This paper contrasts the nature of trust under different transactional circumstances and contractual terms in markets, hierarchies, and networks. It argues that trust and trustbuilding processes are essential to the creation and governance of network forms. A new approach to applying managerial discretion, "moral agency," within the context of the "ethic of care" (Gilligan, 1982, 1988) is suggested to clarify the responsibilities of managers in network governance processes.

This paper briefly examines economic development in South Carolina, suggesting that contrasting models of economic development in the state raise interesting research questions. One of these economic development areas is the Sea Islands and Low Country coastal area. The site of the 1994 IABS annual meeting in Hilton Head, SC provided the opportunity to visit the Penn Center where a partnership between environmentalists and community leaders started the Sea Islands Preservation Project in January 1994.

A large body of research explores the characteristics of networks in Western economies. This study analyzes networks in Estonia before and after the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the impact of networks on firm survival.

This paper analyses the impact of privatization on the socio-economic performance of public and privatized enterprises based in the Canadian province of Quebec. We conclude that the existence of competition and the evolution along a business cycle rather than privatization explains the behavior of the managerial teams heading these companies.

This paper addresses the current efforts at linking the trade policy and competition policy in a global economy. The basic structure and logic of the policy regimes and areas of conflict, especially predation-related issues, are described. Alternative approaches to a linkage are examined, among them the recent proposal for a GATT-centered international competition policy regime. Implications for companies doing business under both the current situation and possible linkages are suggested.

This paper attempts to identify the characteristics of Chinese overseas direct investment and explain its motivation. It is argued in this paper that Chinese outward direct investors are essentially motivated by developing competitive advantages, rather than by making use of existing advantages. For this purpose, they are mainly concerned with acquiring productive factors, promoting exports of service and capital equipment, obtaining information and seeking opportunities for their development in international competition. Their motivation appears different from that of outward direct investors of developed countnes, which emphasizes existing advantages as a basis for international investment at the initial stage.

Regulation theories focused primarily on regulatory agencies' behavior. Elevating the level of analysis to address disputes facilitates consideration of all societal controls and provides hypotheses of specific strategies for executives and scholars.

This paper explores changes in the configurations of U.S. and EFTA multinationals during the period leading up to the formation of the European Community. Results indicate that changes were consistent with an interactive view of business-government relations and an exchange view of political coalition formation.

The Housing Authority of Fiji is being privatized as part of government restructuring. Price Waterhouse of Australia is designing the organizational structure. However, the Chief Executive Officer and the top management team are concerned about changing the corporate culture from a government agency to a for-profit organization. In keeping with this goal, a cultural audit was conducted to identify areas of necessary changes.

Nonprofit organizations operate in environments characterized by institutional demands for legitimacy and by centralized but often fragmented funding sources. They must satisfy the often conflicting demands of multiple stakeholders -- among them funders, community and user groups, and professional associations -- in order to gain access to critical resources. This paper argues that, given this environment, strategy for nonprofits is better framed in terms of corporate political strategy than competitive strategy.

This paper examines internal (intrafirm) conflicts in the formulation of political strategies in diversified. Such conflicts result when the firm has diverse businesses and political interests, yet can only take one position on any public policy issue. The paper considers various types of intrafirm conflicts, and reviews mechanisms used to reach a unified position. Insights are drawn from government relations processes in three large, diversified firms.

This study examines 18 variables across a three-cluster solution to determine how political, investment, and integration substrategies assist firms in a global industry create and sustain competitive advantages. Support was found for these variables across subgroups both in terms of sise and performance.

Libertarians typically claim that taxing citizens to assist those in need constitutes unjust interference with our right to do as we please with our property. In this paper I argue that far from concessions to the needy being somehow unjust, accommodating others' needs is a crucial part of why there can be any defensible property rights at all.

This paper focuses on formal social regulation, which is an important component of the societal expectations that impact business organizations. We develop a theoretical model that describes the influence of social regulation on the global competitiveness of business firms.Special emphasis is given to the contingency effects of several variables on the relationship between social regulation and business global competitiveness. We derive a number of propositions about these contingency effects. The overall thrust of our argument is to challenge the universality of the assumption that social regulation is detrimental to business competitiveness.

This paper describes the conditions required for treating PA/GR as a strategic organizational function. The paper describes the significance and variety of the environmental threats and opportunities which necessitate the formulation and implementation of a S-P strategy. The elements involved in formulating and implementing a S-P strategy are also presented.

This paper examines the corporate social performance field's irreconciled economic and deontological perspectives and explores ways to rectify this theoretical problem.

Research in corporate social performance (CSP) continues to seek bridges between the theoretical models that attempt to explain and those that attempt to show empirically what variables account for differences in performance. One construct that can provide such a bridge is Miles’ grounded theory (1987) of CSP. This paper describes Miles’ theory and its relationship to many of the empirical studies of CSP and recasts it into the theoretical frameworks of Wood (1991) and Wartick and Cochran (1985).

Reputational rankings aggregate the diverse assessments of corporate constituents and compare firms to one another. In so doing, they effectively gauge a company's relative success at fulfilling societal expectations. By improving how corporate reputational rankings are constructed, audited, and reported, we argue that society stands to inherit a powerful democratic mechanism for guiding the corporate sector's economic and social activities.

This research empically examines the relationship between institutional investors, firm governance devices, and specific dimensions of corporate social performance using the KLD database. Results indicate the importance of institutional investor type as well as specific dimensions of CSP. Board composition and top management team equity are also related to CSP.

This paper examines an industrial and legal dispute from 1985-1992 involving a Finnish entrepreneur, Tuomas Luomala, and the Electrical Workers Unions. The aim of this paper is to describe, analyze, and interpret a series of events in an organization-stakeholder conflict process using a strategic game playing framework. We identify the action and strategies used by different stakeholders in an arena which involves three intertwining games: a power game for the union, a credibility game for the judicial authorities, and a moral game for the entrepreneur.