Business, Society, and Development: The Article Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jason Miklian
Interested in staying up to date with the most recent advances in the fields of business, sustainable development and peacebuilding, but no time to find and read articles? Then this podcast is for you. Each week, BSD delivers a curated collection of top academic articles within the business, peacebuilding and sustainable development spaces. Listen to new and key complete articles as a podcast, for free! Readers are a mix of the authors themselves and Amazon Polly's neural net. Explore top articles discussing the role of business in society, Corporate Social Responsibility, business and peacebulding, business and human rights, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, business as a conflict actor and more. Qualitative, theoretical, and quantitative analyses, in a variety of fields. Want your article added? Contact jason.miklian@sum.uio.no for more info.
Authors: Noemi Sinkovics, Jihye Kim & Rudolf R. Sinkovics
Main Question: The article explores how what we know, mostly from studies conducted in the United States and Europe, about the factors that drive the formation and success of collaborations between business and civil society organisations apply in the South Korean context.
Main Finding: The analysis identified four distinct types of collaboration strategies between civil society organisations and businesses in South Korea: 1) partnering for visibility, 2) partnering for compliance, 3) partnering for responsibility outsourcing, and 4) partnering for value co-creation. The study also finds that there are variations across the four partnering strategies in terms of the extent to which they lead to business and social outcomes. Further, the study contributes to theory building by pointing to the unintended consequences of stakeholder pressure and government interventions without putting mechanisms in place that would ensure the right match in capabilities, motivation, and resources between businesses and civil society organisations. From a methodological point of view, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on how a multiple pattern matching approach can be used to determine whether findings from one context will still apply in another context. This methodological approach can be used to design more meaningful replication studies in international business. Further, a multi-stage pattern matching process brings nuances to the fore that are traditionally masked by contextual differences that are not adequately proxied by quantitative control variables.
Abstract: In this study, we use an empirical example to demonstrate how a multi-stage pattern matching process can inform and substantiate the construction of partial least squares (PLS) models and the subsequent interpretation of and theorizing from the findings. We document the research process underlying our empirical investigations of business – civil society collaborations in South Korea. The four-step process we outline in this paper can be used to ensure the meaningfulness of the structural model as well as to maximize the use of PLS for theorizing. This methodological advancement is particularly helpful in situations when literature reference points exist, but further contextual information may add nuances to prevalent knowledge. The findings from the qualitative flexible pattern matching part of the study prompted us to conduct a multi-group analysis. The resulting path changes in the base model led to the identification of four partnering strategies for business-CSO collaborations: (1) partnering for visibility; (2) partnering for compliance; (3) partnering for responsibility outsourcing; and (4) partnering for value co-creation.
Journal and Article Link: Sinkovics, N., Kim, J. & Sinkovics, R.R. Business-Civil Society Collaborations in South Korea: A Multi-Stage Pattern Matching Study. Manag Int Rev 62, 471–516 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-022-00476-z
Narrator: Thomas AI
Author contact: noemi.sinkovics@glasgow.ac.uk
Authors: Ralph Hamann, Alecia Sewlal, Neeveditah Pariag-Maraye, Judy Muthuri, Kenneth Amaeshi, Ijeoma Nwagwu, and Jenny Soderbergh
Main Question: We delved into the complex question of what enables sustainable responses from companies in times of crisis by considering that there are several factors at play. We adopted an attribute configuration approach to determine how these different factors combine to bring about sustainable responses or the lack thereof.
Main Finding: Enhanced understanding of organizational responses to crises by attending to configurational effects, by elaborating on how prior investments shape crisis responses, and by foregrounding the role of governance contexts.
