Showing papers on "Embeddedness published in 2005"
TL;DR: Evidence is presented indicating that both elements of social capital influence managerial performance, although in distinct ways: structural embeddedness plays a stronger role in explaining more routine, execution‐oriented tasks (managerial sales performance), whereas relational embeddedness play a strongerrole in explaining new, innovation‐oriented task descriptions (Managerial performance in product and process innovation).
Abstract: This paper examines the impact of managers' social capital on managerial performance. Two dimensions of social capital are compared—the structural embeddedness (i.e., configuration) of a manager's network of work relations and the relational embeddedness (i.e., quality) of those relations. Based on a sample of 120 product and sales managers in a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical firm, this paper presents evidence indicating that both elements of social capital influence managerial performance, although in distinct ways: structural embeddedness plays a stronger role in explaining more routine, execution-oriented tasks (managerial sales performance), whereas relational embeddedness plays a stronger role in explaining new, innovation-oriented tasks (managerial performance in product and process innovation). This research considers resource exchanges within firms as key to value creating behaviors and contributes a deeper understanding of how social capital influences productive resource exchanges. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
1,180 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the implications of new directions in social network theory that emphasize networks as both cognitive structures in the minds of organizational members and opportunity structures that facilitate and constrain action.
Abstract: This article investigates, for leadership research, the implications of new directions in social network theory that emphasize networks as both cognitive structures in the minds of organizational members and opportunity structures that facilitate and constrain action. We introduce the four core ideas at the heart of the network research program: the importance of relations, actors' embeddedness, the social utility of connections, and the structural patterning of social life. Then we present a theoretical model of how network cognitions in the minds of leaders affect three types of networks: the direct ties surrounding leaders, the pattern of direct and indirect ties within which leaders are embedded in the whole organization and the interorganizational linkages formed by leaders as representatives of organizations. We suggest that these patterns of ties can contribute to leader effectiveness.
583 citations
TL;DR: The authors reviewed and assessed social scientific debate about the origins and nature of innovation in modern society, focusing on three sub-sets of conceptualisation, critique and commentary that refer specifically to sub-national or regional innovation systems.
495 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that individuals differ in terms of their perception of opportunities because of the differences between the networks they are embedded in, and they find a positive effect for education, i.e., people with a higher educational level are more likely to perceive entrepreneurial opportunities compared to those with a lower educational level.
Abstract: This paper argues that individuals differ in terms of their perception of opportunities because of the differences between the networks they are embedded in. We focus on two aspects of individuals’ embeddedness in networks, that is, (1) individuals’ belonging to residential areas that are more or less likely to be characterized by network cohesion, and (2) individuals’ differential access to network contacts based on the level of human capital they hold. Our analyses show that the nature of one’s residential area influences the perception of entrepreneurial opportunities. Further, we find a positive effect for education, i.e., people with a higher educational level are more likely to perceive entrepreneurial opportunities compared to those with a lower educational level.
493 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how firms choose among acquisitions, alliances, and divestitures when they decide to expand or contract their boundaries and support explanations based on resources, transaction costs, internalization, organizational learning, social embeddedness, asymmetric information, and real options.
Abstract: This paper investigates how firms choose among acquisitions, alliances, and divestitures when they decide to expand or contract their boundaries. The dataset covers 9276 deals announced and completed by 86 members of the Fortune 100 between 1990 and 2000. Our findings support explanations based on resources, transaction costs, internalization, organizational learning, social embeddedness, asymmetric information, and real options, and suggest that these theories are highly related and complementary. We find less consistent support for theories based on agency costs and asset indivisibilities. The strong role of firm attributes explains in part why firms may pre-specify whether they will pursue acquisitions, alliances, or divestitures as part of their corporate strategies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
477 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a constructionist perspective is developed to improve our understanding of the interactions between entrepreneurs and stakeholders in all of these areas, identifying narrative and dramatic processes that describe how notions of individual and collective identity and organization are coproduced over time.
Abstract: A social dimension to business development and inertia is currently acknowledged in several accounts of learning, business models, vision building, and innovation, and through more general concepts of networking, social capital, and embeddedness. Here a constructionist perspective is developed to improve our understanding of the interactions between entrepreneurs and stakeholders in all of these areas. This identifies narrative and dramatic processes that describe how notions of individual and collective identity and organization are coproduced over time. A framework is created to show how selective and emotional processes that produce storylines, emplotment, and narrative structure support sense making and action making.
