use unilateral regulatory action as leverage in international negotiations. By shifting the reversion point – the status quo absent an international agreement – governments were collectively able to transform an agreement. We demonstrate our argument by examining how the implementation of national digital services taxes (DSTs) affected the OECD IF negotiations. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders and primary sources, we show that the adoption of DSTs, including in France and India, and the threat of additional proliferation of DSTs, pushed the United States to drop its longstanding opposition to parts of the IF process.

Argumentation strategies in lobbying: the discursive struggle over proposals to regulate Big Tech

PurposeThis study investigates, through a case study where organisations held opposing lobbying objectives, the argumentation strategies employed by organisations in their lobbying. Big Tech companies lobbied against proposed online harm regulations in the UK, with their objectives clashing with public interest groups with a health focus, who advocated for broader regulations. The research explores the functional relationship between these argumentation strategies and the lobbying objectives of the organisations involved. Additionally, it examines the extent to which organisations with similar lobbying objectives converge in the argumentation strategies they deploy.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative content analysis of N = 13 submissions in response to the UK Online Safety Bill from seven public interest groups and six Big Tech companies was conducted. It captured both the public affairs objectives and argumentation strategies submitted in response to the regulatory proposal.FindingsOur findings suggest Big Tech use argumentation strategies that emphasise cost implications, threats to freedom of speech and claim proposed regulations are impractical, while at the same time seeking to align their objectives with public interest norms. Public interest groups continuously stress the costs and risks for mental health if regulations are not widened in scope or rigorously enforced.Originality/valueSituating lobbying within communication management, the study contributes to theorising language strategies. It reveals the argumentation strategies with which both powerful corporations and public interest groups attempt to influence public policy. Both theoretically and practically, it will contribute to developing analytical frameworks for understanding the influence intent in lobbying argumentation.

Using a systems thinking approach to map the global rise of ultra-processed foods in population diets.

A key driver of obesity and diet-related illness globally has been the increased consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). This paper aimed to identify the key actors, structures, incentives, and dynamics that characterize the global UPF system and have led to the dominance of UPFs in population diets. Based on a narrative review and using a systems thinking approach, we developed a causal loop diagram (CLD) of the global UPF system. The CLD comprises nine reinforcing loops: the commodification of diets; increasing market concentration; increasing UPF levels in food retail environments; the financialization of diets; direct corporate political influence; increasing capture of science, public opinion, and policy narratives; shifts from private to public food governance; state accommodation of corporate power; and an "agricultural regime" promoting the production of relatively cheap UPF inputs. The CLD also contains two balancing loops relating to market saturation and public health policies that curb UPF consumption and a countervailing reinforcing loop depicting other forms of food systems in tension with the UPF system. This study suggests the need for innovative and expansive government policies to protect and promote healthy, sustainable diets and coordinated advocacy efforts among those seeking to challenge the exploitative aspects of corporate food systems.

Book Review: Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market by Adam Hanieh

Book Review: <i>Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market</i> by Adam Hanieh

Can health impact assessment help tackle commercial determinants of health and support a wellbeing economy?

Commercial activity has positive and negative effects on health. Adverse commercial impacts on health are underpinned by corporate power and economic models and policy that prioritize economic growth, rather than a wellbeing economy that prioritizes health, equity and sustainability. Health in all policies (HiAP) aims to ensure that all policies promote health and health equity, using processes including health impact assessment (HIA). We aimed to explore the potential for HiAP and HIA to help address commercial determinants of health and promote a wellbeing economy. We completed a scoping review to identify how HiAP approaches, including HIA, could address commercial determinants, including challenges and implications for practice. This found synergy between the concepts of wellbeing economy and HiAP. However, corporate interests have sometimes co-opted HiAP to influence policy. We found some examples of HIAs of transnational corporations and international trade and investment agreements. We reviewed HIA frameworks for guidance to practitioners on managing corporate influence. This identified little guidance on identifying and managing corporate and other conflicts of interest or managing power differentials between stakeholders. We also mapped wellbeing economy outcomes against health determinants considered in selected HIA frameworks. This found that HIA frameworks with a comprehensive checklist of health determinants prompt consideration of most wellbeing economy outcomes. HIA could support the transition to a wellbeing economy if applied routinely to economic policies, but ideational change is also needed. HIA frameworks should provide guidance on corporate conflicts of interest and power differentials.