Abstract: We explore the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on companies’ sustainability strategies and practices. Prior research has identified a number of factors that shape such effects, including crisis severity, resource slack, and prior investments, but their interactions have not been given much attention. We thus collected qualitative data on 25 companies in four African countries, which we analyzed inductively and iteratively through cross-case comparison and with fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. We identify two pathways associated with strengthening responses (“building on strengths” and “governance gap-filling”) and three associated with restricting responses (“hard hit,” “low-road business-as-usual,” and “bunkering down”). Our findings enhance our understanding of organizational responses to crises by attending to configurational effects, by elaborating the role of prior sustainability investments, and by foregrounding the relevance of governance contexts. We describe implications for future research and managers, investors, and sustainability initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.
Journal and Article Link: Business & Society, 0(0) 2023 - Online First. https://doi.org/10.1177/00076503221134100
Narrator: Alecia Sewlal
Author contact: ralph.hamann@uct.ac.za; alecia.sewlal@gmail.com
Acknowledgments
This research was made possible by a grant from a consortium including Sistema B, B Lab, B Academics, Academia B, and the International Development Research Center (IDRC), as part of the funding program on “The Role of Business in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the Global South.” We are grateful to Gerry George for his editorial guidance and to the three anonymous reviewers, to our research participants, and to colleagues at the United Nations Global Compact for co-hosting our practitioner workshop. We also benefited from a seminar at Aarhus University Department of Management, a GRONEN Reading Group seminar, a Professional Development Workshop on QCA at the Academy of Management Meeting 2021, and the 5th International QCA Paper Development Workshop 2021.
Author: Matthew Sinnicks
Main Question: Does the competitive nature of capitalism justify exemptions from ordinary morality?
Main Finding: The domain of business is importantly different from other domains in which ordinary morality is apparently suspended, such as sport. Thus, we need to think more carefully about how apparently unethical behaviour might contribute to human flourishing before tolerating exemptions from ordinary morality.
Abstract: This paper explores the notion that business calls for an adversarial ethic, akin to that of sport. On this view, because of their competitive structure, both sport and business call for behaviours that are contrary to ‘ordinary morality’, and yet are ultimately justified because of the goods they facilitate. I develop three objections to this analogy. Firstly, there is an important qualitative difference between harms risked voluntarily and harms risked involuntarily. Secondly, the goods achieved by adversarial relationships in sport go beyond the function of sport, i.e. to entertain audiences. Thirdly, the most plausible account of the athlete’s motivational development starts with their love of the sport, which can explain a commitment to the sporting ethics in a way that is not paralleled in business. I close by drawing attention to the ways in which an Aristotelian conception of business ethics may be able to accommodate these objections.
Journal and Article Link: Journal of Business Ethics (2022), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-021-04749-9
Narrator: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: m.sinnicks@soton.ac.uk
Author: Kumiko Nemoto
Main Question: How have Japanese managers, including the CEOs of Japanese firms, responded to Japan’s government-led corporate governance reform and pressure from foreign shareholders? How Japan, with its stakeholder-based system, has incorporated into its firms’ management style both foreign shareholders’ demands and shareholder-based customs.? We also ask why convergence has not occurred in some large Japanese companies.
Purpose: Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.
Findings: This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies I looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation, and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy–based customs.
Originality/value: This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.
Journal and Article Link: Corporate Governance (2022), https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CG-04-2022-0152/full/html
Narrator: Salli Amazon
Author contact: kumiko.nemoto5@gmail.com
Authors: Richard Marcantonio and Agustin Fuentes
Main Question: How does the post-conflict peace dividend get distributed and what are the impacts of increased stability from peace for most marginalized communities in the contexts of extractive industry expansion?
Main Finding: The pathways and impacts of extractive industry on everyday life for the communities who live where and downstream of extraction occurs are complex, but in general result in bearing the burden of the production of the peace dividend.