425 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a global commodity chain analysis approach is combined with insights from economic sociology embeddedness theory to explore the social, cultural and organizational factors shaping the Fair Trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council certification.
405 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors hypothesize that a subsidiary's local embeddedness is influenced by headquarters' use of different control mechanisms, and that local embedness, in turn, is an important antecedent to the subsidiary's level of knowledge creation.
292 citations
TL;DR: The analysis indicates that product-niche and process-Niche interact with network embeddedness to determine firm performance and implications for management research and practice are discussed.
Abstract: What is the relationship between niche and performance? We identify two types of niche positions—product niche and process niche—defined by the extent to which a firm offers distinctive products and has distinctive operational processes, respectively. We argue that the effect of each niche on firm performance is contingent upon network embeddedness—the extent to which a firm is involved in a network of interconnected inter-firm relationships. Using data covering the period 1995–98 pertaining to venture capital firms and their holdings in initial public offerings (IPOs), we show that both product niche and process niche interact with network embeddedness to determine firm performance. Our findings suggest that the extent to which a firm offers distinctive products or processes will be more positively associated with firm performance when network embeddedness is high. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
285 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of social capital on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 12 UK regions were examined, and the authors investigated the association between performance and social capital use at the firm level, then they sought to move beyond the confines of individual firm in order to relate these 'firm capabilities' findings to the meso-level to assess regional economic performance in relation to social capital.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of a research project examining the effects of social capital on the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 12 UK regions. It first investigates the association between performance and social capital use at the firm level, then it seeks to move beyond the confines of the individual firm in order to relate these 'firm capabilities' findings to the meso-level to assess regional economic performance in relation to social capital. The research on the conscious use by firms of 'relational embeddedness' in markets shows this to be an important indicator of SME performance, but not conclusively of regional economic performance measured in terms of regional competitiveness.
266 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the retail transnational corporation (TNC) is an entity that merits urgent theoretical and empirical investigation from economic geographers, using Hess's notion of three different kinds of embeddedness (societal, network, territorial) and explain how it is the necessarily high territorial embeddedness in markets and cultures of consumption, planning and property systems, and logistical and supply chain operations that defines the distinctive theoretical and organization challenge of the retail TNC.
Abstract: In this article we argue that the retail transnational corporation (TNC) is an entity that merits urgent theoretical and empirical investigation from economic geographers. Using recent theoretical developments that conceptualize TNCs as the complex nexus of intrafirm, interfirm and extrafirm relational networks, we explore the special characteristics of retail TNCs that distinguish them from their manufacturing counterparts, still the predominant focus of interest in the literature on economic globalization. In particular, using Hess's (2004) notion of three different kinds of embeddedness (societal, network, territorial), we explain how it is the necessarily high territorial embeddedness in markets and cultures of consumption, planning and property systems, and logistical and supply chain operations that defines the distinctive theoretical and organization challenge of the retail TNC. In turn, we argue that this high level of embeddedness frequently implies a very different experience of host-market regulation than is found in other sectors. Additionally, we use Dicken's (2000) distinction between 'placing firms' and 'firming places' to explore how territorial embeddedness of the retail TNC is influenced by its societal embeddedness (home country institutional origins), and how network embeddedness is critical to an understanding of how places/host economies are inserted, reciprocally, into the organizational spaces of the retail TNCs. In particular, we argue that intrafirm management of innovation and knowledge dynamics across highly dispersed store and sourcing operations poses particular problems and possibilities for retail TNCs.
TL;DR: In this article, local government actors expand and recombine their institutional repertoires through strategies of "remembering", "borrowing" and "sharing" in order to respond to changing environments.
