A Question of Legitimacy? A Dynamic Perspective on Multinational Firm Control

The control and coordination of a network of geographically and culturally dispersed subsidiaries is one of the most prominent challenges in international management. However, many empirical findings on the effectiveness of various control mechanisms and combinations thereof are still counterintuitive. This study uses longitudinal case studies and cross-sectional interview data to extend control theory by examining why, how, and in what sequence large multinational firms (MNCs) implement controls in their networks of foreign subsidiaries. Our analysis draws from literature on institutional theory, embeddedness, and organizational power to demonstrate that MNC headquarters need to overcome institutional duality when implementing their controls abroad. We find that headquarters do so by using social controls, primarily as a way of legitimizing and institutionalizing their process and output controls that are implemented subsequently.

Why and how FDI stocks are a biased measure of MNE affiliate activity

Many international business (IB) studies have used foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks to measure the aggregate value-adding activity of multinational enterprises (MNE) affiliates in host countries. We argue that FDI stocks are a biased measure of that activity, because the degree to which they overestimate or underestimate affiliate activity varies systematically with host-country characteristics. First, most FDI into countries that serve as tax havens generate no actual productive activity; thus FDI stocks in such countries overestimate affiliate activity. Second, FDI stocks do not include locally raised external funds, funds widely used in countries with well-developed financial markets or volatile exchange rates, resulting in an underestimation of affiliate activity in such countries. Finally, the extent to which FDI translates into affiliate activity increases with affiliate labor productivity, so in countries where labor is more productive, FDI stocks also result in an underestimation of affiliate activity. We test these hypotheses by first regressing affiliate value-added and affiliate sales on FDI stocks to calculate a country-specific mismatch, and then by regressing this mismatch on a host country's tax haven status, level of financial market development, exchange rate volatility, and affiliate labor productivity. All hypotheses are supported, implying that FDI stocks are a biased measure of MNE affiliate activity, and hence that the results of FDI-data-based studies of such activity need to be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Development of Corporate Identity: A Political Perspective

A corporate identity denotes a set of attributes that senior managers ascribe to their organization. It is therefore an organizational identity articulated by a powerful interest group. It can constitute a claim which serves inter alia to justify the authority vested in top managers and to further their interests. The academic literature on organizational identity, and on corporate identity in particular, pays little attention to these political considerations. It focuses in an apolitical manner on shared meanings when corporate identity works, or on cognitive dissonance when it breaks down. In response to this analytical void, we develop a political analysis of corporate identity and its development, using as illustration a longitudinal study of successive changes in the corporate identity of a Brazilian telecommunications company. This suggests a cyclical model in which corporate identity definition and redefinition involve power relations, resource mobilization and struggles for legitimacy. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007.

How Organizations Engage with External Complexity: A Political Action Perspective

This paper offers a new insight into how organizations engage with external complexity. It applies a political action perspective that draws attention to the hitherto neglected question of how the relative power organizational leaders enjoy within their environments is significant for the actions they can take on behalf of their organizations when faced with external complexity. It identifies cognitive and relational complexity as two dimensions of the environment with which organizations have to engage. It proposes three modes whereby organizations may engage with environmental complexity that are conditioned by an organization's power within its environment. It also considers the intention associated with each mode, as well as the implications of these modes of engagement for how an organization can learn about its environment and for the use of rationality and intuition in its strategic decision-making. The closing discussion considers how this analysis integrates complexity and political action perspectives in a way that contributes to theoretical development and provides the basis for a dynamic political co-evolutionary approach. © The Author(s) 2011.