Abstract: The impacts of human activities on ecosystems are significantly increasing the rate of environmental change in the earth system, reshaping the global landscape. The rapid rate of environmental change is disrupting the ability of millions of people around the globe to live their everyday lives and maintain their human niche. Evidence suggests that we have entered (or created) a new epoch, the Anthropocene, which is defined as the period in which humans and human activities are the primary drivers of planetary change. The Anthropocene denotes a global shift, but it is the collective of local processes. This is our frame for investigating local accounts of human-caused disruptive environmental change in the Pampana River in Tonkolili District, Northern Province, Sierra Leone. Since the end of the Sierra Leonean civil war in 2002, the country has experienced a rapid increase in extractive industries, namely mining. We explored the effects of this development by working with communities along the Pampana River in Tonkolili, with a specific focus given to engaging local fishermen through ethnographic interviews (N = 21 fishermen and 33 non-fishermen), focus group discussions (N = 21 fishermen), and participant observation. We deployed theoretical and methodological frameworks from human niche construction theory, complex adaptive systems, and ethnography to track disruptive environmental change in and on the Pampana from upstream activities and the concomitant shifts in the local human niche. We highlight the value of integrating ethnographic methods with human evolutionary theory, produce important insights about local human coping processes with disruptive environmental change, and help to further account for and understand the ongoing global process of human modification of the earth system in the Anthropocene.
Journal and Article Link: Land (2021), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00076503221110184
Narrator: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: rmarcant@nd.edu
Authors: Laura Olkkonen and Mette Morsing
Main Question: What other activities does CEO activism entail besides public stance-taking? How does a CEO support a publicly made socio-political stance over time?
Main Finding: CEO activism is a process where a CEO supports the stance in public with underlying activities in the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases. The CEO engages in public debate about both the issue at hand and the role of business in addressing the issue.
Abstract: Chief executive officers (CEOs) engage in activism when they take public stances on sensitive socio-political issues. In this study, we address the less-explored activities that constitute CEO activism beyond single stances as the activism is maintained over time. The data cover 6 years of campaign and media materials from a case company with several CEO-initiated activist campaigns. Our findings from an inductive analysis contribute to CEO activism theorizing in three ways. First, we extend CEO activism conceptually by identifying five underlying activities that support a public stance: anchoring motivations, modeling action, taking agency, enduring criticism, and normalizing activism. Second, we bridge individual- and organization-level analyses by depicting how a CEO involves a company in activism through activities that justify interrelated topic frame and role frame. Third, we develop a processual model that includes the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases and explains how the underlying activities are interrelated and follow a pattern that serves to maintain CEO activism. Accordingly, CEO activism includes activities, through the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases, whereby a CEO deliberately engages personally and through a company in public debate about sensitive socio-political issues and the role of businesses in addressing them.
Journal and Article Link: Business and Society (2022), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00076503221110184
Narrator: Salli Amazon
Author contact: Laura.Olkkonen@lut.fi
Authors: Theresa Eriksson, Anna Näppä, and Jeandri Robertson
Main Question: How can managers encourage a Paying it Forward behaviour which contributes to strengthening the firm’s Employer Brand?
Main Finding: This work has four major findings:
1. It provides a conceptual definition of a Paying it Forward mindset (as follows):
“A clear tendency and intention of someone to give benefit to another person when they themselves receive something of value.”
- It elucidates how Paying it Forward occurs on an individual, organizational and ecosystem level.
3.It provides practical principles for how to foster a Paying it Forward mindset (as follows):
How you do anything is how you do everything.
You need to believe in it and start doing it!
Make the behavior known and understood
Recognize and reward the behavior
Curate the group and give them the needed tools
Be humble enough to receive
- Finally, it also provides several avenues for future research
Abstract: Kindness can strengthen your employer brand. The business environment is changing, and the value of kindness in the corporate world is garnering increased attention. Paying it forward is a way to pass acts of kindness on to others. This allows employees and business partners to go above and beyond formal expectations that not only benefit the individuals involved but also the businesses they represent. Paying it forward can potentially create competitive advantage for firms from an employer branding perspective (to attract and retain talent) and in the broader market sense. This behavior can strengthen the employer brand in numerous and effective ways, and managers must understand, engage in, and encourage such conduct. In this article, we discuss different examples, benefits, and risks of paying kindness forward on a micro-, meso-, and macro-level. After providing this foundation, we introduce practical guidelines for managers on how to foster a paying-it-forward mindset among employees and the broader organization. The guidelines were created using insights from interviews we conducted with stakeholders in a business ecosystem in northern Sweden.