Abstract: Local governance is conceptualised as an ‘institutional matrix’, comprising distinct (but interacting) rule-sets, in which forces for change and continuity coexist. Different rule-sets change at different rates and in different directions, reflecting power relationships and the ‘embeddedness’ of local governance in specific historical and spatial contexts. In England, inertia and innovation have characterised, respectively, the political and managerial domains of local governance. But it is clear that creative spaces also exist between the extremes of institutional stability and volatility. Institutional entrepreneurs exploit ambiguities in the ‘rules of the game’ in order to respond to changing environments, and to protect (or further) their own interests. Local government actors expand and recombine their institutional repertoires through strategies of ‘remembering’, ‘borrowing’ and ‘sharing’. In so doing they create a contingent and context-dependent process of institutional emergence.
Book•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a new perspective on clustering and network models of innovation and knowledge diffusion in the Asymmetric Knowledge Economy and propose a knowledge-based theory of the Geographical Cluster.
Abstract: Introduction: Clusters, Networks, and Innovation: Research Results and New Directions PART I: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CLUSTERS AND NETWORKS 1. Network Models of Innovation and Knowledge Diffusion 2. On Sectoral Specificities in the Geography of Corporate Location 3. Regional Knowledge Capabilities and Open Innovation: Regional Innovation Systems and Cluster in the Asymmetric Knowledge Economy PART II: EMERGENCE OF CLUSTERS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 4. 'Old Economy' Inputs for 'New Economy' Outcomes: Cluster Formation in the New Silicon Valleys 5. The Entrepreneurial Event Revisited: Firm Formation in a Regional Context 6. The Firms that Feed Industrial Districts: A Return to the Italian Source 7. Employee Startups in High-Tech Industries PART III: INSTITUTIONS, LOCAL COMMUNITIES, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS 8. The Silicon Vally-Hsinchu Connection: Technical Communities and Industrial Upgrading 9. The Institutional Embeddedness of High-Tech Regions: Relational Foundations of the Boston Biotechnology Community 10. Social Networks and the Persistence of Clusters: Evidence from the Computer Workstation Industry PART IV: LOCALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS 11. Buzz: Face-to-face Contact and the Urban Economy 12. The Geography of Knowledge Spillovers: Conceptual Issues and Measurement Problems 13. Comparative Localizattion of Academic and Industrial Spillovers PART V: PUBLIC POLICIES TOWARDS CLUSTERS 14. Towards a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Geographical Cluster 15. Deconstructing Clusters: Chaotic Concept or Policy Panacea
TL;DR: In this paper, the role played by relational embeddedness in the process of creating synergies of knowledge-related capabilities in strategic alliances (SAs) has been investigated empirically.
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, Gui and Sugden discuss the relationship between economic growth and social development in the context of interpersonal relations, and discuss the possible conflict between economic development and social growth.
Abstract: Preface 1. Why interpersonal relations matter for economics Benedetto Gui and Robert Sugden 2. From transactions to encounters: the joint generation of relational goods and conventional values Benedetto Gui 3. Fellow-feeling Robert Sugden 4. Interpersonal interaction and economic theory: the case of public goods Nicholas Bardsley 5. Under trusting eyes. The response nature of trust Vittorio Pelligra 6. Interpersonal relations and job satisfaction: some empirical results in social and community care services Carlo Borzaga and Sara Depedri 7. On the possible conflict between economic growth and social development Pier Luigi Sacco, Angelo Antoci and Paolo Vanin 8. The logic of good social relations Serge-Christophe Kolm 9. The mutual validation of ends Shaun Hargreaves-Heap 10. Hic sunt leones. Interpersonal relations as unexplored territory in the tradition of economics Luigino Bruni 11. Authority and power in economic and sociological approaches to interpersonal relations: from interactions to embeddedness Bernard Gazier and Isabelle This Saint-Jean 12. Interpersonal relations and economics: comments from a feminist perspective Julie A. Nelson 13. Economics and interpersonal relations: ruling the social back in Louis Putterman Index.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the spatial dimension of learning in firms and define space as a network of both contiguous and non-contiguous relations of varying length, shape and duration.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the spatial dimension of learning in firms. It works with important new insights in economic geography that stress the role of spatial proximity and territorial embeddedness in the process of knowledge formation, but it also seeks to go beyond them by recognizing learning based on relations at a distance. The paper defines space as a network of both contiguous and non‐contiguous relations of varying length, shape and duration, where knowing can involve all manner of spatial mobilizations, including placements of task teams in neutral spaces, face‐to‐face encounters, global networks held together by travel and virtual communications, flows of ideas and information through the supply chain, and trans‐corporate thought experiments and symbolic rituals.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the institutional tensions in several Dutch local governments through comparative research and conclude that there is a missing institutional link between the interactive process and the formal municipal decision-making process.
