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The main purpose of this article is to outline and discuss the role and potential importance of multi-national enterprises in the process of Latin American integration. As such it is essentially a reflection upon work done at the Institute for Latin American Integration (INTAL) by the author, and upon the opinions and impressions gathered through conversations and interviews with businessmen, politicians, técnicos, and public and private personalities from many Latin American countries during 1966 and 1967. It is a compilation of viewpoints and major assumptions, and its main purpose is to open up the field for further discussions and research—indeed, to serve in this manner as a future guideline in action programs. Finally, it should be said that this paper reflects the style of thinking as well as the prejudices that its writer, a political scientist, has brought with him.

The recently promoted European Commission Circular Economy Package (2015) and Circular Economy Action Plan (2018) aim at decoupling economic growth from resource consumption by closing the loop of products and material flows. Coherently to a free-market scenario, these directives openly recognise a very important role for existing organisations, which, through bottom-up initiatives, shall drive the transition towards the Circular Economy in supply chains. In the European context, several companies (both SMEs and MNEs) claim to have changed, over the last years, the way they operate, by adopting Circular Economy practices. Such interventions have emphasised product and material reuse and recycle and the use of renewable energy sources throughout supply chains (Genovese et al., 2017). However, the actual extent to which Circular Economy principles are operationalised and the real impact of legislation changes have yet to be investigated (Stewart & Niero, 2018), especially when dealing with large Multi-National Enterprises, which have been operating, for decades, according to a very traditional linear model. As such, this study aims at assessing the Circular Economy state-of-the-practice in a structured way, by classifying all the initiatives that can be recognised in the largest European companies by revenues, according to the Global Fortune 500 list (fiscal year 2018). Key findings of the underlying research include an evaluation of the type of practices and of their degree of implementation, of the metrics employed to measure their impacts, along with the level of involvement of supply chain partners in such practices.

The recently promoted European Commission Circular Economy Package (2015) and Circular Economy Action Plan (2018) aim at decoupling economic growth from resource consumption by closing the loop of products and material flows. Coherently to a free-market scenario, these directives openly recognise a very important role for existing organisations, which, through bottom-up initiatives, shall drive the transition towards the Circular Economy in supply chains. In the European context, several companies (both SMEs and MNEs) claim to have changed, over the last years, the way they operate, by adopting Circular Economy practices. Such interventions have emphasised product and material reuse and recycle and the use of renewable energy sources throughout supply chains (Genovese et al., 2017). However, the actual extent to which Circular Economy principles are operationalised and the real impact of legislation changes have yet to be investigated (Stewart & Niero, 2018), especially when dealing with large Multi-National Enterprises, which have been operating, for decades, according to a very traditional linear model. As such, this study aims at assessing the Circular Economy state-of-the-practice in a structured way, by classifying all the initiatives that can be recognised in the largest European companies by revenues, according to the Global Fortune 500 list (fiscal year 2018). Key findings of the underlying research include an evaluation of the type of practices and of their degree of implementation, of the metrics employed to measure their impacts, along with the level of involvement of supply chain partners in such practices.

How can we make sense of the range of organizational dynamics that emerge when managers of multi-national enterprises (MNEs) seek to serve their interests as they perceive multiple demands in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR)? In this article, I conceptualize this situation as a case of CSR institutional plurality. Drawing from the literature on MNE micro-politics, which I connect to the CSR literature, I analyze qualitative data gathered from five subsidiaries of a UK MNE to which their HQ transferred CSR reporting: a global norm with a typical explicit CSR mode. My analysis reveals that subsidiary managers responded to CSR institutional plurality by developing aligned or contested versions of the global CSR norm, that were then promoted through the deployment of discursive and symbolic tactics. I develop a grounded model that improves understanding of three power capabilities of subsidiary actors, that is, their socialization to explicit CSR norms, the exercise of employee voice and their political capital that can be deployed to support or curb the advancement of the managerial tactics. In doing so, I reveal the complex pathways through which lower-status subsidiary actors can take part in the reconfiguration of a global CSR norm.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a visualization method developed as a result of an observed need to capture the organizational arrangements of a complex engineering service enterprise. The focal case study is between a public sector client and private sector provider where multiple organizations contribute resource to create value. This visualization can assist client and provider stakeholders to take a holistic perspective of the purpose and management of their enterprise, highlighting the complexity of value co‐creation in service enterprises and the interdependencies between organizational units.Design/methodology/approachDevelopment of the Enterprise Image has drawn on research within the service, organizational and individual cognition literatures. Data were obtained from an in‐depth Defence sector case study representing diverse interactions within client and provider communities. The case focused on a fast‐jet aircraft availability contract, where the public sector client outsourced through‐life support activities to a set of private sector providers. Preliminary testing of the validity and utility of the image was conducted by presentations to single and mixed communities of clients and providers involved in value co‐creation.FindingsThe paper proposes a method of pictorially representing a complex alliance, called an "Enterprise Image". The work provides empirically based insight into the management processes of a complex, multi‐organizational service enterprise, where little or no enterprise level management had been in evidence. The Enterprise Image appeared to have the effect of raising questions and conversations about how the overall enterprise might be managed and how ongoing service improvement might be achieved.Practical implicationsIn this research the Enterprise Image was drawn by researchers – ongoing research aims to design a method that helps clients and providers co‐create their own Enterprise Image. From current findings the implication of this research will be to encourage enterprise management of ongoing improvement in multi‐organisational service enterprises.Originality/valueModels and representations for understanding the delivery of value are mostly provider and product focused, despite the recognition in a servitised environment of the complex interactions with client organizations. This paper presents a methodology for visually representing value co‐creation in complex service enterprises where the service includes significant client resource involvement.

IT IS POSSIBLE TO REACH SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE PROSPECT OF WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION BY REVIEWING SOME UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO CREATE MULTI-NATIONAL STATES AND BY ATTEMPTING A BRIEF COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FOUR EXISTING EUROPEAN MULTI-NATIONAL STATES. THE AUTHOR STUDIES SUCCESSIVELY THE ABSTRACT THEORY OF THE MULTINATIONAL STATE; THEORIES OF MULTINATIONALISM, BI-NATIONAL PLANS AND POLICY ORIENTATIONS.