Journal and Article Link: Business Horizons (2022), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681322000015
Narrator: Salli Amazon
Author contact: maria.theresa.eriksson@associated.ltu.se
Authors: Veronika Tarnovskaya, Daniel Tolstoy, and Sara Melén Hånell
Main Question: We were driven by the curiosity regarding the ways in which CSR aspects are viewed in the marketing and management literature from 1989 to 2020. More specifically, what are the documented CSR strategies taken by MNCs and how is the implementation of these strategies by their subsidiaries affecting local markets – different stakeholders and whole societies. To make it simpler – can we identify different approaches that will produce positive outcomes for local societies, and, hopefully, change their lives for better, not for worse.
Main Finding: Our main finding was identifying several approaches: reactive and proactive: from causing less harm and pure philanthropy to the “business case” CSR and stakeholder CSR. While most “good” companies take the proactive strategic “business case” approach that implies prioritization of economic outcomes at the expense of social and environmental, there are few cases of so-called Stakeholder CSR with a strong social impact but weaker economic outcomes. It is this latter approach that we find promising because it loosens the straitjacket of the “triple bottom line” and allows to de-couple social and environmental goals from the economic ones. To pursue the path that will make a difference for human lives and environment companies need to pursue CSR/sustainability wholeheartedly, not as a trade-off with the economy and not as a new way be profitable. We have shown one path – de-growth (different growth) and/or embedded sustainability.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review that illuminates the current state of knowledge regarding the specific approaches by which multinational corporations (MNCs) implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the subsidiary level in developing countries. Even though substantial scholarly work has been made to outline MNCs' activities in developing countries, this literature remains fragmented. To support the field in its theoretical as well as empirical advancements, this study conducts a systematic review of this body of literature and content analysis of relevant articles using insights from strategic marketing literature (market driving/proactive and market-driven/reactive approaches). Among the key contributions of this study's literature review is the development of a taxonomy of proactive/reactive CSR, bringing together different and fragmented streams of research and viewing them from strategic marketing (“proactive/reactive”) perspective. The taxonomy and the two ensuing propositions can advance future CSR-related studies with MNCs in focus by providing both theoretical and empirical guidance.
Journal and Article Link: International Marketing Review (2022), https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IMR-05-2021-0161/full/html
Narrator: Salli Amazon
Author contact: veronika.tarnovskaya@fek.lu.se
Author: Francois Lenfant
Main Question: How can companies contribute to SDG 16 in a turbulent context as that of Congo, i.e. how do you co-create accountable institutions when you are accused of profiting from institutional gaps?
Main Finding: Very few companies do contribute to SDG 16 because it is considered too political, or too sensitive. CSR mostly tackles technical (health or safety) issues.
Abstract: Drawing from different theoretical lenses ranging from political CSR and economic development to management, this chapter looks at the linkages between CSR and conflict in Africa. As part of the debate on the contribution, or not, of CSR to the SDGs, this chapter takes stock of the potential, and the limitations, of business to contribute to SDG 16, i.e. promote just, peaceful, and inclusive societies in Africa. It highlights the relevant literature on CSR, peace and conflict, and provides an overview of the limited empirical evidence illustrating CSR’s contribution to peace in Central Africa. Taking the conflict mineral theme as example, this chapter also suggests that CSR needs to be embedded in broader collaborative arrangements to address critical governance issues in order to fully realize SDG 16.