Abstract: Nowadays all kinds of processes of citizen involvement can be observed in practice. We label them as interactive governance in this article. Interactive governance brings with it new proto-institutions that can conflict with existing institutions of decision making. We analyze these institutional tensions in several Dutch local governments through comparative research. Our main conclusion is that there is a “missing institutional link” between the interactive process and the formal municipal decision-making process. Interactive governance needs better institutional embeddedness in order to prevent the interactive process from becoming meaningless and useless in formal decision making.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the institutional home and host country effects on employment policy and practice in multinational corporations (MNCs) need to be analyzed within a framework which takes more account both of the multiple levels of embeddedness experienced by the MNC, and processes of negotiation at different levels within the firm.
Abstract: This article argues that the institutional "home" and "host" country effects on employment policy and practice in multinational corporations (MNCs) need to be analyzed within a framework which takes more account both of the multiple levels of embeddedness experienced by the MNC, and processes of negotiation at different levels within the firm. Using in-depth case study ana- lysis of the human resource (HR) structure and industrial relations and pay policies of a large U.S.-owned MNC in the IT sector, across Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the article attempts to move towards such a framework.
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The Nonaka and Takeuchi model of knowledge management has been used with caution in other cultural contexts, such as China and the Arab world as mentioned in this paper, and it has been shown that some aspects of this model do apply to modes of knowledge acquisition and transfer in other cultures.
Abstract: In a recent article Glisby and Holden have noted that the Nonaka and Takeuchi model of knowledge management needs to be used with caution. Its application is not universal because it must be seen primarily as a product of the Japanese cultural context from which it emerged. In the model each of the four modes is interpreted in reference to their embeddedness in Japanese cultural symbols, organizational structures and societal value systems. But we propose that, a fortiori, some aspects of this model do apply to modes of knowledge acquisition and transfer in other cultural contexts. In this paper we review the workings of the model and the four modes with reference to the cultural, organization–structural and value bases of Chinese and Arab societies. We demonstrate that the Nonaka and Takeuchi model maps partially, but differently from both Western and Japanese societies, on to each of these cultural contexts. In these cultures managers and organizational members will share knowledge with those with whom they already have a trustful relationship. This paper explores the implications of the fact that in China and the Arab world the sharing of knowledge cannot be taken for granted outside this context of trustful relationships. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
TL;DR: The Nonaka and Takeuchi model of knowledge management has been used with caution in other cultural contexts, such as China and the Arab world as discussed by the authors, and it has been shown that some aspects of this model do apply to modes of knowledge acquisition and transfer in other cultures.
Abstract: In a recent article Glisby and Holden have noted that the Nonaka and Takeuchi model of knowledge management needs to be used with caution. Its application is not universal because it must be seen primarily as a product of the Japanese cultural context from which it emerged. In the model each of the four modes is interpreted in reference to their embeddedness in Japanese cultural symbols, organizational structures and societal value systems. But we propose that, a fortiori, some aspects of this model do apply to modes of knowledge acquisition and transfer in other cultural contexts. In this paper we review the workings of the model and the four modes with reference to the cultural, organization–structural and value bases of Chinese and Arab societies. We demonstrate that the Nonaka and Takeuchi model maps partially, but differently from both Western and Japanese societies, on to each of these cultural contexts. In these cultures managers and organizational members will share knowledge with those with whom they already have a trustful relationship. This paper explores the implications of the fact that in China and the Arab world the sharing of knowledge cannot be taken for granted outside this context of trustful relationships. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
TL;DR: In this article, an acculturated view of issue-selling is proposed to help multinational organizations better facilitate and exploit potentially valuable input from local subsidiary managers, who represent the local culture and shift relevant priorities accordingly.