Responsible Participation, Community Engagement and Policing in Transitional Societies: Lessons from a Local Crime Survey in Northern Ireland

The new structures of policing in Northern Ireland have been internationally lauded as a success, but the manner in which police-community relations are unfolding in local settings is less clear. In this article we draw on a local crime survey conducted in a Republican area in Belfast to examine residents’ views of policing and to highlight residents’ concerns about police effectiveness in dealing with crime and disorder. Drawing on Habermas’s concept of ‘responsible participation’, we also consider the role that community organisations can play in helping overcome local scepticism and developing positive forms of engagement with the police. © 2012 The Authors

Informed Consent: Autonomy and Self-Ownership

Using the example of an unconsented mouth swab I criticise the view that an action of this kind taken in itself is wrongful in respect of its being a violation of autonomy. This is so much inasmuch as autonomy merits respect only with regard to ‘critical life choices’. I consider the view that such an action is nevertheless harmful or risks serious harm. I also respond to two possible suggestions: that the action is of a kind that violates autonomy; and, that the class of such actions violates autonomy. I suggest that the action is wrongful in as much as it is a bodily trespass. I consider, and criticise, two ways of understanding how morally I stand to my own body: as owner and as sovereign. In respect of the latter I consider Arthur Ripstein’s recent defence of a sovereignty principle. Finally I criticise an attempt by Joel Feinberg to explain bodily trespass in terms of personal autonomy.

More equitable systems for allocating general practice deprivation payments:financial consequences

The allocation of general practitioner (GP) deprivation payments has been a controversial topic since they were first proposed. It has recently been suggested that the current system could be made more equitable if the payments were allocated at enumeration districts and if there was a more graded relationship between Jarman score and funding. However, the implications of these changes on the distribution of deprivation payments have not been worked out.

Informed consent and the requirement to ensure understanding

It is generally held that doctors and researchers have an obligation to obtain informed consent. Over time there has been a move in relation to this obligation from a requirement to disclose information to a requirement to ensure that that information is understood.Whilst this change has been resisted, in this article I argue that both sides on this matter are mistaken.When investigating what information is needed for consent to be informed we might be trying to determine what information a person would need in order to consent at all, or we might be trying to determine what information a person needs in order to make an informed choice about whether or not to consent. I argue that the obligation to ensure understanding only applies to information generated by the ?rst type of enquiry; but that much of the information generally thought necessary in order for consent to be informed is only required if our concern is with the second type of enquiry. For this reason it is neither the case that doctors and researchers should ensure all the information they provide is understood, nor is it the case that their only obligation is to disclose it.

Who do we treat when resources are scarce?

In a health service with limited resources we must make decisions about who to treat ?rst. In this paper I develop a version of the restoration argument according to which those whose need for resources is a consequence of their voluntary choices should receive lower priority when it comes to health care. I then consider three possible problems for this argument based on those that have been raised against other theories of this type: that we don’t know in a particular case that the illness is self-in?icted, that it seems that all illness is self-in?icted in the sense used in my argument, and ?nally that this type of approach incorporates an unacceptable moralising element if it is to avoid giving those like ?re-?ghters a lower priority for treatment. I argue that the position outlined here has the resources to respond to each of these objections.

A graded BDI agent model to represent and reason about preferences

In this research note, we introduce a graded BDI agent development framework, g-BDI for short, that allows to build agents as multi-context systems that reason about three fundamental and graded mental attitudes (i.e. beliefs, desires and intentions). We propose a sound and complete logical framework for them and some logical extensions to accommodate slightly different views on desires. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Social Class Variation in Risk: A Comparative Analysis of the Dynamics of Economic Vulnerability