Journal and Article Link: Oxford University Press (2022), https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003038078-4/corporate-social-responsibility-conflicts-africa-fran%C3%A7ois-lenfant
Narrator: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: f.lenfant17@gmail.com
Authors: Yeyi Liu, Martin Heinberg, Xuan Huang, Andreas B. Eisingerich
Main Question: Can Corporate Social Responsibility be enhanced by corporate transparency? Or, from a different angle: should an intransparent firm invest in CSR?
Main Finding: Transparency did not receive sufficient attention in the CSR literature and is often limited to transparency in CSR reporting. We establish the theoretical rational, why corporate transparency is a condition for CSR effectiveness and use actual firm data to support the logic.
Abstract: Customers today are increasingly demanding transparency from firms. This article discusses the concept of performance transparency and explores when and why transparency plays a key role for a firm’s CSR effectiveness. In doing so, it addresses consumer skepticism as the logic of the transparency-CSR interaction and presents empirical evidence of the effect. It also discusses key principles for managing performance transparency effectively. Companies should monitor and track performance transparency regularly, initiate consistent transparency practices along with CSR activities, pay attention to the types of information made available, and adapt the transparency practices to the involvement level.
Journal and Article Link: Business Horizons (2022), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681322001306
Narrator: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: M.Heinberg@leeds.ac.uk
Authors: Anne de Bruin, Michael J. Roy, Suzanne Grant, and Kate V. Lewis Main Question: Are social entrepreneurship ecosystems the same, different, or both the same AND different from entrepreneurship ecosystems?
Main Finding: We argue that while there are of course significant similarities, there is a far greater focus on the importance of different forms of community within social entrepreneurial ecosystems. We present a new revised conceptualisation.
Abstract: We investigate what distinguishes social entrepreneurial ecosystems (SEEs) from entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) through appreciation of the importance of context—the multiplex of intertwined social, spatial, temporal, historical, cultural, and political influences. Community is incorporated as a key variable and hitherto overlooked dimension of the structure and influence of SEEs. We draw on extant literature and examples of a variety of SEEs to support our propositions and demonstrate why considerations of both context and community are critical to advance understanding of SEEs. We contribute to the study of SEEs by presenting a new conceptual framework and theorizing SEE as an evolving composite of interdependent actors who interact and collaborate across multiple levels to collectively generate positive externalities and drive sustainable solutions to social problems.
Journal and Article Link: Business and Society (2022), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00076503221121820
Narrator: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: Michael.Roy@gcu.ac.uk
Author: Ademi Bejtush and Nora Johanne Klungseth
Main Question: This paper explored the big question of whether it pays off financially to deliver superior ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance compared to industry peers. Specifically, it investigates whether delivering superior ESG performance results in higher financial performance and superior market valuation.
Main Finding: Based on the data from 150 US S&P 500 companies for 2017-2020, we found that companies that deliver superior ESG performance perform better financially. Similarly, we found that investors reward superior ESG performance, resulting in higher market valuation for firms delivering superior ESG performance.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between a company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and its financial performance. This paper also investigates the relationship between ESG performance and a company’s market valuation. This paper provides convincing empirical evidence that delivering superior ESG performance pays off financially. This study contributes to the existing research on ESG performance and financial performance relationship by providing empirical evidence to resolve confusion in the existing literature caused by contradictory evidence. Taking advantage of worldwide crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this study shows that a positive relationship between ESG performance and a company’s market valuation holds even during times of unexpected crises. Further, this study contributes to business practitioners’ knowledge by showing that ESG aspects constitute highly relevant non-financial information that impact the market’s perception of a company and that investing in sustainability positively impacts a company’s bottom line.
Journal and Article Link: Journal of Global Responsibility (2022), https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JGR-01-2022-0006/full/html
Reader: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: bejtush.ademi@ntnu.no
Author: Prof. Angelika Rettberg Main Question: Why does business become involved in peacebuilding? How can business hamper or contribute to peacebuilding? To what extent did Colombia's peace process depend on business participation?
