The Embedded Corporation

Is there one best way to run the modern business corporation? What is the appropriate balance between shareholders, executives, and employees? These questions are being vigorously debated as layoffs, scandals, and restructurings rattle companies around the world. The common assumption is that globalization is merging the varieties of corporate capitalism. Yet, as this book shows, corporations in Japan and the United States are responding differently to the pressures unleashed by globalization. In The Embedded Corporation, Sanford Jacoby traces this diversity to national differences in economic history and social norms, and, paradoxically, to global competition itself. The book's vantage point for exploring the varieties of capitalism is the human resource departments of large corporations, where changes in markets and technology turn into corporate labor policies affecting millions of workers. Despite some cross-fertilization, Japanese and American corporations maintain distinctive approaches to human resource management, which has important consequences for how firms compete, for corporate governance, and even for the level of inequality in Japan and the United States. The Embedded Corporation is a major contribution to our understanding of comparative management and the relationship between business, society, and the global economy.

The globalization of capital markets since the 1980s has been accompanied by a vigorous debate over the convergence of corporate governance standards around the world towards the shareholder model. But even before the financial and economic crisis of 2008/2009, the dominance of the shareholder model was challenged with regard to persisting divergences and national differences in corporate law, labor law and industrial relations. This collection explores this debate at an important crossroads, echoing Karl Polanyi's famous observation in 1944 of the disembeddedness of the market from society. Drawing on pertinent insights from scholars, practitioners and regulators in corporate and labor law, securities regulation as well as economic sociology and management theory, the contributions shed important light on the empirical effects on the economy of the shift to shareholder primacy, in light of a comprehensive reconsideration of the global context, policy goals and regulatory forms which characterize market governance today.

This monograph is based on an extensive dataset and a very well documented case study. Such a wealth of empirical material provides an ideal ground to test theories and enables the authors to elaborate interesting conceptualisations of some specific aspects of the broader network approach, particularly concerning the internationalisation of business networks. Anna Spadavecchia, Business History Combined with recent advances in network analysis [the book] can be instrumental in advancing our understanding, which will not only be useful for research scholars, but also provide practical guidance for managers. . . It is full of ideas which seem like deceptively simple black stones that in the hands of a skillful artisan can be turned into dazzling diamonds. Charles Dhanaraj, Journal of International Business Studies The work by Forsgren et al. offers a major contribution in terms of the analytical power of network relationships. By shifting to an exchange based perspective, they challenge the classical view of organizational power and control, but also the sources of organizational capabilities. They argue that the distinct capabilities and resources of the organization are developed through relationships and connections. Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen, Rebecca Piekkari, Joanna Scott-Kennel and Catherine Welch, Academy of Management Perspectives An interesting and insightful book. It questions a lot of traditional thinking about international firms and the way they operate. Throughout the book, the reader is invited to develop a different perspective. This perspective might be called a relationships and networks theory of the firm. While this may sound familiar, the book goes well beyond anything I have seen in the existing literature, in terms of conceptualizing relationships and networks and in using this perspective to guide and interpret case study and survey research results. William G. Egelhoff, Fordham University, US It is now well accepted in the academic literature that the multinational corporation can be usefully modelled as a network of relationships. But it is less well-known that the origins of this perspective can be traced back to work done in Uppsala, Sweden, in the 1970s and 1980s. The term business network was first used there, and many important ideas around power and influence have also emerged from this research centre. In this new book, three of the key members of the Uppsala school develop a synthesis of the more recent ideas to come out of their research on networks. By focusing on the concept of the embedded multinational they show how the internal networks of the multinational interact with the web of external networks each subsidiary unit has in its local market. This book provides a definitive and compelling point of view of the importance of networking thinking to the study of the multinational corporation. It is an important book, and it will be widely cited in years to come. Julian Birkinshaw, London Business School, UK Forsgren, Holm, and Johanson have been among the leaders in developing the idea of the multinational firm as a network that spans different country environments. This perspective cautions the easy prescription that a multinational firm can do everything easily, if it just has the right organizational form. Relationships matter, as do the legitimacy of the firm in the context of its foreign investments. This book provides rich case insights into these dimensions. Bruce Kogut, INSEAD, France This book expands the business network view on managerial issues in multinational corporations. Specifically, it scrutinises the importance of a subsidiary s external and internal business network for its strategic and organizational role within the corporation. The internationalisation of firms in terms of management issues and headquarters control, the influence of subsidiaries on decisions and learning processes within multinational corporations are examined in detail. It is argued that