Beyond formal politics: the epistemic facet of business power

Abstract This article introduces “epistemic business power” as a distinct facet of corporate influence. Epistemic business power refers to the strategic communication of firms to influence the perceptions and beliefs of policymakers, experts, media, and the public regarding which issues, goals, norms, methods, and instruments to be politically considered. Rather than influencing decision-making and policy formulation directly, this form of power enables firms to intermediate the anticipatory dynamics of structural forms of business power and shape issue salience as well as the definition and recognition of topics as political problems. The article explores the scope conditions of epistemic business power, detailing the interaction of material aspects, corporate communication and issue salience dynamics. Based on quantitative and qualitative content as well as reception analyses, ownership data and interviews, a case study of the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock illustrates how today’s finance capital can use epistemic channels with regard to fundamental questions about the role of state capacity and private enterprise in capitalist democracies. By foregrounding the political nature of corporate public relations, the conceptual endeavor and its empirical illustration contribute to a deeper understanding of corporate power and its multifaceted role in shaping politics in capitalist democracies.

Corporate Power vs. Popular Power in the Politics of Food in Venezuela

This article is an inquiry into the politics of food in Venezuela, addressing the question: What do food politics tell us about broader forms, organizations, and relations of power in Venezuela today? By digging into the past, it sheds light on the challenges and opportunities at present, examining: a) The ways in which food, through its material and symbolic power, has served as a vehicle for processes of social differentiation along lines of race, class, and gender – processes which continue to evolve into the present; b) The interplay of global and national food politics and the ways in which these connect to and play out at the level of everyday life; and c) How the contours of the Venezuelan food system have been shaped by the pushes and pulls of state, society, and capital over time, in a delicate balance of forces characterized by both deep tensions and deep ties.

307Legal Transplants of Shareholder Voting Rights in the European Union – Evidence from the Past, Consequences for the Future

Abstract This article examines how shareholder voting rights can be transplanted from one jurisdiction to another within the European Union. In particular, it traces the spread of the right to vote on defence measures during takeovers, on directors’ remuneration, and on related party transactions, to assess whether the transplantation succeeded or failed. In doing so, this analysis highlights a dichotomy between a process of autonomous convergence undertaken by continental Member States, carried out through adaptive and circumscribed transplants, and a process of harmonisation promoted by the European Commission, that transplanted the rights in its proposals attempting to mandate them at the supra-national level. Eventually, this article sheds light on how corporate law-making can take place in the EU: in a multi-polar context where distinct corporate law systems coexist ‘horizontally’, Member States can borrow legal provisions spontaneously, while the European Commission can endorse country-specific provisions that considers to be the best corporate governance arrangements, disruptively seeking to extend them to all jurisdictions. As a consequence, the imitated Member State carries virtually no interest in exporting its rules, but is in turn interested in resisting any deviation from the Commission’s proposal to limit the changes that it will undergo in the implementation of the instrument. The other Member States, on the other hand, may actively engage within the Council of the EU to resist and water down the proposal, to avoid reforming their corporate law system and tilt their domestic allocation of corporate power towards a particular constituency.

Implicating Communication: An Analysis of the US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's Investigative Report of the Boeing 737 MAX Crises

ABSTRACTThe Boeing 737 MAX crisis, which started in 2018 and continued in 2019, has drawn researchers to investigate the events preceding and after the deadly crashes. The two accidents involving Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airways Flight 302 raised safety concerns over one of Boeing's flagship airplanes, the 737 MAX, occasioning a global grounding of the famous airplane. This study delves into the investigative report produced by the US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure concerning the design, certification, and manufacturing of the 737 MAX. The study utilized qualitative analysis to examine the implicit yet impacting communicative elements embedded in the report. Through the analysis, the study identified patterns of organizational culture, corporate power or hegemony, and capitalism as emerging themes that may have contributed to the catastrophic accidents in 2018 and 2019. Implications for the Trans‐MOC model of organizational culture are discussed.

