need examples........ for assignment

singsub

since this is a message board with many members specializing on india and which has members from all over the world, i thought i could ask for a little bit of info here. for my assignment.



1) i need examples of governments or other political bodies (uno, eu) TIGHTENING THE SCREWS against a company or industry, and thus forcing them to act responsibly. For example if any of you know of any instance of your local government mandating that logging companies should re-plant so many amount of trees, or fishing companies release so much of er..fishlets, etc etc. i think indian government has a law banning the advertisement of tobacco and alcohol.

examples where a government (including provincial/state govt) or political body forced companies to behave themselves


2) i need examples of economic reasons why companies have been forced to behave. like for example chavez is trying to come up with a pan latin american trade zone or something that will prevent 1st world MNCs from siphoning away the natural wealth of latin america. stuff down these lines. india too is very cautious against opening up economically.



i have enough examples of how companies have been forced to behave due to enviornmental, legal, technological, and socio-cultural reasons. i just need examples of POLITICAL and ECONOMIC reasons. can anyone help ??

capt_mahajan

off the top of my head, the Indian government (ok, SEBI) tightening rules on foreign fund inflows into India comes into mind. (The participatory note issue)

The idea is/was to ostensibly tighten regulations and have a clearer idea of the colour of money that was coming into India. Of course, many say that at least some of this money was returning after being stashed abroad by businessmen and corrupt officials, but the regulators did tighten up a bit,

Politically, stuff is happening all the time, especially with essential commodities. Witness, in the last year or less, government crackdowns on particularly sugar and cement in India. In the case of cement, the government alleged cartelisation. In both these cases, they restricted exports and otherwise sent clear signals that they wanted prices kept low. They even threatened cement import from Pakistan.

The sugar industry suffered much more badly, because all this coincided with a slump in prices worldwide. Cement, not so much.

One more. In India, control of foodgrain prices has always been a political issue, specially before the elections. They are trying now, too, as they have in the past.

PS And, the hoohaa over retail and foreign MNC's coming in- nobody is talking about walmart immediately right now. Reliance, too, was forced to exit from a half dozen states after government/political pressure.

Hope this helps. Chapter and verse should be available through google.

singsub

thanks. so walmart isnt comming to india for now right?? did the indian government prevent the entry of foreign players in any other sector/vertical baring retail??

capt_mahajan

Last I knew, the PM had asked for a 'review' on foreign retail. I am not updated on this, and things may have happened.

I also do not know FDI rules. I am sure there are many sectors where FDI is restricted.

Quick google, embassy site, see 'prohibited sectors'
http://www.indianembassy.org/newsite...Procedures.asp


And, btw, I dont know if governments or international bodies go after individual companies.

Governments may go after an industry, and leave the specifics to regulators.

And the UN and such have no mandate to do so. In fact, they seem to have a lot of problings urging countries to comply with 'directives'

singsub

yeah govts generally go against industries as a whole.

it doesnt have to be the uno. example any global or provincial political body that has forced companies of a certain industry to show more responsibility. i think the uno recently passed a law against the further use of land mines or something - so that forces arms companies to stop manufacturing more landmines.

i wish some of our foreign members would chip in with examples from their own countries.

capt_mahajan

Recent one was on cluster bombs; the landmine one is older, I think.

Provinicial parties... UP and the Reliance issue come to mind, but that was done for political reasons, alliances and sibling rivary amongst the Ambanis... so the political parties behaved irresponsibly- as often happens in India.


Coke is under a big scanner in Kerala too.

machadinha

Heheh; I've been trying to think of examples for you, but find it hard to come up with anything specific. Or maybe I find the question a little too general, which is not meant as a criticism of yours btw. It's just hard to pinpoint it I guess.

Just for starters & for example,

I'm not sure if any of those motivations are usually so strictly defined or distinctly separated. Landmines and other arms regulations strike me as not directly related, they will touch the industry as a side-effect, but that isn't their primary aim as such, so to speak. Seems to me that's more about international law and war conventions, or what's the proper phrase.

So, no, I'm sorry, I can't think of any direct examples for you. There must be sites to help you further, but I can't immediately think of any directly useful ones. If you were to look around the (leftist) activist field you are bound to run into sites that touch on these issues as an aside to their central activities, but I can't think of one that concentrates on these issues only. TNI/Transnational Institute springs to mind as just one of many, many such organizations.

I take it you're doing this as a part of your academic pursuit? Can your professors or fellow students not point you in the right direction?

Good luck with it in any case. Another group that springs to mind: XminusY Solidarity Fund, their site won't do much for you but you could drop them your question and chances are they'll be willing to at least give you some further pointers from a European perspective, if they have the time. You'll find their contact info under >Organisatie >Contact.

