The personal traits of chief executive officers (CEOs) have been found to influence corporate policy decisions. We examine the impact of CEO past corporate distress experiences on payout policy. CEOs who have experienced a distress event in their career, while working in a non-CEO position at a different firm, subsequently alter corporate payout policy once in the CEO position. They are less likely to pay dividends and repurchase shares, pay out lower levels of dividends, and are less likely to increase dividends. They further exhibit preference toward repurchases. Overall, we report that experience-driven conservatism affects payout policy, a novel finding in the literature.

This article examines shoplifting from department stores and variety chain stores in interwar America and Britain. Patterns of shoplifting show strong similarities—with stores facing a predominantly female, and disproportionately affluent, army of amateur shoplifters, together with a much smaller corps of professional thieves. The incidence and characteristics of shoplifting are explored, together with the stores’ legal and other strategies to deter shoplifters. The article also examines why apparently prosperous women had the highest propensity to shoplift. Britain and the United States had strong commonalities in terms of open display retail formats, the methods used to deter shoplifters, and typical legal penalties. However, America had one critical difference—the much higher incidence of a type of store criminal who specialized in deliberately getting apprehended in order to sue the store for false arrest and, often, false imprisonment, slander, and a range of related charges. This reflected the higher damages typically awarded by U.S. courts compared with their British counterparts, inflated by local antagonism to retail corporations, together with a system—at least in some U.S. cities—whereby corrupt lawyers and judges connived in shoplifting acquittals that paved the way for lawsuits.

Chinese bureaucracy, with its long history and distinctive characteristics, has provided the organizational basis of governance and played a pivotal role in the economic takeoff in recent decades. Chinese bureaucracy also shows intriguing dualism between entrepreneurial activism and bureaucratic inertia, between formal rules and informal institutions, and between high responsiveness and noticeable loose coupling. In this study, I explore these distinctive features of Chinese bureaucracy through three lenses: Weber's comparative-historical approach helps locate Chinese bureaucracy in a distinct mode of domination; the Confucian lens identifies the prevalence of informal institutions that underlie bureaucratic behaviors; and the Marchian lens sheds light on the organized anarchy and set of mechanisms that shape the key characteristics of Chinese bureaucracy.

This contribution discusses business attitudes to human rights obligations and how the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) have affected them. These are best understood historically through a number of periods. The first, between the mid-1970s and the end of the 1980s, coincides with intergovernmental organization-based codifications relevant to corporate social responsibility. Business representatives were highly defensive towards extensive international legal obligations not only in relation to human rights but to corporate social responsibility (CSR) more generally. This was followed by a period of ‘voluntarism’. By the 1990s, businesses had accepted that there could be a link between their operations and human rights violations but continued to reject binding legal duties. Instead, businesses opted for voluntary codes of conduct based on individual corporate, or sectoral, initiatives. It was out of this period that the UN Global Compact emerged. ‘Voluntarism’ continues into the third period, the era of the UNGPs. The UNGPs can be characterized by ‘institutionalized voluntarism’ achieved through the framework for business and human rights represented by the UNGPs. Each period will be examined followed by a concluding section that considers business attitudes to an emerging fourth period that introduces legal obligations through mandatory due diligence laws.

The research and development leading to the discovery and distribution of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines demonstrated the indispensable nature of the pharmaceutical industry. While governments played an important role in financing these efforts by prepaying for dosages, it was private industry that delivered the scientific and technical miracles. At the same time, because of vaccine nationalism and hoarding, citizens of the global south have inadequate access to vaccines. This is a moral and human rights tragedy for which governments, not the pharmaceutical industry, are primarily responsible. This article argues that, as illustrated by humanitarian disaster of inadequate vaccine access in the global south, the failure of the UNGPs to adequately address the paramount role of government in human rights violations, even when there is shared responsibility with business, is a systemic failure that makes the United Nations an inappropriate forum for addressing business and human rights issues.

Drawing from conceptualizations of organizational learning and institutional complexity, we advance the understanding of how the coexistence of multiple institutional logics in a community influences firms’ learning. Viewing communities where firms and local governments coexist as clusters, our analysis of 354 firms in 39 township clusters in China shows that government logic negatively moderates the positive effect of community logic on organizational learning; however, social connections between the community and local governments mitigate this negative effect. Modeling the relationship between the two logics in this manner extends prior conceptualizations of interfirm learning as a process of isomorphic diffusion of social norms and advances understanding of the role of institutions in organizational learning. This study also offers new insights for theoretical conversations on the compatibility and incompatibility of multiple institutional logics by demonstrating when logic multiplicity leads to conflicts and when it maintains harmony.