From Sustainable Agriculture to Sustainable Agrifood Systems: A Comparative Review of Alternative Models

This paper reviews, compares, and critically evaluates two broad groups of sustainable agriculture models: “sustainable agriculture” and “sustainable agrifood systems”. The “sustainable agriculture” models—comprising organic farming, regenerative agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, carbon-capture agriculture, and nature-based solutions—focus primarily on improving ecological sustainability through farm-level practices. These models emphasize reducing external, industrial inputs, enhancing biodiversity, and promoting climate resilience, relying on technological and market-based solutions to address environmental concerns. On the other hand, the “sustainable agrifood systems” models—agroecology, alternative food networks, and permaculture—offer more ambitious visions of systemic transformation. These approaches not only seek to implement environmentally sound practices but also aim to reconfigure the broader food system by challenging corporate power, promoting local governance, fostering food sovereignty, and prioritizing social justice. Grounded in grassroots movements, these models emphasize social justice and economic viability in addition to ecological sustainability. This paper’s contribution lies in its comparative analysis of the wide array of sustainable alternatives, highlighting both their strengths and limitations. Adopting an agrarian political economy perspective, it critiques the former camp for limited engagement with structural issues inherent in capitalist agriculture and the latter camp for underplaying the importance of industrial agriculture for national development in the Global South.

Improving the efficiency and reliability of India’s power grid through targeted EHV transmission line investments: a case of UPPCL

This study analyzes the optimization of Extra High Voltage (EHV) transmission line design parameters by Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) in India to improve power grid efficiency and reliability. UPPCL reduced insulation specifications for 400 kV lines from 27 to 21 disc insulators and decreased live metal clearance from 2600 to 2400 mm, resulting in 7–9% cost savings per line and reduced right-of-way requirements. While initial test lines performed satisfactorily for over 5 years, longer lines experienced operational challenges related to insulator quality, bird activity, and design margins. Tripping issues emerged during adverse weather conditions, particularly in foggy winter periods. Root cause analysis revealed the need for stringent insulator quality control, regular cleaning to mitigate bird dropping contamination, and potential corona ring design improvements. This case study demonstrates how targeted EHV transmission line optimization can yield significant cost and environmental benefits, while highlighting the importance of balancing economic gains with reliability and safety considerations. The findings provide valuable insights for future EHV transmission line designs and upgrades across India’s power grid.

Giorgio Agamben Thrown Down to Earth

Giorgio Agamben Thrown Down to Earth This article reflects on Giorgio Agamben’s work Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics (2021), a collection of essays examining the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the state of exception. Agamben argues that liberal democracies are shifting towards normalising the state of exception, leading to an erosion of democratic principles. While his insights offer a critical perspective on state power and public health, his analysis fails to address the role of corporations, particularly Big Pharma and Big Tech, in producing and regulating pandemic measures such as vaccinations and QR codes. This omission overlooks the growing power of corporations, which increasingly act like sovereign entities. Agamben’s critics argue that his reflections remain overly abstract and pessimistic, particularly in the context of concrete policy measures. This article attempts to bridge Agamben’s theories with expert insights from Dutch institutions such as the WRR and KNAW, but finds that translating his abstract critiques into practical policies diminishes their appeal. Nonetheless, the role of philosophy and ethics, as argued here, is not to offer solutions but to critically interrogate the ethical implications of policy decisions.

China, geoeconomics and the ‘new’ state capitalism

In contributing to a critical examination of geoeconomics, this article challenges the prevalent phenomenon of ‘geoeconomic othering’ ingrained within certain mainstream International Relations (IR) analyses. Focusing on the case of state capitalism in China, we argue that in typical orientalist fashion, some predominantly Anglo-American analyses tend to disproportionally emphasise China’s distinctiveness at the expense of glaring similarities with Western polities, and use this construct to normalise the neoliberal project and the geopolitical behaviours of the Global North. The task of a critical geoeconomics is to unpack these geographical imaginaries, to transcend essentialising depictions of the state and to explore the dialectic entanglements between state and corporate power.

Global Social Movements and the Governance of the Firm: Past, Present, and Future

ABSTRACTResearch Question/IssueThe objective of this special issue (SI) is to galvanize research that examines the impact of different kinds of global social movements (GSMs) on the practice of international corporate governance.Research Findings/InsightsThe articles included in this SI provide unique insights into how various GSMs, including the feminist, #blacklivesmatter, and climate movements, influence and are influenced by corporate governance actors and practices across different institutional contexts.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsExecutives and boards face increasing pressures to make corporate decisions that consider the demands emerging from different GSMs. This SI uncovers how and why some social movements weigh heavier in corporate decision‐making. This SI uncovers the implications of GSMs for corporate governance actors and processes in different institutional contexts.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsEquipped with the power of the internet, recent social movements have become more global in character. The rising power, reach, and prominence of large corporations have made them a common target of GSMs that aim to influence not only societal values but also corporate values. The articles in this SI provide useful insights into how GSMs engage with corporations and corporate actors and assess their impact on the governance of the firm in different countries.