The United Nations Global Compact – which is a Global Public Policy Network advocating ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, environmental protection, and anti-corruption – has turned into the world’s largest corporate responsibility initiative. Although...

This empirical survey is based on a questionnaire which was distributed to 6,000 medium-sized German companies with international activities. The analyses included responses from a total of 533 enterprises. The areas examined include the importance of globalization, the motives for and the...

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) dominate the governance of global value chains (GVCs), such that according to the concept of political corporate social responsibility (PCSR), they are responsible to address governance gaps throughout the chains, even at the level of their independent suppliers....

In this chapter, we are particularly interested in the contracting arrangements of MNCs with suppliers in less developed countries which have been labelled as ‘sweatshops’. Critical stakeholders from civil society, such as labour and human rights activists, trade unions and non-governmental...

This study discusses the relationship between inter-organizational paradox management, national business systems and global value chains. Using case study evidence from a global value chain in the footwear industry (in Germany and China), we analyse how different businesses in the chain...