Contributions published at Foundations of Business Administration and Theories of the Firm (Andreas Scherer)

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) aim to increase wealth for shareholders of the acquiring company, in particular by creating synergies. It is often assumed that relatedness is a source of synergies. Our study distinguishes between business, cultural, technological and size relatedness. It discusses the reasons why these different forms of relatedness can lead to an acquisition success and conducts a meta-analysis of 67 prior M&A studies. Results indicate that positive effects can be expected under specific conditions only and have a limited overall impact on acquisition success. A moderator analysis finds that synergies stemming from relatedness depend on industry-, country-, and investor-characteristics.

Im letzten Jahrzehnt haben verschiedene Unternehmen begonnen, originäre Staatsaufgaben zu übernehmen (vgl. Margolis und Walsh, 2003; Matten und Crane, 2005; Walsh et al., 2003). Dies gilt besonders für multinationale Unternehmen (MNU). Diese engagieren sich in den Bereichen Gesundheit, Bildungsleistungen, soziale Sicherheit und Schutz der Menschenrechte in Ländern, in denen staatliche Organe nicht in der Lage sind, diese Leistungen bereit zu stellen (vgl. Kinley und Tadaki, 2004; Matten und Crane, 2005); sie adressieren gesellschaftliche Probleme wie AIDS, Unterernährung, Obdachlosigkeit und Analphabetentum (vgl. Margolis und Walsh, 2003; Rosen et al., 2003); sie formulieren Ethikkodizes (z.B. Cragg, 2005a) und beteiligen sich an einer Selbstregulierung, um globale Regulierungs- und moralische Orientierungslücken zu schliessen (vgl. Scherer und Smid, 2000); schliesslich begünstigen sie Frieden und Stabilität (vgl. Fort und Schipani, 2004). Derlei Aktivitäten werden von manchen Ökonomen mit Skepsis betrachtet, widersprechen sie doch dem gemeinen Rollenverständnis von Unternehmen in der Gesellschaft, wie dieses etwa in der Theorie der Firma angenommen wird (vgl. Friedman, 1970; Henderson, 2001; Levitt, 1970; Jensen, 2002; Sundaram und Inkpen, 2004). Das oben erwähnte Verhalten von Unternehmen geht aber auch über das umfassende Verständnis von sozialer Unternehmensverantwortung gegenüber den Stakeholdern hinaus, wie dies im Sinne einer Erfüllung von sich wandelnden sozialen Erwartungen in den letzten Jahrzehnten in der Business- und Society-Literatur konzeptualisiert worden ist (vgl. Strand, 1983; siehe auch Carroll, 1991; Freeman und McVea, 2001; Schwartz und Carroll, 2003; Whetton et al., 2002). Im Unterschied dazu offenbart das beschriebene Verhalten von Unternehmen eine stärkere Beteiligung an einem Regelsetzungs- und Durchsetzungsprozess von globalem Ausmaß („Global Governance“) (vgl. Braithwaite und Drahos, 2000) sowie an der Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter (vgl. Kaul et al., 2003). Cragg (2005b, 2005c) führt mehrere Belege dafür an, dass sich Unternehmen zunehmend an einer Selbstregulierung beteiligen, um das durch den Prozess der Globalisierung entstandene Regulierungsvakuum zu füllen. Ganz ähnlich argumentieren Matten und Crane (2005), die einigen Unternehmen sogar eine staatsähnliche Rolle zusprechen. Matten und Crane (2005) stellen fest, dass viele Unternehmen zunehmend Bürgerrechte schützen, ermöglichen und durchsetzen, eine Aufgabe die originär der staatlichen Verantwortlichkeit zufällt (vgl. Marshall, 