The endorsement of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) triggered a remarkable process accelerating the recognition of human rights responsibilities for corporations in law and governance. Perhaps even more important is the emergence of an authoritative narrative on business and human rights (BHR), which arguably has the potential to overcome the often-fragmented approach to global issues. This article discusses the degree to which the BHR narrative has been able to penetrate competing powerful narratives that shape societal and regulatory responses. To what extent is the need to address the responsibility and accountability of corporations for human rights violations acknowledged? This is an especially pertinent question where it concerns imminent major global challenges such as climate change, which poses one of the greatest threats to human rights. Two major milestones of the last decade in the area of (environmental) sustainability are analysed: the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. What role does the BHR narrative play in this context?

Environmental responsibility has been increasingly emphasized in the management field. Perceived organizational environmental support is generally considered desirable within organizations. Nonetheless, both scholars and practitioners doubt that it is a panacea for enhancing employee green behavior (EGB), an important workplace behavior benefiting the environment and corporate sustainability. From a congruence perspective, this research explores when and why perceived organizational environmental support fails to increase EGB effectively. Drawing upon cue consistency theory and the corporate hypocrisy literature, we propose that perceived organizational environmental support backfires when it is incongruent with another critical cue signaling an organization's environmental stance – perceived supervisory environmental support (particularly when perceived organizational environmental support is higher than perceived supervisory environmental support). This is because the inconsistent signals of environmental support from the organization (in the form of policy commitment) and supervisor (in the form of supportive behaviors) arouse employees’ perception of corporate hypocrisy, which in turn inhibits EGB. Both the scenario experiment results (Study 1) and the polynomial regression results of the field survey data (Study 2) support our hypotheses. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

What should be the interface of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) with other regulatory regimes in the business and human rights (BHR) universe? This article explores this issue in relation to two specific contexts. First, the interface of ‘social norm’ with evolving ‘legal norms’: relation of Pillar II of the UNGPs and mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD) laws as well as parent companies’ direct duty of care for negligence. Second, the interface of ‘soft norms’ and evolving ‘hard norms’: how the UNGPs should inform the proposed BHR treaty. It is argued that legal norms should align with Pillar II only in a ‘loose manner’. They should draw from and build on the HRDD concept under Pillar II, but not be constrained by it, because a hard alignment of Pillar I laws with Pillar II could undercut the independent but complementary status of the two pillars. Moreover, the UNGPs should serve only as a ‘starting point’ and not the ‘end point’ in the evolution of other hard or soft norms in the future. Such an approach would be desirable because the UNGPs alone are unlikely to be enough to challenge or confront the existing structure of irresponsibility and inequality.

Ten years after the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), implementation efforts are in full swing. Companies in particular have used their existing corporate social responsibility (CSR) structures to make sense of and implement Pillar II of the UNGPs. This process has led to a co-optation of the business and human rights (BHR) agenda. One manifestation of such co-optation is the instrumentalization of CSR to confront and undermine the growing trend towards binding BHR legislation. Accordingly, this contribution conceptualizes Pillar II implementation as a process of domestication, co-optation and confrontation of the BHR agenda. It makes sense of this process by juxtaposing it with long-standing critique against CSR put forth particularly by critical management scholars, raising the question whether CSR is indeed well-equipped to drive BHR implementation efforts within companies.

This article provides an overview of the key features of multinational human rights litigation in the United Kingdom, including the development of a tort-based parent company duty of care, the principles relating to forum non conveniens and applicable law and other key procedural and practical barriers to victims’ access to justice. The article highlights some of the actual and perceived limitations of litigation. It also considers the concurrent development of and mutually reinforcing relationship between MNC tort litigation and the field of Business & Human Rights.

The decade of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) coincides with India’s National Voluntary Guidelines on businesses’ social, environmental, and economic responsibilities (NVGs) and the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) – an updated version of the NVGs. Human rights are one of the core principles in both guidelines and they draw upon the ‘Protect–Respect–Remedy’ framework of the UNGPs. The NVGs and NGRBC go beyond the UNGPs by requiring organizations not only to respect human rights, but also to promote them in their spheres of influence. Several factors, however, derailed the implementation of this progressive policy shift. This article explores the challenges in implementation and calls for the multiple actors involved to work together and shape a collaborative action plan for effective implementation of the NGRBC in the next decade. The authors reiterate the need for alternative lenses to frame the responsible business agenda within developing countries through positive obligations.

