Transnational Corporations - Volume 22, Issue 3, 2015

Emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) represent a rising share in global outward foreign direct investment (FDI), growing from only 10 per cent in 2000 to 40 per cent in 2013 (UNCTAD, 2014). Like their developed market counterparts, these EMNEs can have important and potentially transformative impacts on their home and host countries, raising crucial questions regarding the appropriate law and policy frameworks that should govern their activities. To answer these questions, however, requires deeper and more comprehensive understanding of these new actors and their implications. To date, little is known about the impacts EMNEs have on issues related to sustainable development at home and abroad (Gugler and Shi, 2009), and the factors that are shaping those impacts. While there is a growing body of literature focusing on EMNEs (for reviews, see Gammeltoft, Barnard, and Madhok, 2010; Luo and Tung, 2007; Ramamurti, 2012), many issues about these firms’ development effects remain underexplored. It is for this reason that we organized this special issue. The three articles that are part of this collection highlight the most salient and pressing issues regarding EMNEs: In what sectors and locations are EMNEs investing, and what impacts might these investments have on sustainable development? Are EMNEs dedicating efforts to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and if so, through what types of activities? What is driving the firms’ engagement with CSR? And how can and should institutions in home countries, host countries, and on the international plane shape corporate conduct and development outcomes?

BRIC countries have generally gone through a process of liberalization and rapid economic growth that has allowed their major companies to acquire increasing weight in the global marketplace. However, they are still striving to achieve full legitimacy in the international arena. In a bid to close this legitimacy gap, BRIC firms are making efforts to align with the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) global norms of doing business, and recently have adopted a portfolio of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. In this paper we provide a deeper exploration into the factors that relate to BRIC firms’ adoption of different types of CSR initiatives — i.e. social policies (philanthropic projects favoring different stakeholders); publication of CSR reports; adoption of GRI standards; adherence to and financial support for the UN Global Compact. We carry out an empirical analysis on 60 large public BRIC companies, and find support for the idea that different kinds of CSR initiatives may be subject to different pressures and may serve different legitimization strategies.

This short paper examines three key questions. First, what are the major trends, characteristics and importance of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in the agricultural sector? Second, what is the position of the Chinese government on Chinese agricultural OFDI? Last, to what extent do Chinese policies promote responsible agricultural OFDI? The paper first shows that China has become a major global source of OFDI in the agricultural sector, and to a significant degree, the investment targets developing countries, especially the ASEAN countries. The amount of Chinese agricultural OFDI is very likely to grow rapidly in the coming years because of a range of factors, especially the active promotion of the investment by the Chinese government. The paper then shows that there is a range of discourse and policies that target Chinese OFDI in general but relatively few are specifically related to the agricultural sector. The policies contain rather few and limited provisions related to corporate social responsibility, especially in terms of transparency and accountability. Although some Chinese agricultural companies have started to publicly report about the social responsibility of their overseas investment, this does not seem widespread. Hence, there are significant challenges to overcome if Chinese agricultural OFDI and investing companies are to become a positive force of sustainable development. At the end, the paper provides some policy and research recommendations.

This paper will explore the dynamics of home State policies and practices relating to multinational enterprises in the extractive industries. The paper will first outline the Canadian experience, with a view to understanding the potential relationship between home State regulation and international frameworks. The content of the international corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks referenced in the Canadian context will also be examined. Second, the paper will explore the extent to which the international CSR frameworks that Canada has chosen to promote to extractive sector companies might also be appropriate frameworks for emerging market economies and their multinational enterprises to endorse. This part will ask whether and to what extent emerging market countries have participated in the creation of these frameworks, such that these frameworks could be viewed as legitimate standards for an emerging market country to apply to both domestic and international operations of their enterprises.