Doctoral Dissertation Research: Breaking the Brand: The Social Regulation of Multinational Corporations

博士论文研究：打破品牌：跨国公司的社会规制

• 批准号: 0327425
• 负责人: Jacque (Jody) Emel
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Clark University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2005-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0327425&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Breaking; Brand

Corporate-stakeholder relations have been significantly reconfigured over the past decade. There is a seeming disjuncture between the transnational coordination of corporate activities and the national and sub-national authority of most regulatory mechanisms. Interest has increased, however, in the rise of new forms of informal or social regulation that span traditional regulatory boundaries. Corporate campaigns have emerged as one example of this new breed of informal, transnational governance mechanisms. Corporate campaigns are organized by transnational networks of stakeholders, including consumers, workers, environmental and human rights activists, and local communities, to address a wide range of social and environmental issues. These campaigns target corporations directly through shareholder resolutions, boycotts, demonstrations, and direct negotiation with corporate managers. There are numerous case studies documenting campaign successes, yet there has yet to be a systematic analysis of corporate campaign dynamics and outcomes. This study asks the following specific research questions: (1) What is the depth and breadth of change that corporate campaigns are able to effect? (2) What factors contribute to the success or failure of a corporate campaign? (3) What are the principal spatial and inter-organizational dynamics that structure corporate campaign outcomes? This study will address these questions through a comparative analysis of campaigns targeted at U.S. multinational corporations over the past decade. The research will consist of a statistical analysis of more than 200 campaigns and in-depth interviews with stakeholders and corporate managers involved in a purposive sample of ten campaigns. The findings will identify the types of corporate changes elicited by these campaigns and will explore the paths of influence through which these campaigns gain power over corporate decision makers. The investigators expect to demonstrate that certain corporate spatial and competitive strategies provide more opportunities for stakeholder engagement and influence than others.The proposed research examines the role of social regulation in shaping corporate image-making and corporate social and environmental performance. This research will bridge the literature on corporate globalization and competitive strategies with the literature on stakeholder theory and the external control of corporations. It will analyze the strategies and spaces used by campaigns to engage and contest corporate decision makers. This research also will examine the role that corporate structure and strategies play in creating opportunities for stakeholder engagement and in influencing the perceived legitimacy of stakeholder concerns. Finally, this research will identify the distribution of the benefits of campaign outcomes amongst different stakeholder groups and different places. This research has potential implications for the development of national and international regulatory priorities by identifying stakeholders, issues, and places that are not being served by current informal governance processes. Moreover, this research will contribute to on-going debates about the role of external stakeholders in corporate decision making and the distribution of the costs and benefits of global economic activities. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

在过去十年中，公司与利益攸关方的关系发生了重大变化。 公司活动的跨国协调与大多数监管机制的国家和次国家权力之间似乎存在脱节。 然而，人们对跨越传统监管界限的非正式或社会监管新形式的兴起越来越感兴趣。 公司运动已成为这种新型非正式跨国治理机制的一个例子。 企业运动由包括消费者、工人、环境和人权活动家以及当地社区在内的利益攸关方跨国网络组织，以解决广泛的社会和环境问题。 这些运动通过股东决议、抵制、示威和与公司经理直接谈判直接针对公司。 有许多案例研究记录了运动的成功，但还没有对公司运动的动态和结果进行系统的分析。 本研究提出以下具体的研究问题：（1）企业活动能够影响的变化的深度和广度是什么？ (2)什么因素会影响企业活动的成功或失败？ (3)什么是主要的空间和组织间的动态结构的企业活动的结果？ 本研究将通过对过去十年中针对美国跨国公司的活动进行比较分析来解决这些问题。 该研究将包括对200多项活动的统计分析，以及对参与10项活动的利益相关者和企业经理的深入访谈。 调查结果将确定这些运动引起的企业变化的类型，并将探索这些运动获得对企业决策者的影响力的途径。 研究者希望证明，某些企业的空间和竞争战略提供了更多的机会，利益相关者的参与和影响力比others.The拟议的研究探讨社会监管在塑造企业形象和企业的社会和环境绩效的作用。 本研究将企业全球化和竞争战略的文献与利益相关者理论和企业外部控制的文献联系起来。 它将分析活动所使用的策略和空间，以吸引和竞争企业决策者。 本研究还将探讨公司结构和战略在创造利益相关者参与的机会和影响利益相关者关注的感知合法性方面所发挥的作用。 最后，这项研究将确定运动成果的利益在不同利益相关者群体和不同地方之间的分配。 这项研究具有潜在的影响，通过确定利益相关者，问题和地方，目前的非正式治理过程中没有服务的国家和国际监管的优先事项的发展。 此外，这项研究将有助于正在进行的关于外部利益相关者在企业决策中的作用以及全球经济活动的成本和收益分配的辩论。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。