Main Finding: The profit motive is important, but other factors—including political closeness and access between business and government, the degree to which business people, and their families and communities have been hurt by conflict, and prior experience with community involvement and philanthropic activities--are also needed for business to become engaged.
Abstract: During the Colombian civil war, businesses undertook both civil and uncivil actions, but the civil action of a “pro-peace coalition” was among the many factors moving the conflict toward its (uneasy) settlement in 2016. This chapter documents the civil action efforts of a pro-peace coalition, explores how support for these efforts changed over time—particularly in the last two attempts to negotiate peace, in Caguán (1998–2002) and in Havana, Cuba (2012–2016), and focuses on the motivations behind them. Contrary to simplistic analyses, it demonstrates that the profit motive alone cannot explain business strategies in contexts of conflict and peacebuilding. Contextual factors, the type of organization, and access to politics are important in understanding how business factions respond to armed conflict, including those participating in civil action within the “pro-peace coalition” and those aligning themselves with armed actors. The explanation of Colombian business strategies to address armed conflict holds lessons for understanding business-led civil action in other countries.
Journal and Article Link: Oxford University Press (2020), https://academic.oup.com/book/38649/chapter-abstract/335704201?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Reader: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: rettberg@uniandes.edu.co
Twitter: @rettberg_a
Author: Kristian Hoelscher and Jason Miklian Main Question: How can we categorize the key lessons from two decades of research on small business, shocks, and crisis?
Main Finding: Comprehensive conceptual literature review of 250 SME - shock - crisis research papers.
Abstract: Economic crises, natural disasters, armed conflict and infectious disease outbreaks, amongst others, present interlinked challenges for small businesses and have generated a recent wealth of research across varied fields. Therefore, this article outlines an analytical lens suggesting how SMEs experience shocks and crises that focuses on the interlinked nature of (i) the business, (ii) the shock and (iii) the response within a given context. We thematically draw out key trends, knowledge gaps and tensions and highlight promising research and engagement avenues for future scholarship and practice. We contextualise (i) how small businesses are distinct from large firms in how they experience shock and crisis events; (ii) how different types of crises impact small business; (iii) how shocks and crises shape SME-specific responses and (iv) how the COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘novel exogenous shock’ influences all of the above. We conclude by emphasising emerging knowledge avenues for future small business, shock and crisis research.
Journal and Article Link: International Small Business Journal (2022), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02662426211050796
Reader: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: krihoe@prio.org
Authors: Jay Joseph, Kohn Katsos, and Harry J. Van Buren III Main Question: What role does entrepreneurship play in peacebuilding based on available research?
Main Finding: By reviewing research from business, political science, and related domains, this paper shows how entrepreneurship can create and sustain pro-peace and pro-conflict outcomes. Pro-peace outcomes take one of six forms: personal transformation, social contributions, inclusive interactions, conflict trigger removal, intergroup policy persuasion, and acting as legal champions.
Abstract: Entrepreneurship is the dominant form of enterprise in conflict-affected settings, yet little is known about the role of entrepreneurship in peacebuilding. In response, this article undertakes a review of entrepreneurship in conflict- affected regions to integrate research from business and management with research from political science, international relations, and parallel domains. Three views of entrepreneurship emerge—the destructive view, economic view, and social cohesion view—showing how entrepreneurship can concurrently create conflict but also potentially generate peace. The article identifies new avenues for pro-peace entrepreneurship: namely, through personal transformation, social contributions, inclusive interactions, conflict trigger removal, intergroup policy persuasion, and acting as legal champions. This article also discusses several pathways forward for business-for-peace research alongside additional implications for the deployment of business- based support programs in conflict settings.
Journal and Article Link: Business and Society (2022), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00076503221084638
Reader: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: jkatsos@aus.edu
Author: Prof. Molly M. Melin Main Question: What conditions encourage firms to actively prevent or resolve violent conflict?
