Browsing Working Papers (ICM/IKL) by Title
-
Leander, Anna (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: On September 16 2007 the employees of the U.S. security firm Blackwater became involved in a shooting incidence in the Nisour Square in Baghdad. They were escorting a U.S. State Department delegation, which according to the firm, came under attack. According to by-standers, the Blackwater employees opened fire unprovoked, shooting in all directions and seemingly at anyone moving, including those trying to flee or help those wounded. 17 Iraqis civilians died in the incidence and at least twice as many were wounded. President Al-Maliki immediately came out to "revoke Blackwater’s license” for operating in Iraq and Iraqi authorities engaged the process of ending contractor impunity in their country. However, it soon became clear that there was no license to revoke and that the Iraqi government may not have the authority to deny Blackwater the right to operate in Iraq, let alone decide the fate of private contractors more generally. On their part, the U.S. authorities promised to open their own investigation and expressed regret at the civilian casualties but did not end their contracts with Blackwater in Iraq or elsewhere. The incapacity of the Iraqi government to impose its authority and right to control the use of force on its territory, to hold Blackwater and/or its employees accountable for the incidence, made Jeremy Scahill conclude that: "nothing gives a more clear indication to the Iraqis that they don’t have a sovereign government” (2007). Scahill is right in pointing to the limitations of the Iraqi government’s role as the ultimate authority deciding on laws on Iraqi territory. However, it does not follow that the Mansour incidence is illustrative of the extent to which the private markets for force have undermined sovereignty generally. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7033 Files in this item: 1
wp 2007-5.pdf (162.5Kb) -
[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper argues that security belongs to a specific category of commodities: “contested commodities” around which there is an ongoing and unsettled symbolic struggle over whether or not they can and should be though of as commodities (section 1). The contested nature of commodification has implications for how markets function; market practices tend to be defined and organized in ways that minimize their contentiousness and obfuscate their expansion. The paper looks at the implications of this argument for the conceptualization of the security. It focuses on the three central articulations of contestation: the discussion about whether the use of force can be left to the market, whether it can be so in the international realm and the discussion about whether or not markets trigger increased insecurity. It shows how this specific articulation of contestation has produced markets where the practice/definition of security is as public rather than private (section 2), as inside rather than outside (section 3) and as a responsible reaction to a threat rather than as something contributing to the constitution of threats (section 4). Conceptualizations of private security consequently have to be devised to capture these practical consequences of contested commodification; they need to capture the private in the public, the inside in the outside and the securitizing in the response to threats. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7964 Files in this item: 1
Contested_Commodity_working_paper.pdf (152.8Kb) -
on the art of duality in learning partnershipsMorsing, Mette; Vendelø, Morten (København, 1995)[More information][Less information]
-
a narrative approach to the study of international acquisitionsSøderberg, Anne-Marie (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Most studies of mergers and acquisitions have a managerial tilt and are founded on short visits to the companies investigated. This essay is based on a longitudinal study of a company that experiences a series of international acquisitions, giving voice to a wide range of organizational actors at different hierarchical levels, interviewed at different points of time over a period of six years. The collected narrative interviews are viewed as retrospective interpretations of change processes in the acquired company, made by organizational actors as parts of the plots they are continually constructing and revising to make sense of the course of organizational actions and events. Greimas’ actantial model is used to systematize the different plots that can be seen as results of both individual and collective processes of selection, hierarchization and sequencing of organizational actions and events. It is argued that a narrative approach is well suited to clarify changing patterns of identification and justification and to display different modes of storytelling. The narratological analyses moreover illustrate that even central actors within an acquired company often have such different work-views and world-views that it may be problematic or even counterproductive if upper-level management introduces corporate storytelling through conscious efforts without any negotiation of the different versions of stories told by the employees. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6962 Files in this item: 1
wp67.pdf (333.5Kb) -
A Reflection on Historical Sociology and IRLeander, Anna (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In 2004 I published an argument to the effect that “taking Tilly seriously” could help International Relations (IR) scholars understand some of the processes and mechanisms involved in state-building (Leander, 2004: the chapter is pasted in at the end of this statement). This short statement is a reflection on why, if I were to write that piece today, it would be written differently. I would still argue that we should all engage the Historical Sociology of State-Building (HSS) in a serious way (go beyond the folklore as I termed it in 2004) but my inclination today would be to be far more explicit about to the pitfalls of not going beyond the folklore as well as about the importance of studies of practices (in anthropology, ethnography, geography, regional/area studies or even IR, sic!) in signposting these pitfalls. This change in tone has less to do with any particular idea or argument in historical sociology, and even less with the work of any particular historical sociologist (seen the focus of this workshop Tilly will figure as the recurring reference point) than it does with the way the HSS is read, feeds into and shapes IR discussions (section 1). The way HSS has been integrated into IR has led scholars deeper into the pitfalls which hamper their understanding of contemporary state-building. More specifically it has perpetuated a misconstrued understanding of the inside/outside, it has obscured the nature and role of the private/public, and that it has devalued contextually specific articulations of politics and governance (sections 2-4). This “misunderstanding” is not only a scholastic matter as it translates into policies that are ineffective, inadequate not to say positively harmful (section 5). As the statement concludes, the implication is that IR scholars who decide to walk the terrain chartered by HSS would do well to observe the warning signposts set up by observers of political practices around these pitfalls. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7968 Files in this item: 1