Abstract: In multinational organizations, local market responsiveness is critical to the development of effective strategies. This responsiveness is expected to occur in part as the result of upward influence from local subsidiary managers, who represent the local culture and shift relevant priorities accordingly. Issue-selling – defined as directing top management's attention to particular issues and helping them understand such issues – is one important way in which subsidiary managers pursue upward influence. The purpose of this paper is to help multinational organizations better facilitate and exploit potentially valuable input from local subsidiary managers. To do so, we propose an acculturated view of issue-selling. More specifically, we argue that subsidiary managers socialized by different national cultures vary: (1) in the extent to which their intention to sell issues is influenced by various contextual cues; and (2) in their choice of selling strategies. These theoretical differences suggest that local subsidiary managers from different cultures will differ in the way they approach issue-selling and, in turn, in the way they influence the strategy-making process. The discussion traces the implications of this line of reasoning for future research on the influence of local subsidiary managers and, more generally, for research on the cultural embeddedness of the strategy process.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for a more nuanced understanding of money that is attuned to its spatial and scalar dimensions, including the trust that is invested in money forms and institutions that help to knit together the networks through which money circulates.
Abstract: This paper engages with a wide range of social theories to argue for a more nuanced understanding of money that is attuned to its spatial and scalar dimensions. The paper begins with a brief overview of modernist and postmodernist accounts, including the works of Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Jean Baudrillard, Marc Shell and Jean-Joseph Goux. These theories have provided a useful corrective to neoclassical economic accounts that distil the economic from society and culture, but they reinforce an understanding of money that is homogenizing, in that it is said to annihilate space by time. By contrast, network theories of money, which are reviewed in the following section of this paper, offer a more contextualized understanding of money's embeddedness in social relations, in particular vis-a-vis the trust that is invested in money forms and institutions that help to knit together the networks through which money circulates. The spatial dynamics of monetary circulation are intrinsic to this model, but t...
TL;DR: The authors examined efforts to understand the developmental consequences, particularly the cognitive consequences, of children spending large amounts of time in formal schools where their activity is separated from the daily life of the rest of the community and mediated by technologies of literacy and numeracy as well as specialized uses of language.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to examine efforts to understand the developmental consequences, particularly the cognitive consequences, of children spending large amounts of time in formal schools where their activity is separated from the daily life of the rest of the community and mediated by technologies of literacy and numeracy as well as specialized uses of language. The analysis begins by examining the history of formal schooling in relation to its social and cultural circumstances and progresses through an examination of different research strategies for reaching plausible conclusions about its cognitive consequences in the sociocultural context. The discussion ends by considering two contradictory tendencies, centralized standardization versus de-centralized adaptation and separation versus embeddedness, which have characterized education since its inception and which societies around the world confront in our current historical circumstances.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that through the use of calculation tools, the corporate clients are constituted anew and that written documents which are the outcome of this process constitute a social prosthesis for remote communication taking.
Abstract: As recent studies in economic and financial sociology have underscored, calculation is central to economic practices. While some sociological accounts locate the performance of calculation within individual ability, networks of human agents or their cultural embeddedness, studies operating on the background of the sociology of (scientific) knowledge conceive of calculation as situated in the practice of the participants engaged, the technological tools used and their requirements. The article explores this point further, using a distinction which can be traced back to Heidegger’s notion of Gestell (enframing): the ‘calculation of something’ and the ‘calculation with something’ are analysed taking the practices of risk management departments of big international banks as an example. It is argued that, through the use of calculation tools, the corporate clients are constituted anew and that written documents which are the outcome of this process constitute a social prosthesis for remote communication taking...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show how the cultural embeddedness of firms in the region is best understood as a series of sustained tensions between: (1) self-identified regional cultural traits imported into the firm; versus (2) key elements of corporate cultures known to underpin innovation.
Abstract: James A. (2005) Demystifying the role of culture in innovative regional economies, Regional Studies 39 , 1197–1216. Within the regional learning and innovation literature, the precise impact of regional ‘culture’ on firms' competitive performance remains unspecified. In response, this paper draws on research on Utah's high-tech industrial agglomeration, embedded in a highly visible regional culture: Mormonism. Focusing specifically on computer software firms, the paper first shows how the cultural embeddedness of firms in the region is best understood as a series of sustained tensions between: (1) self-identified regional cultural traits imported into the firm; versus (2) key elements of corporate cultures known to underpin innovation. Second, the paper measures the material impact of that regional cultural embedding on firms' innovative capacities and hence abilities to compete. Finally, it outlines the wider relevance of the author's work with regard to the spatial limits imposed on high-tech cluster po...
