Wrana, Jöran Bosse (2017). Multinational Enterprises, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Regional Institutional Change in Vietnam. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.
|
PDF
MNEs_CSR_Regional_Institutional_Change_Vietnam_Dissertation_BIB.pdf - Published Version Download (2MB) |
Abstract
After thirty years of impressive economic growth, Vietnam is currently threatened by the middle-income trap since the country struggles with skill mismatches on regional labor markets and with a private domestic sector with little linkages to export-orientated MNEs, due to its low productivity levels. Therefore, some MNEs have started to step in these institutional voids through CSR practices with the goal to shift their host regions on a more sustainable economic develop-ment path. On the one hand, they enforce the diffusion of global CSR certificates, which consist of international labor and environmental standards, in host regions’ local economy. This is supposed to help local firms to become future suppliers in global value chains. On the other hand, they carry out local CSR projects at partnering universities and vocational training institutes in order to improve their host regions’ human capital base. However, it remains unclear whether MNEs’ CSR practices are a suitable means to unlock regions from institutional path-dependence. Following recent attempts in economic geography, this dissertations considers a more actor-centered perspective on institutional change. Its goal is to discuss to what extent and under which circumstances MNEs become institutional entrepreneurs through their CSR practices in Vietnamese regions, thereby fostering regional industrial upgrading (RIU) potentials. More precisely, this dissertation presents with the CSR─RIU model a new theoretical framework which explains how global CSR certificates can diffuse into the local economy and how local CSR projects in the education sector may help MNEs’ host regions to overcome skill mismatch problems on regional labor market. Based on statistical data from Vietnam’s Technological and Competitiveness Survey 2014 and own-conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with representatives from the business sector and education sector, this dissertation makes the following empirical contribu-tions. First, global CSR certificates do not have a positive impact on short-term productivity growth among local firms. Hence, it is unlikely that the diffusion of global CSR certificates into the local economy will yield in rising linkages between local firms and MNEs. Furthermore, regional institutions such as CSR support system rather than MNEs belong to the key drivers for the diffusion of global CSR certificates in Vietnam’s private domestic sector. Second, MNEs can indeed establish parts of their home countries’ TVET systems through local CSR projects at partnering PEOs in their host regions albeit some adaptions to the local context are inevitable. The case studies also reveal that those public educational organizations are integrated into institution-building initiatives which possess a high spatial, institutional, cognitive and social proximity towards the respective MNEs. Third, collaborative training models between the business sector and public educational organizations introduced by MNEs have not become institutionalized in the local economy. This can be explained by two facts. First, local firms have not been included in such initiatives. Second, they show a deviating territorial, network and societal embed-dedness compared to MNEs. To sum up, although numerous MNEs and their partners have undertaken substantial efforts in Vietnam to shift host regions towards a more sustainable development path, their institution-building attempts have so far fizzled out. Based on these results, the following conclusion can be drawn. MNEs, development agencies and regional authorities might be more successful in triggering a regional institu-tional change in Vietnam if they include local firms in their alliances from the very beginning and equally consider MNEs’ and local firms’ needs and ideas in these reforms attempts.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD thesis) | ||||||||
Translated abstract: |
|
||||||||
Creators: |
|
||||||||
URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-79256 | ||||||||
Date: | December 2017 | ||||||||
Language: | English | ||||||||
Faculty: | Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences > Department of Geosciences > Geographisches Institut | ||||||||
Subjects: | Economics Management and auxiliary services Geography and travel |
||||||||
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
|
||||||||
Date of oral exam: | 9 November 2017 | ||||||||
Referee: |
|
||||||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||||||
URI: | http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/7925 |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
Export
Actions (login required)
View Item |