In this new, highly practical guide, expert embedded designer and manager Lewin Edwards answers the question, “How do I become an embedded engineer? Embedded professionals agree that there is a treacherous gap between graduating from school and becoming an effective engineer in the workplace, and that there are few resources available for newbies to turn to when in need of advice and direction. This book provides that much-needed guidance for engineers fresh out of school, and for the thousands of experienced engineers now migrating into the popular embedded arena. This book helps new embedded engineers to get ahead quickly by preparing them for the technical and professional challenges they will face. Detailed instructions on how to achieve successful designs using a broad spectrum of different microcontrollers and scripting languages are provided. The author shares insights from a lifetime of experience spent in-the-trenches, covering everything from small vs. large companies, and consultancy work vs. salaried positions, to which types of training will prove to be the most lucrative investments. This book provides an expert’s authoritative answers to questions that pop up constantly on Usenet newsgroups and in break rooms all over the world. * An approachable, friendly introduction to working in the world of embedded design * Full of design examples using the most common languages and hardware that new embedded engineers will be likely to use every day * Answers important basic questions on which are the best products to learn, trainings to get, and kinds of companies to work for

The Institutional Theory of the Firm examines recent and previous organization theory literature to advocate what Evans (1995) refers to as the "embedded autonomy" of the firm, as well as its role in being simultaneously anchored in, for example, corporate legislation and regulatory practices on the national, regional (i.e., within the European Union) and transnational levels, while at the same time being granted the right to operate with significant degrees of freedom within this legal-regulatory model. Seen in this view, the embedded autonomy of the corporation represents a theoretical view of the corporation that complements the market-based image of the corporation in economic theory. When advocating the institutional theory model, three forms of embedded autonomy are examined. First, the corporation is enacted as a legal entity sui juris—as a freestanding "legal person" in corporate law and within the regulatory framework that serves to enforce legislation in everyday life settings. Second, the corporation is embedded within what social theorists refer to as moral economies, the norms and values that regulate what are the socially acceptable and legitimate means for conducting business. Third and finally, the corporation is embedded in governance, a relatively complex economic concept that denotes legal and regulatory control on the societal and economic system levels, and on the level of the individual corporation. By combining the three forms of embeddedness, sanctioned by law, norms, and governance, the embedded autonomy of the firm is secured on the basis of a variety of social practices and resources. This book brings together a diverse literature including management studies, economic sociology, legal theory, finance theory, and mainstream economic theory to advance the argument that the corporation is best understood as what is embedded in a social and economic context, yet best serving its defined and stipulated ends by assuming considerable degrees of freedom to operate in isolation from various stakeholders. It will be of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants interested in organization theory and management studies.

Companies know how to meet the demands of shareholder value: years of managerial excellence testify to this achievement. Many also know how to create stakeholder value – through traditional approaches such as CSR and philanthropy which predictably lead to trade-offs and added costs. What remains elusive is discovering is how to meet both shareholder and stakeholder requirements in the core business – without mediocrity and without compromise – creating value for the company that cannot be disentangled from the value it creates for society and the environment. What if sustainability was embedded into the DNA of your organization? How can you incorporate environmental, health and social value into its very core? Many companies, despite their best intentions, "bolt on" sustainability as an afterthought to their core strategies. They trumpet green initiatives and social philanthropy which lie at the margins of the business, with symbolic wins that inadvertently highlight the unsustainability of the rest of their activities. Today's ecological and social pressures require a different business response – one that existing strategy frameworks fail adequately to address. In Embedded Sustainability, authors Chris Laszlo and Nadya Zhexembayeva explain and predict how companies can better leverage global challenges for enduring profit and sustained growth. They introduce the marquis concept of embedded sustainability: the incorporation of environmental, health, and social value into the heartbeat of the product life-cycle with no trade-off in price or quality – no social or green premium. This book helps readers to comprehend and implement the notion of embedded sustainability. At its best, embedded sustainability is invisible, similar to quality. In addition to delivering socially and environmentally conscious products for consumers, it is capable of considerably motivating employees. Most of all, it enables smart companies to create even more value for both their shareholders and stakeholders.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.