Author
Listed:
- Buzdugan, Stephen R.
- Freund, David
- Forsgren, Mats
- Holm, Ulf
Abstract
This article unveils a new way of theorizing the multinational enterprise (MNE) to explain why it may engage in ‘anti-societal’ behavior – i.e. behavior that may systematically lead to negative societal outcomes, such as environmental degradation, poor working conditions, or antitrust violations. Our new ‘self-preservation perspective’ of the MNE holds that MNEs exert their relative political power to protect their market position, assets, and strategic advantages from political and economic threats. In doing so, negative societal outcomes can result, not as anomalies but rather a structural phenomenon rooted in the firm’s intrinsic drive for survival. Drawing on insights from institutional economics and international relations theory, we argue that self-preservation behavior is more fundamental than profit-maximization behavior, which has long been assumed to be the primary motive of MNEs. We shed new light on why MNEs engage with transnational social spaces through an illustrative case of Tesla's anti-union activities in Sweden. We observe how self-preservation has influenced Tesla’s resistance to signing collective bargaining agreements in Sweden and has led to the emergence of a self-interested transnational regulatory community that deteriorates labor rights. Thus, we posit that the self-preservation perspective offers a powerful complement to existing international business theory by providing a critical analytical lens on the societal role of MNEs in the context of the ‘grand challenges’. This alternative perspective challenges conventional narratives of MNE behavior as primarily cost-efficient, value-creating or innovative, and demonstrates that MNE anti-societal behavior is structural rather than isolated to a few individual cases.
Suggested Citation
Buzdugan, Stephen R. & Freund, David & Forsgren, Mats & Holm, Ulf, 2025.
"The Self-Preservation Perspective Of Mnes In Transnational Social Spaces: A New Theoretical Lens For Analyzing Anti-Societal Firm Behavior,"
SocArXiv
m87se_v1, Center for Open Science.
Handle:
RePEc:osf:socarx:m87se_v1
DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/m87se_v1
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:m87se_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.