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- Convenors:
-
Jo-Anna Russon
Jessica Sklair (QMUL)
Ana Paula Borges Pinho (University of São Paulo King's College London)
Helen Hawthorne (Middlesex University)
Aurelie Charles (University of Bath)
Luis Mah (ISEG - University of Lisbon)
Farwa Sial (University of Manchester)
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- Formats:
- Papers Mixed
- Stream:
- Business, finance and digital technologies
- Sessions:
- Monday 28 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Covid-19 has thrown business into the global spotlight in controversial ways, providing lucrative opportunities for many TNCs in the global North and raising questions about equitable access to measures to stem the pandemic in the global South. What is the role of business in the pandemic response?
Long Abstract:
In the global economic disarray wrought by Covid-19, the effects of the pandemic on international development are beginning to crystallise in evermore worrying ways. Just as many countries in the global South are struggling to find the resources to cope with the pandemic, the UK government's recent decision to slash its aid budget may signal a new era of global austerity in development spending. In parallel, the pandemic has thrown business into the global spotlight in new and controversial ways. On one hand, countries in both the North and South fear the demise of swathes of SMEs as national economies struggle to contain the shocks of the pandemic. On the other, the pandemic has been the source of lucrative business opportunities for many Northern TNCs as, for example, changing patterns of daily life and work favour large digital conglomerates and governments rush to contract management consultants to build and manage systems to contain the pandemic and deal with its fallout. In addition, questions are emerging about how global initiatives will ensure equitable access for countries in the global South to vaccines and other measures designed to stem the pandemic, given that the rollout of these measures depends on the interests of those (usually Northern) businesses and investors engaged in designing and financing them. This panel invites papers that explore these processes at play in the global Covid-19 response, and that tackle the question of what business's role is - and should be - in responding to the pandemic in the global South.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 28 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects on research findings on local industrial-health system linkages to strengthen cancer care in Eastern Africa in the light of the impact of Covid19 on international and local industrial supply chains, business models and investment decisions.
Paper long abstract:
The interlinkages between locally based and largely locally owned businesses and the needs and procurement demands of local health systems in Africa were already changing before Covid19. Local industrial development to supply health commodities for the health sector was increasingly a priority for Eastern and Southern African governments and regional groupings; Covid19 has pushed the issue to the top of national and international preoccupation.
This paper draws data from an ongoing project exploring the scope for sustainably expanding local industrial supplies in order to improve cancer care in East Africa. Since early 2021, we have been working with Kenyan and Tanzanian colleagues on the project in a pandemic context. Local manufacturers have seen their international supply chains collapse, but at the same time have responded very creatively to local needs, developing new research and manufacturing linkages in the process. As local governments have faced the consequences of the existing narrow industrial base, and limited technological capabilities, we are also seeing the emergence of new business models and investments that can respond to the needs of cancer care as well as non-communicable and communicable diseases.
The paper reports findings on expanding local business responses to existing and emerging requirements for health security. It also reflects on the project’s use of scenario-building as an intellectual tool for investigating the scope for industrial development in this context.
Paper short abstract:
The paper intends to use the Capabilities Approach to throw light on the capacity of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities undertaken by various businesses in India during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand how the post-COVID world can build a sustainable environment.
Paper long abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the faultlines in global governance. Governments, businesses, and societies have been trifling under the threat of the virulent virus. From the perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the paper aims to look at the strategic plans of businesses to stave off the dire conditions that the economies are engulfed in while undergoing financial stress. Unplanned and myopic policy implementations through lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing norms have affected the lives of millions from developing and emerging countries. Through a Capabilities Approach (CA) framework, the paper proposes that CSR collaborations should focus on enhancing the capabilities of the people to ensure social justice leading to lessening inequalities.
Ensuring a comprehensive development strategy requires cooperation between the government, businesses, and society. Social welfare being the prime objective of governments, it is necessary that companies and individuals also participate in ensuring social welfare and social justice. Collaborations between businesses, NGOs, and civil society organizations are essential for implementing welfare activities through CSR. The paper concludes that for businesses to succeed in the post-COVID world, they must gain confidence from all their stakeholders by taking responsibility for their business conduct, ecological sustainability, and community relationships. The paper posits that in the post-COVID-19 era, a society-strategic CSR model will replace the company-strategic model currently followed by businesses. It is necessary to follow an inclusive growth practice to build a sustainable society that can foster business growth.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses how fashion brands are responding to modern slavery in their supply chains in light of COVID-19, while examining the role of civil society in pushing for corporate accountability for remediation and protection of vulnerable workers.
