Purpose—Amidst burgeoning attention for global value chains (GVCs) in international business (IB), this paper identifies a clear “missing link” in this literature, and discusses implications for research and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy-making and...

Purpose – Multi-National Enterprises (MNEs) tend to face a high level of institutional pressures in regions with high institutional development level. When complying with institutional pressures, firms try to make decisions to maximize profit while minimizing the risks to them. The purpose of...

Purpose: This paper examines the multiplicity of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards, explaining its nature, dynamics, and implications for Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) and International Business (IB), especially in the context of CSR and global value chain (GVC)...

Scholars who study multinational enterprises (MNEs) recognize the complex relationship between international business and society. However, compared to other international business topics, research on politics, corruption and corporate social responsibility (CSR) - three 'lenses' on the MNE -...

In the debate on how to combat poverty, the positive role of MNCs is frequently mentioned nowadays, although doubts and criticism remain. Facing this societal debate, MNCs feel pressure to formulate a position. This paper analyzes MNCs' policies on their poverty-alleviating potential....

The introduction of codes of conduct can be seen as an expression of corporate social responsibility, but also as rule-setting behavior - attempts to help fill some of the existing international institutional voids. To shed light on these aspects and the (potential) effectiveness of codes, this...

Since the collapse of the international coffee agreement in 1989, attention has increasingly focused on the role of multinational corporations in this sector. As the main actors in the international coffee chain, companies such as Sara Lee/Douwe Egberts, Nestle and Kraft have been pressurised to...

How do multinationals address conflicting norms and expectations? This article focuses on corporate codes of ethics in the area of child labor as possible expressions of Strategic International Human Resource Management. It analyses whether fifty leading multinationals adopt universal ethical...

Over the last few decades, advances in transportation and production technology, in conjunction with economic globalization and the emergence of multinational corporations, have consolidated fragmented production processes into long and complex supply chains across jurisdictions. While there are...

Considering the persistent violation of labour rights, questions arise as to the effectiveness of policy instruments regarding the governance of global labour standards. We adopt an industrial relations perspective to compare three broad categories of policy instruments: state-centred...