1965). Dies gilt insbesondere im Falle eines Staatsversagens, d.h. wenn ein Nationalstaat Bürgerrechte noch nicht oder (prinzipiell) nicht mehr gewährleisten kann (wie dies etwa in einigen Entwicklungsländern der Fall ist). So gesehen haben sich Unternehmen zu wichtigen politischen Akteuren in der globalen Zivilgesellschaft entwickelt (vgl. Matten und Crane, 2005; Palazzo und Scherer, 2006, 2008; Scherer und Palazzo, 2007, 2008a; Steinmann, 2007). Auf globaler Ebene sind Nationalstaaten und internationale Institutionen immer weniger in der Lage, ein befriedigendes Niveau globaler öffentlicher Güter anzubieten und die weltwirtschaftliche Rahmenordnung im Interesse des Gemeinwohls zu reglementieren (vgl. Kaul et al., 2003). Im diesem Problemkontext wird der Begriff der “Global Governance” verwendet, um Möglichkeiten aufzuzeigen, die globalen Regelungslücken zu schließen. Global Governance umfasst den Findungs- und Durchsetzungsprozess globaler Regeln sowie die Bereitstellung globaler öffentlicher Güter und soll helfen, die verstärkte Zusammenarbeit im Wissens- und Ressourcenbereich zwischen Regierungen, internationalen Institutionen, NGOs, zivilgesellschaftlichen Gruppierungen und Unternehmen zu beschreiben (vgl. Braithwaite und Drahos, 2000; Reinicke und Deng, 2000). Die Global Governance ist ein polyzentrischer und multilateraler Prozess, an dem zivilgesellschaftliche, staatliche und private Akteure beteiligt sind. Wir argumentieren, dass die verschiedenen Theorien der Unternehmung noch nicht ausreichend in der Lage sind, deren neue politische Rolle adäquat abzubilden. Gegenwärtige Ansätze der politischen Betätigung von Unternehmen beruhen hauptsächlich auf einer instrumentellen Sichtweise der Unternehmenspolitik und einer strikten Trennung der politischen und ökonomischen Sphäre (vgl. Hillman et al., 2003). Im Gegensatz dazu heben wir einige Erkenntnisse von Nachbardisziplinen wie der politischen Theorie, den internationalen Beziehungen und der Rechtswissenschaft hervor, in denen diese neue Rolle der Unternehmen zunehmend in den Blickpunkt gerät. Damit bestimmen wir eine Forschungsagenda, welche auf der neuen Rolle der Unternehmen in einer globalen Zivilgesellschaft beruht. Unser Beitrag erweitert die Theorie der Unternehmung um eine ausgewogenere Konzeption der politischen und ökonomischen Verantwortlichkeit, welche die ursprünglich eher eng angelegte und instrumentell verstandene Sichtweise der Politik überwindet und damit besser in der Lage ist, den immer stärker werdenden politischen Beitrag der Unternehmen für eine Global Governance zu analysieren. Der Beitrag ist wie folgt aufgebaut. Zuerst thematisieren wir einige Probleme der gegenwärtigen Modellierung der politischen Rolle von Unternehmen, um im nächsten Schritt die zu Grunde gelegten Annahmen und Denkschulen dieses apolitischen CSR-Ansatzes kritisch zu bewerten. Anhand einiger Beispiele aktueller globaler Aktivitäten von Unternehmen legen wir exemplarisch sowohl negative als auch positive Beiträge zu einer Global Governance dar. Im zweiten Teil des Beitrags stellen wir das Konzept einer neuen politischen Rolle der Unternehmen vor. Wir plädieren für einen Paradigmenwechsel innerhalb der CSR-Debatte, der notwendig ist für eine neue Theorie der Unternehmung in einer globalisierten Welt. Abschließend werden einige Problembereiche und zukünftige Forschungsfragen in der Managementtheorie kurz angesprochen.