A joint concern with multidimensionality and dynamics is a defining feature of the pervasive use of the terminology of social exclusion in the European Union. The notion of social exclusion focuses attention on economic vulnerability in the sense of exposure to risk and uncertainty. Sociological concern with these issues has been associated with the thesis that risk and uncertainty have become more pervasive and extend substantially beyond the working class. This paper combines features of recent approaches to statistical modelling of poverty dynamics and multidimensional deprivation in order to develop our understanding of the dynamics of economic vulnerability. An analysis involving nine countries and covering the first five waves of the European Community Household Panel shows that, across nations and time, it is possible to identify an economically vulnerable class. This class is characterized by heightened risk of falling below a critical resource level, exposure to material deprivation and experience of subjective economic stress. Cross-national differentials in persistence of vulnerability are wider than in the case of income poverty and less affected by measurement error. Economic vulnerability profiles vary across welfare regimes in a manner broadly consistent with our expectations. Variation in the impact of social class within and across countries provides no support for the argument that its role in structuring such risk has become much less important. Our findings suggest that it is possible to accept the importance of the emergence of new forms of social risk and acknowledge the significance of efforts to develop welfare states policies involving a shift of opportunities and decision making on to individuals without accepting the 'death of social class' thesis.

The Dimensions of Expatriate Adjustment

A narrow and partial theoretical base has limited current concepts of expatriate adjustment and the research based upon them. This conceptual article explores one of the less theorized aspects of expatriate adjustment: the fact that it has multiple dimensions. We conceive of adjustment as a person-environment relationship that takes place in the three dimensions of cognitions, feelings, and behaviors. Combining these elements takes us one step closer to a comprehensive and more realistic understanding of the nature of expatriate adjustment. We include suggestions for future research that follow from our reconceptualization.

Does Job Search Monitoring Intensity Affect Unemployment? Evidence from Northern Ireland

Because unemployment benefit reforms typically package together a number of changes, few existing evaluations have been able to isolate the effects of changes in job search monitoring intensity on benefit recipient stocks or flows. Those few studies that do so draw mixed conclusions. This paper provides new estimates of monitoring impacts by exploiting plausibly exogenous periods where search monitoring has been temporarily withdrawn - with the regime otherwise unchanged - during a series of benefit office refurbishments in Northern Ireland. As we would expect from search theory, withdrawal of monitoring significantly increases the stock of unemployment benefit recipients via reduced outflows. © The London School of Economics and Political Science 2008.

Job search monitoring intensity, unemployment exit and job entry: Quasi-experimental evidence from the UK

Because unemployment benefit reforms tend to package together changes to job search requirements, monitoring and assistance, few existing studies have been able to empirically isolate the effects of job search monitoring intensity on the behaviour of unemployment benefit claimants. This paper exploits periods where monitoring has been temporarily withdrawn during a series of Benefit Office refurbishments - with the regime otherwise unchanged - to allow such identification. During these periods of zero monitoring the hazard rates for exits from claimant unemployment and for job entry both fall. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Conformational Change of Mitochondrial Complex I Increases ROS Sensitivity During Ischemia

Aims: Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and subsequent cardiomyocyte death. The generation of excessive quantities of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and resultant damage to mitochondrial enzymes is considered an important mechanism underlying reperfusion injury. Mitochondrial complex I can exist in two interconvertible states: active (A) and deactive or dormant (D). We have studied the active/deactive (A/D) equilibrium in several tissues under ischemic conditions in vivo and investigated the sensitivity of both forms of the heart enzyme to ROS.

Results: We found that in the heart, t½ of complex I deactivation during ischemia was 10?min, and that reperfusion resulted in the return of A/D equilibrium to its initial level. The rate of superoxide generation by complex I was higher in ischemic samples where content of the D-form was higher. Only the D-form was susceptible to inhibition by H2O2 or superoxide, whereas turnover-dependent activation of the enzyme resulted in formation of the A-form, which was much less sensitive to ROS. The mitochondrial-encoded subunit ND3, most likely responsible for the sensitivity of the D-form to ROS, was identified by redox difference gel electrophoresis.

Innovation: A combined in vivo and biochemical approach suggests that sensitivity of the mitochondrial system to ROS during myocardial I/R can be significantly affected by the conformational state of complex I, which may therefore represent a new therapeutic target in this setting.

Conclusion: The presented data suggest that transition of complex I into the D-form in the absence of oxygen may represent a key event in promoting cardiac injury during I/R.