-
Leander, Anna (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper analyses one influential Hollywood documentary, Edward Zwick’s movie Blood Diamond as if it were an advertising campaign. Drawing on a business school textbook: Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising, it poses the kinds of question an advertiser would: namely how the brand image is established, how it is made superior to other images and how good it is at capturing would-be-consumers. The paper suggests that Blood Diamond fares well on all three accounts and it traces why this is so. Specifically, it emphasizes the extent to which the film has contributed to establish and solidify the link between blood and diamonds in a process of "cultural cannibalism”. Second, it underlines role of "Hollywood authenticity” in establishing its very particular picture of politics as superior to alternatives. This certainly is more an unintended "collateral damage” than a part the producers’/directors’ intention. Finally, the last section suggests that Blood Diamond effectively captures the spectator by the reassuring, but illusive, plurality of images and by its visual fetichism. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7031 Files in this item: 1
wp 2008-1.pdf (207.4Kb) -
[More information][Less information]
-
Schramm, Jette; Faradonbeh, Heidi Aakre (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
-
[More information][Less information]
-
Reflections on hermeneutics, intercultural understanding and the management of differenceBlasco, Maribel (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
-
A critical management studies comparative assessment based on Japanese industrial relations researchTackney, Charles T. (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: At the core of the present global crisis lies an ideological oversight that indicates standard business models are subject to fail due to moral hazard: managerial prerogative, particularly the U.S. variant, is not self-regulating in respect to either corporate risk or the stewardship of stakeholder trust. We know there is variance in national political economies, but less is known about legal factors informing firm-specific variance, especially as these regards trust and transparency. This paper reports research seeking to bridge this ‘gap’ by the introduction of comparative legal ecology employment models of the enterprise. The construct is derived from reflection upon industrial relations research into the existence and nature of Japan’s ‘lifetime employment system’. Construct parameters include employment security, labor unions and the degree of employee participation permitted (if any); model schematics are offered for the United States of America, Germany, Japan, Denmark, and the People’s Republic of China. The comparative models help to account for variance in the legal extent and nature of managerial prerogative, job security, and the degree of information, power, and resource transparency of any enterprise. These offer, in consequence, clear and clearly comparative benchmarks of industrial democracy. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7918 Files in this item: 1
wp 2009-1.pdf (332.2Kb) -
Jeppesen, Soeren (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The international literature on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has focused on large rms, in the North, mostly applying normative, universal and positivist approaches. However, over the last 10-15 years increasing attention has been directed towards micro, small and medium-sized rms, SMEs. While the focus on CSR in SMEs mainly has been con ned to a Northern context, limited, though growing, focus has been on CSR in SMEs in a Southern or developing country context. The paper assesses the contributions on CSR and SMEs in Development. It does so by presenting three dominant and con icting perceptions of SMEs in the CSR literature (SMEs as problems vs. SMEs as innovators; SMEs as miniature versions of large rms vs. SMEs in their own right; SMEs responding to voluntary approaches vs. SMEs responding to state regulation). The paper then takes stock of what we know about CSR, SMEs and Development (concerning environmental issues; labour, safety & health; global supply chains; and nally CSR and SMEs in Clusters) and what we don’t know. The paper nally argues in favour of a critical research based on a) focus on Southern perspectives, b) SMEs in their own right, and c) application of context-sensitive approaches. It advocates the key issues of a critical CSR in SMEs in Development research agenda should be focused at the interface between SME, CSR and Development issues. It presents four main parts or areas of such an agenda and three suggestions concerning policy initiatives, before it brie y concludes on the changes that the eld has undergone over the 10-15 years observed. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7947 Files in this item: 1
wp 2009-9.pdf (1.274Mb) -
a narratological perspective on international acquisitionSøderberg, Anne-Marie; Cardel Gertsen, Martine (Frederiksberg, 2000)[More information][Less information]
-
Affectivity, schooling and poverty in MexicoBlasco, Maribel (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
-
Hjort, Katrin Erna; Novak, Lis; Salskov-Iversen, Dorte; Werther, Charlotte (København, 1996)[More information][Less information]
-
a review of the four dominant perspectivesHansen, Michael W. (København, 1995)[More information][Less information]
-
Kragh, Simon (København, 2000)[More information][Less information]
-
Chudnovsky, Daniel; López, Andrés (København, 1999)[More information][Less information]
-
Holden, Nigel (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
-
An Instructional Case Unit Concerning Japanese Management and Comparative Corporate Governance on the 1988 Labor Union Coup at Okuma Corporation, a Japanese Machine Tool ManufacturerTackney, Charles T. (København, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This is an instructional case unit designed to introduce students to comparative management practice and comparative corporate governance. Employee participation (management consultation) in the modern Japanese industrial enterprise is dramatically explored by presenting students with a corporate crisis in managerial prerogative faced by the 1988 enterprise labor union and labor union executive of Okuma Corporation. Okuma is global leader in machine tools manufacture, based in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. An unusual feature of the Okuma Case concerns the agent for managerial change with whom students are invited to identify: the executive of Okuma Corporation’s enterprise labor union and its recourse to the firm’s management council. This instructional case unit contains an instructor’s manual, background information, and suggested questions. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6957 Files in this item: 1
okuma case.pdf (573.3Kb)