Attention-based constraint to MNC coevolution in China's changing stakeholder environment

The coevolution process enables organizations to adapt to and influence their external environment. Multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in dynamic foreign markets use this capability to achieve operational sustainability. MNCs in China operate in a changing stakeholder environment that featu...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:"Special Issue on Coevolution of Strategy, Innovation and Ethics: The China Story and Beyond"
Main Author: Zhao, Meng (Author)
Contributors: Ma, Xufei ; Park, Seung Ho 1960- ; Luo, Lingli
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2023
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2023, Volume: 186, Issue: 4, Pages: 797-814
Further subjects:B Multinational Corporation
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Attention-based view
B Coevolution
B Consumer crisis
B Bounded rationality
B Stakeholder Management
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Summary:The coevolution process enables organizations to adapt to and influence their external environment. Multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in dynamic foreign markets use this capability to achieve operational sustainability. MNCs in China operate in a changing stakeholder environment that features rising consumer activism and local stakeholders' persistent ethical problems and encounter recurrent consumer crises. Coevolving with this environment requires MNCs to react to consumer challenges and actively influence the environment by improving stakeholders’ ethical behavior. Based on the attention-based view and bounded rationality studies, we propose that the tension between expansion attention and stakeholder attention hinders MNCs from coevolving with this environment. Our analysis of MNC-linked consumer crises in China reveals that MNCs can reduce the consumer crisis risk by maintaining continuous attention to improving the ethical behavior of local employees, suppliers, and dealers. In contrast, MNCs' rapid local expansion weakens this stakeholder's attention, expanding MNCs' crisis risk. Our findings reveal an attention-based constraint to MNCs' coevolution and inform approaches to overcoming this constraint. This paper also extends international attention studies by affirming the significance of matching the focus of attention with environmental change for MNCs’ operational sustainability in foreign markets.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05433-w