07 Apr 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the effects of the social context in which interactions between individual employees take place and found that solidary behavior of employees is positively affected by formal as well as informal network embeddedness, but that employees that are at the same time formally and informally dependent of others show less solidarity.
Abstract: Is there a tension between solidary behavior of employees and temporary employment relationships within modern organizations? Research into the effects of temporary employment relationships on employee behavior has rendered inconclusive results. Some researchers argue that temporary employees will show less solidarity because of their exchange relation with the organization while others emphasize that temporary workers may show more cooperation because they want to acquire a permanent employment status. Empirical research shows mixed findings as well. The question is addressed if these inconclusive findings can be accounted for by examining the social context of temporary and permanent employees. The effects of two features of the social context in which interactions between individual employees take place are examined: (1) temporal embeddedness, referring to the extent to which there are ongoing interactions between two actors and the likelihood that they will meet each other in the future; and (2) network embeddedness, referring to the extent to which a relationship between two actors is part of a larger network of relationships. The empirical studies are based on empirical data from four different sources: a survey among university employees, a survey among employees in different organizations, a vignette study, and a dataset consisting of coded ethnographic data. The analyses of the empirical data leads to three main conclusions. First, it is shown that solidary types of behavior are reciprocal; within organizations horizontal and vertical solidarity relationships are present. The second conclusion is that solidarity from employees is affected by the past and future of relationships and that temporal embeddedness is not just a matter of relationship length but depends crucially on the quality of the past between employees. The third conclusion is that solidary behavior of employees is positively affected by formal as well as informal network embeddedness, but that employees that are at the same time formally and informally dependent of others show less solidarity.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the relationship between a firm's perception of its own strategic network identity within its network of business alliance relationships and its market performance and examined how a firms relationship management practices serve as antecedents to its strategic network identities.
01 Jan 2005
DOI•
27 Jun 2005
TL;DR: The authors argue that globalisation comprises a coherent causal mechanism or set of causal mechanisms, rather than a complex, chaotic, and over-determined outcome of a multiscalar, multitemporal, and multicentric series of processes operating in specific structural contexts.
Abstract: This chapter critically addresses globalisation in four ways: (a) contesting the
often unstated assumption that globalisation comprises a coherent causal
mechanism-or set of causal mechanisms-rather than a complex, chaotic, and
overdetermined outcome of a multiscalar, multitemporal, and multicentric series
of processes operating in specific structural contexts; (b) questioning the
intellectual and practical search for ‘the’ primary scalewhether global, triadic,
national, regional, or urban-around which the world economy is currently
organised as if this would somehow be directly analogous to the primacy of the
national scale in the thirty years of postwar growth in the circuits of Atlantic
Fordism; (c) relating the resulting ‘relativisation of scale’, i.e. the absence of a
dominant nodal point in managing interscalar relations, to some basic
contradictions and dilemmas of capitalism, the changing bases of accumulation,
the changing relation between the economic and political and the increased
competitive importance of the social embeddedness of economic activities; and
(d) noting how these problems are being addressed through economic and
political projects oriented to different scales-with little consensus as yet on how
these projects and scales might be reconciled.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a particular critique of ethical trade based on its embeddedness in corporate strategies and management systems and argue that varying levels of commitment to ethical trading strategy are argued in turn to influence organisa...
Abstract: Ethical trade, involving codes of conduct for worker welfare, has recently emerged as a form of corporate self-regulation for global commodity chains in the context of a neoliberal trading environment. I present a particular critique of ethical trade based on its embeddedness in corporate strategies and management systems. The ethical trading strategies of leading UK food and clothing retailers form the empirical focus of inquiry, and theories found in the literature on economic geography concerning corporate strategy and interfirm organisation are used to gain critical insight into the management systems used by these retailers when they attempt to put ethical trading principles into practice in their global supply chains. Variations are observed between retailers in terms of their commitment to ethical trade, which are shaped by issues of corporate culture, financial management, and corporate restructuring. Varying levels of commitment to ethical trading strategy are argued in turn to influence organisa...