The aim of this chapter is to provide an outline of the development and basic ideas of critical theory (CT), one of the most prominent philosophical foundations of critical management studies (CMS). CT has perhaps had even more influence on the development of CMS than related theoretical foundations, such as labor process theory, post-structuralism, or critical realism, which will be described in subsequent chapters of the Handbook. CT has a unique philosophical tradition and distinct paradigmatic characteristics (Rasmussen 1994; Rush 2004); and, in order to demonstrate how CT has been used to study organizations, we will describe these characteristics and show how they have impacted CMS. Since a number of good historical overviews already exist (see, e.g., Held 1980; Wiggershaus 1994), we will consider the history and development of CT only in so far as it is of direct relevance to the understanding of the emergence of CMS. The chapter focuses mainly on the principal contributors of CT - here equated with the Frankfurt School and the writings of authors such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Jurgen Habermas, as well as authors of the younger generation. We will review a number of criticisms leveled at CT, from the aggressive to the more sympathetic types of critique, and show how these are relevant to CMS research. We also refer to Habermas's more recent work on political philosophy and deliberative democracy, as it is relevant for correcting dated understandings of his position and may suggest new directions for future work in CMS.

There is a growing debate about economics not only being bad for practice but also destroying good management practice. The focus of this debate has been on the negative influences of wrong assumptions in theory building which become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We analyze why standard economics indeed can be bad for managerial and political practice. Aside from wrong assumptions, economic imperialism is another important factor. We argue that psychological economics is better for practice than standard economics, but is still not good for practice, as long as it uses an imperialistic approach. We propose a different research strategy, which we call multidisciplinary mapping. It not only bridges between different disciplinary approaches but also between the knowledge of scholars and practitioners. It is good for practice as well as for theory building.

The generation of new knowledge is crucial for a firm’s competitive advantage. We analyze explorative knowledge production in teams as a social dilemma. Such social dilemmas can to some extent be solved by transactional solutions such as activating the shadow of the future or selective incentives. But transformational solutions are more important. Employee’s intrinsic initiative to participate in knowledge exploration is crowded-out by certain high-powered incentives and unfriendly monitoring. It is crowded-in by, low-powered incentives, friendly monitoring, communication and institutional framing. We conclude that there exist convincing ideas of how to govern explorative knowledge production which should be tested empirically.

Multinational Corporations can contribute to reach the targeted poverty reduction goals – the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. Linking the core business of a multinational with development goals can be found in the concept of Serving the Base of the Pyramid mainly pushed by C.K. Prahalad and Stuart L. Hart. In the “classic” development work, bottom up approaches, which give more power to the poor, are taking advance in the theoretical debate. This know how however, hasn’t found a systematic consideration in the BoP concept yet. Focusing on Multinational Corporations, the paper takes a closer look at bottom up development approaches and agues for the importance of integrating this know how in the BoP debate by highlighting the relation between the concepts.

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This paper develops a model of collective organizational identification for the work-unitlevel. Following Chen and colleagues’ (2004) procedure for validating collective constructs, we first describe the theoretical development process of a collective perception of organizational identification. In a second step, we extend our understanding of the theoretical construct by hypothesizing a nomological net of potential antecedents and outcomes. In a third step, the theoretical model of collective identification is empirically tested. We conducted a longitudinal survey study, gathering data at three different points in time. The data was collected from 26 different country locations of a multinational company. The study sample comprised an average number of 2,355 employees nested within 145 work units. The empirical analysis showed that there exists a reliable and valid construct of collective identification that is different from related constructs (i.e., collective commitment, collective identity). Further, the results of the hypotheses tests confirmed all relationships proposed in the nomological net. Thus, we could show that a charismatic leadership climate fosters the identity strength within a work unit, which in turn leads to an enhanced collective identification. Concerning the outcomes of collective identification, we could empirically demonstrate that the construct has a positive effect on collective organizational commitment, which in turn reduces the collective turnover intention of the employees. The article concludes with theoretical implications, suggestions for practitioners, study limitations and future research directions.

Mainstream theorizing in management and economics is based on the assumption that business firms focus on profits only, while it is the task of the state system to provide public goods and to regulate the economy in such a way that business activities contribute to the common good. Business firms are conceived of as private actors and governments and their state agencies are considered the only political actors. We suggest that under the conditions of globalization the strict division of labor between private business and nation state politics does not hold any more. Many business firms have started to assume social and political responsibilities that go beyond legal requirements and fill the regulatory vacuum in global governance. Therefore, we advocate a paradigm shift in research on the role of business in society.

The relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and economic payoff has been an increasingly important issue for scholarly discussion. To enable a better understanding of the similarities, distinctions and complementarities between explaining theories, I set forth a theoretical basis for constituting CSR activities on an individual level. An alternative modeling of the utility function and economic concepts like happiness research, stewardship theory and intrinsic motivation can give some further explanations why managers act in a social responsible way beside normative considerations.

The paper is concerned with the concept of leadership responsibility. Responsible leadership understood as normatively appropriate conduct in the pursuit of the organizational goals addresses the challenges of nowadays’ leaders in the light of global transformation processes. The paper argues that existing schools of the leadership phenomenon, herein paradigmatically grouped as “positivist” and “post-positivist”, fail to capture the scope of the therein encapsulated implications. Through reviewing existing approaches their normative vacuity, justification deficits and implementation problems are shown. In order to address these, the paper proposes a new approach, based on Habermas’ idea of democratic deliberation, as forwarded in the concept of political corporate social responsibility.

The new developments of the globalization process bring with them new responsibilities for the multinational corporation and its leaders. The aim of the paper was to identify those new responsibilities and to look at the changing role of leadership due to those responsibilities. This paper thereby acknowledges the need for a more descriptive and prescriptive social scientific approach by aiming for an understanding of what will be called globally responsible leadership. The article starts with pointing to the changing role of leadership due to new ecological, societal and business obligations leaders in organizations are facing. The following literature review of leadership theories shows that there is no theory that can fully address the new developments. Thus, it is developed a new framework of globally responsible leadership that encompasses those new obligations and that exemplifies the personal preconditions of globally responsible leaders. It is therefore drawn upon theories of responsibility form the philosophy of law and further disciplines. The elements of the framework of globally responsible leadership are explained and suggestions are made of how to empirically capture globally responsible leadership behaviour. At the end, the article points to future research directions.

To enable a better understanding of corrupt activities, I develop the paper around fundamental dimensions: Firstly, corruption is exerted by the supply side, this means I analyze the regulation effects on providers of corruption activities. Second, I enrich existing compliance concepts with the integrity approach and point out the effects on individual behavior.

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We discuss the ideological conflict between critics of globalization and free trade theorists who deconstruct the metanarrative of universal human rights that underlies the social agenda of the globalization critics. We point out the implications for the corporate objective function and the social behaviour of multinational corporations. The ideological conflict has not yet been resolved, but we spell out its effects and discuss various scenarios for resolution of the conflict and how those scenarios would influence corporate goals.

Legitimacy can be understood as the social acceptance of actions or institutions and is a vital resource for the sustained survival of companies in competitive environments. Legitimacy is subjectively perceived and ascribed to institutions and activities in processes of social construction. In recent times organizational legitimacy has been maintained primarily by either adapting to the social expectations of the company’s environment or by actively influencing the expectations of relevant stakeholder groups by means of advertising, public relations or strategic manipulation. During the process of globalization, however, companies are facing situations of increased complexity and heterogeneity in their environments so that the legitimacy strategies of adaptation and strategic manipulation may easily fail. In such situations, companies have to build on a third strategy, moral reasoning, in order to (re-)establish their legitimacy. However, moral reasoning cannot completely substitute both the other legitimacy strategies. We suggest that in order to survive in complex and competitive environments companies have to establish the organizational capacity to activate all of the three legitimacy strategies. In the present paper will develop a theoretical framework for three legitimacy strategies and their organizational implementation. We will build upon systems theory and empirical evidence from exemplary case studies.

The corporate governance structure of monasteries is analyzed to derive new insights into solving agency problems of modern corporations. In the long history of monasteries, some abbots and monks lined their own pockets and monasteries were undisciplined. Monasteries developed special systems to check these excesses and therefore were able to survive for centuries. These features are studied from an economic perspective. Benedictine monasteries in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and German speaking Switzerland have an average lifetime of almost 500 years and only a quarter of them broke up as a result of agency problems. We argue that this is due to an appropriate governance structure, relying strongly on the intrinsic motivation of the members and on internal control mechanisms.