Another sidestep yet possible contact for you, this Dutch writer and researcher has written a lot on corporate strategies (and counter-strategies) among other things, you could again try and contact her to see if she's willing to help you: http://www.evel.nl/. Remember these will all be very busy people by nature, so try and formulate your queries as clearly as you can, and do not take their time for granted.

Finally, on an official European level I guess the EU website as such should be your first port of call: http://europa.eu/. As well as the various countries' appropriate ministries, I suppose. Or their relevant universities and so on.

Oh on an official level and in The Netherlands again (yet internationally renowned), try the Netherlands Institute of International Relations/Clingendael.

__________________
Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links

Nick-H

Recently read about TRAI coming down on a couple of Indian telecoms companies for selling a serice called 'push2talk' which, apparently, bore no resemblance to what the rest of the world sells as 'Push-to-talk'. I'd have to dig the link from another site; can if you need it.

Also on the telecoms-India front, TRAI has tried to be a bit tough on broadband suppliers who'sactual speeds come nowhere near their advertised speeds. I don't think the teeth sank very far in on this one though.

The EU recently fined Microsoft millions of Euros for ---well, I'm not sure what for, but I expect it was for some more-polite phrasing of 'monopolist bastards' .

I think MS has come up against official disaproval, eg anti-trust, a few times.

Can't think of anything else.

__________________
.


Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

machadinha

Yes, MS sprang to mind too. Have come under fire several times in several countries for issues of monopolization/cartel-forming over the past decade or so I think. In the US too, I believe.

Can't say I'm very big on economics & hence not on the finer news details on much of it. Except that, well, man, it's all a big stink, y'know

singsub

thanks for the coke tip off. very includable in the assignment

machadinha

Coca-Cola in India is, and has long been, an interesting case in point yes (Pepsi too, for that matter, I think [?] ) I assume the international car industry & a bunch of other brands and industries might yield further examples as well. These are, after all, a relative novelty on the Indian market.

I've looked around for it (Cola) in the past to address some queries here, and it didn't take much searching to find sites for it to give you the finer ins & outs of the issues involved. Much of that was on a grassroots activist level btw, but then of course stuff often starts that way, and I'm sure by now at least that would spill over into official or at least state-level scrutiny and measures as well.

It seems to me that in the Indian case this certainly refers back to its former protectionist policies too, which were abandoned (or relaxed) not at all very long ago, although they seem to be easily forgotten or, if not, deplored by many esp. younger people now. Humans have a short memory, and all that.

Anyway this may be one angle you want to take along into your research, or at least where India specifically is involved. I think current Indian policies very much reflect the ongoing attempt to come to terms with how best to deal with the international market, and whether to further open up its market, or to be more protective of it instead.

singsub

thanks for the extended reply. it will take me some time to browse all the suggested sites and contact the said person. yes i am doing it as part of my mba course and no i cant ask my professor to cite me a few examples ) - i am supposed to provide examples myself and so i asked for leads here.

but i'll try to make my question direct.

Originally Posted by singsub View Post
i have enough examples of how companies have been forced to behave due to enviornmental, legal, technological, and socio-cultural reasons. i just need examples of POLITICAL and ECONOMIC reasons. can anyone help ??


what i mean by that is this -
greenpeace slamming exxon for the valdez disaster and forcing them to clean up = example of environmental factor forcing mnc to show more corporate social responsibility (CSR)

similarly lawsuits filed against ford for its pinto model, forced them to change the dangerous pinto fuel tanks = example of legal factor forcing mnc to show more csr.

and so on. i need examples of political and economic factors.

singsub

yes the MS -EU issue is an anti trust issue. which unfortunately means it doesnt qualify as a csr issue.


btw, there are often instances of companies "calling back" their products - i think Nokia called back its handsets of a certain number bandwidth, because the battery exploded or something. then china had to call back dolls from australia due to some mineral impurity in the dolls. can someone give me more examples of such corporate "call backs".

machadinha

Yes, but you were asking about governmental measures.

All that activist groups like Greenpeace, or more grassroots or obscure ones, can hope to do is bring something to the public attention. Then if any official measures follow, it will be more involved than that. And less "single-issue," if you will.

Again, I'm not at all criticizing you. It's just a very intricate field, and it's hard to separate any of a zillion dynamics that come into play.

What are you studying if I may ask? You don't need to answer. I seem to remember you having some interesting and possibly related questions before. Your question now, too, is a good one, btw.

Anyway, I'll let some others speak now first Good luck again.

singsub

yes governmental measures ===> political reasons.


its often difficult to pinpoint/separate the reasons i agree.

studying master of business administration.


i am still waiting for foreign members to help me with a few exaamples where their local govt/state govt forced companies to act more esponsively. isnt it true that some american states have come up with stricter than usual safety rules regarding health, automobile safety etc etc?

please help.