Main Finding: International efforts encourage corporate conflict management-related activities since conflict management interdependencies can decrease the costs of conflict management, while increasing the benefits and success of their efforts. In addition, firms respond to gaps in governance and instability.
Abstract: Do private firms act beyond “business as usual” and proactively build peace? Firms are largely absent from the conflict management literature, despite studies suggesting their importance. What conditions encourage firms to actively prevent or resolve violent conflict? Are such actions interdependent with ongoing international conflict prevention and management efforts? I argue international efforts encourage corporate conflict management-related activities since conflict management interdependencies can decrease the costs of conflict management, while increasing the benefits and success of their efforts. In addition, firms respond to gaps in governance and instability, especially when they are norm entrepreneurs or their reputation is threatened. I test these arguments on original cross-national data of conflict management-related efforts by large, domestic firms in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa from 1999–2013. The findings bring large-N empirical analysis to a topic dominated by case studies and emphasize the need for conflict management scholars to account for the role of the private sector in our studies.
Journal and Article Link: International Interactions (2020), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03050629.2020.1723581
Reader: Salli Amazon
Author contact: mmelin@luc.edu
Author: Jason Miklian and Juan Pablo Medina Bickel Main Question: Can partnerships between businesses and aid organizations help deliver a more durable peace to local communities affected by conflict?
Main Finding: Using the case of Juan Valdez coffee in Colombia, we find that under certain circumstances, companies can indeed be significant peacebuilding and sustainable development actors.
Abstract: Despite emerging study of business initiatives that attempt to support local peace and development, we still have significant knowledge gaps on their effectiveness and efficiency. This article builds theory on business engagements for peace through exploration of the Footprints for Peace (FOP) peacebuilding project by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC). FOP was a business-peace initiative that attempted to improve the lives of vulnerable populations in conflict-affected regions. Through 70 stakeholder interviews, we show how FOP operationalized local peace and development in four conflict-affected departments of Colombia, and examine FNC’s motivations for and effectiveness of its peacebuilding activities. Our main finding is that FOP’s success supported several existing theories on business engagement in peace both in terms of peacebuilding by business and for local economic and societal development, providing evidence in support of development–business collaborations and local peacebuilding by business under certain targeted circumstances. We relate these findings to existing literature, highlighting where existing business-peace theory is supported, where FOP challenged assumptions, and where it illuminated new research gaps. These findings serve to take business-peace theory forward and improve our understandings of what can constitute success for business-peace initiatives in Colombia and possibly other conflict-affected regions.
Journal and Article Link: Business and Society 59(4): 676–715 (2021)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0007650317749441
Reader: Salli Amazon
Author contact: jason.miklian@sum.uio.no
Author: Jason Miklian (SUM, University of Oslo)
Main Question: How do scholars, practitioners and firms understand how businesses impact upon peace and conflict dynamics across the globe?
Main Finding: 5 main claims are made for how businesses can help support peace and reduce conflict, with varying impact and empirical validity.
Abstract: The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon, but conducted and researched over a vast array of fields and contextual settings. This article provides theoretical order for this disparate material, illustrating cutting-edge research and highlighting the most urgent knowledge gaps to fill. Extracting findings from the business community, international organizations, and the academic community, this article maps these findings into five assertions about how businesses impact upon peace: economic engagement facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. These assertions provide a framework for categorizing and testing prominent business-peace arguments. They also support preliminary arguments that businesses cannot expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding activities, that economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow, and that truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. This framework can encourage more coherent scholarly findings and more effective business engagements within the complex and challenging realm of peacebuilding.
Journal and Article Link: Business, Peace and Sustainable Development 10 (1), 3-27 (2018)
https://www.academia.edu/30651873/Mapping_Business_Peace_Interactions_Five_Assertions_for_How_Businesses_Create_Peace
Reader: Matthew Amazon
Author contact: jason.miklian@sum.uio.no