This article discusses the evolution, current trends, limitations and controversies around the understanding and practice of human rights due diligence (HRDD), a concept developed in the course of the work of United Nations (UN)-mandate holder, John Ruggie, and enshrined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. While the concept has gathered broad acceptance and a growing number of legislative proposals are seeking to entrench it in law, significant differences of opinion exist among stakeholders as to its nature, objectives and relationship, if any, with legal liability. These differing understandings are at play in a contest to shape future legislation. Some of these carry significant risks for rights-holders, notably the risk of outcome being superseded by process and superficial, compliance-oriented HRDD prevailing in the law or in its interpretation and practice. As legislative efforts continue, the authors warn against the risk of hollow laws which do little to change the status quo or, even worse, inadvertently provide a tool to further impunity for business-related human rights abuses.

Many transnational corporations (TNCs) that conducted business in South Africa during apartheid had deemed it profitable and desirable, despite the country’s systemic human rights violations against its majority black population. In the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre and 1976 student uprising, various United Nations and other international resolutions condemned TNCs for their incestuous relationship with apartheid South Africa and called for international sanctions against the regime. The demise of apartheid in 1994 brought about a new democratic, constitutional dispensation based on respect for human rights. However, attempts at holding TNCs liable for aiding and abetting the apartheid regime were fraught with obstacles and proved unsuccessful. Yet, the pursuit of strategic, class action litigation in areas as diverse as collusive conduct in bread manufacturing to occupational lung disease in South Africa’s goldmining industry have proven to be more successful in developing legal remedies against corporate harm. Areas impacted are extended legal standing under the common law, development of new causes of action and generous application of contingence fees arrangement.

With a basis in conservation of resources theory, this study investigates how social adaptive behavior might mediate the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational politics and their turnover intentions, as well as a buffering role of their emotional regulation skills as a critical personal resource. Data collected from employees in the food sector reveal that beliefs about dysfunctional political games spur turnover intentions, driven by employees' unwillingness to adjust themselves to the actions of their organizational colleagues. This mediating role of social adaptive behavior, or its lack, is less salient when employees have a greater ability to control their own emotions though. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints a key mechanism—a reluctance to accommodate other members' preferences—by which perceived organizational politics can escalate into a desire to leave the organization. It also reveals how this mechanism can be better contained by employees' ability to remain calm, even in difficult situations.

Firms and governments often negotiate economic development deals, such as tax abatements, with limited transparency, using exceptions to public records laws or other strategies for nondisclosure. In this article we explore the motivations of firms for keeping economic development deals out of the public eye. We explore legal challenges to public records requests for deal-specific, company-specific participation in a state economic development incentive program. By examining applications for participation in a major state economic program, the Texas Enterprise Fund, we find that a company is more likely to challenge a formal public records request if it has renegotiated the terms of the award to reduce its job-creation obligations. We interpret this as companies challenging transparency when they have avoided being penalized for noncompliance by engaging in nonpublic renegotiations. These results provide evidence regarding those conditions that prompt firms to challenge transparency and illustrate some of the limitations of safeguards such as clawbacks (or incentive-recapture provisions) when such reforms aren't coupled with robust transparency mechanisms. We speculate that the main motivation for these challenges is to limit scrutiny of these deals that could lead to backlashes against future economic development agreements.

Managers make comprehensive strategic decisions to cope with environmental challenges. Questions remain regarding how different types of leadership styles influence top management team (TMT) strategic decision comprehensiveness (SDC) and firm performance. This study explores the impact of two different CEO leadership styles on TMT SDC and subsequent firm performance, considering the moderating role of TMT cognitive conflict. Based on data from 357 questionnaires of 126 firms in China, we found that 1) CEO empowering leadership positively affects SDC; 2) CEO directive leadership generates an inverted U-shaped effect on SDC; 3) the effect of SDC on firm performance is positive; and 4) TMT cognitive conflict weakens the relationship between CEO empowering leadership and SDC. This study takes a systematic approach by integrating CEO-TMT dynamics into SDC, which in turn affects firm performance, and thus offers a holistic view of how upper echelons influence firm performance.

Although the automobile industry has served as the backbone of much business history scholarship, business historians have paid little attention to this industry’s actions concerning the complex of environmental issues that took hold in the 1960s. Volvo represents a captivating case study to gain insight into why the automobile industry’s growth has been difficult to align with the shift toward environmental sustainability. Although Volvo pioneered the exhaust emission control technology on the U.S. market in the 1970s and gained an international reputation for high environmental and safety standards in the decades that followed, the company was unable to seriously address climate change in the 1990s. This article identifies several key factors impacting the automobile industry’s passive response to environmental challenges—for instance, weak and asymmetric emission control regulations on international markets, consumer preferences for larger cars (SUVs) in the 1990s, and a lack of systematic regulatory pressure to shift from fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine. In the case of Volvo, world leadership in safety standards, rather than low carbon emissions, constituted the company’s competitive advantage as climate change emerged as one of the most critical environmental issues in the 1990s.