Paper long abstract:
Over the last decade, the garment industry caught attention for human rights abuses across supply chains of fashion brands. Despite the potential for social corporate responsibility to address these abuses, brands failed to improve working conditions for supply chain workers. Social compliance auditing and worker engagement technologies, where corporations spend most of their ethical budget, seemed unable to detect and remediate modern slavery incidents. There are also gaps between companies’ reporting under modern slavery legislation, such as the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, and their practices towards suppliers and workers. COVID-19 has exacerbated human rights abuses in global supply chains, particularly for garment workers, making them more vulnerable to modern slavery. The unfulfilled payments of orders of fashion brands sparked a strong civil society reaction, leading to initiatives such as the “Pay Up” campaign to pressure companies into addressing wage theft and increased risk of modern slavery. Given the limitations of standard models of accountability to address abuses in global supply chains, this paper aims to redefine accountability in an unequal and post-pandemic world by proposing the use of Rubenstein’s (2007) surrogate accountability, a next to best model of accountability deriving from non-corporate stakeholders. Using this framework, this paper discusses how businesses are responding to modern slavery in their supply chains in light of COVID-19, while examining the role of civil society in pushing for accountability for remediation and protection of vulnerable workers. Findings raise implications for top-down (modern slavery legislation) and bottom-up (civil society campaigns) models of accountability.
Paper short abstract:
African big business is playing an important role in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic. This paper assesses the operations and strategies of African big business during the pandemic. Three case studies will be assessed: Dangote Group in Nigeria, Ecobank in Togo and MTN in South Africa
Paper long abstract:
African governments have received an unexpected helping hand from African big business in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. African big business has stepped-up to ensure not only the health and well-being of their employees, customers, suppliers and communities but also to support the broader fight against the pandemic. African big business are emerging across the continent and challenging many of the global multinationals that have dominated the market since colonial times. They have gained scale, skills and capabilities that put them on par with their counterparts in other parts of the world. Africa is home to many large and understudied big business, with around 400 companies with more than USD$1 billion in revenue, that have been growing rapidly in the last few decades. African big business is increasingly regional and pan-African; and many of them have diversified to other global markets. While nearly half of Africa’s big business is based in South Africa, it is now emerging rapidly in other sub-regions, particularly from Morocco and Nigeria. They come from a variety of sectors, ranging from technology, retail, media, financial services, metals & mining, agriculture and telecommunications reflecting their scale, growing dynamism and transformation of African economies. This paper will critically debate the role of African big business and their response to the pandemic situation to shed some light about their operations and strategies. Three case studies will be assessed: Dangote Group in Nigeria, Ecobank in Togo and MTN in South Africa.
Paper short abstract:
International oil companies (IOCs) continue to be an “unsettling” feature in the development landscape. Drawing on CSR and vocational education research, our Uganda case study demonstrates the incompatibilities of IOCs and multi-actor skills development initiatives. We ask what next, post Covid-19?
Paper long abstract:
International oil extractive multinational corporations (IOCs) have been and continue to be an “unsettling” feature in the development landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on critical CSR literature, this paper synthesises three phases of IOC unsettling: exploitation, ‘reactive’ CSR, and the current phase of multi-actor development interventions. We review these phases through the lens of vocational education and a case study of IOC engagement in skills development initiatives in Hoima, Uganda. The Uganda case shows that the current multi-actor phase seeks to incorporate programmatic structures and processes to mitigate challenges associated with the exploitation and ‘reactive’ phases. For example, the multi-actor ‘Skills for Oil and Gas in Africa’ programme attempted to focus on value chains rather than the narrow instrumental occupational priorities of IOCs. However, we demonstrate that such attempts have largely failed due to the unsettling reality that issues of control and historical, environmental and socio-economic factors point to incompatibilities within multi-actor skills development initiatives involving IOCs. In the Uganda case, these include oil price volatility, political turbulence, Covid-19, internal IOC tensions between CSR and core operations vis-à-vis skills development, and cultural and environmental tensions linked to oil ‘development’ in the region. We conclude by exploring the question: what next for IOCs and multi-actor skills development initiatives post Covid-19.