digitalisering@umu

This thesis investigates whether more open trade policymaking processes that include non-governmental entities, by virtue of the divergence of interests represented, lead to a stronger, more legitimate and qualitatively enhanced international trade system. The European Union stands out among major trading powers for its significant and dramatic response to new demands for access and participation. The thesis examines whether improvements in the political opportunity structure for ‘progressive’ Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) result in more legitimate external trade policymaking in the European Union (EU). Legitimacy is assessed along two lines: the way policy is made (procedural legitimacy) and the projected outcomes of policy (substantive legitimacy). The role of NGOs is evaluated in two important cases in the context of World Trade Organization negotiations since 2000. The first concerns the formulation of the formal European Communities’ (EC) position on trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and access to medicines. The second concerns the EC’s requests for water services liberalization in the context of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 2000 negotiations. Through a critical evaluation of the role of NGOs in these cases, the thesis argues that there is clear potential for NGOs to represent citizens’ demands, constitute a basic form of popular representation and hold decision-makers accountable to a broader public. However, they cannot determine policy outcomes in this arena. This thesis challenges a theoretical perspective on public policymaking called Cosmopolitanism. Grounded in democratic and normative theory, it conceives of Global Civil Society, and NGOs in particular, as major conduits for democracy and social justice in global and/or regional governance. The thesis builds upon the insights of Constructivism to advance an alternative account of the significance of NGOs in the EU’s external trade policymaking process. In particular, it argues that epistemes, the deepest level of the ideational world, dominate the external trade policymaking process. NGOs succeed only when their attempts to achieve more democratic, just, equitable and fair external trade policies in the EU conform broadly to the dominant legal/liberal episteme. When they seek to overrule that episteme, they fail, regardless of their formal involvement in the external trade policymaking process.

This thesis investigates whether more open trade policymaking processes that include non-governmental entities, by virtue of the divergence of interests represented, lead to a stronger, more legitimate and qualitatively enhanced international trade system. The European Union stands out among major trading powers for its significant and dramatic response to new demands for access and participation. The thesis examines whether improvements in the political opportunity structure for ‘progressive’ Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) result in more legitimate external trade policymaking in the European Union (EU). Legitimacy is assessed along two lines: the way policy is made (procedural legitimacy) and the projected outcomes of policy (substantive legitimacy). The role of NGOs is evaluated in two important cases in the context of World Trade Organization negotiations since 2000. The first concerns the formulation of the formal European Communities’ (EC) position on trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and access to medicines. The second concerns the EC’s requests for water services liberalization in the context of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 2000 negotiations. Through a critical evaluation of the role of NGOs in these cases, the thesis argues that there is clear potential for NGOs to represent citizens’ demands, constitute a basic form of popular representation and hold decision-makers accountable to a broader public. However, they cannot determine policy outcomes in this arena. This thesis challenges a theoretical perspective on public policymaking called Cosmopolitanism. Grounded in democratic and normative theory, it conceives of Global Civil Society, and NGOs in particular, as major conduits for democracy and social justice in global and/or regional governance. The thesis builds upon the insights of Constructivism to advance an alternative account of the significance of NGOs in the EU’s external trade policymaking process. In particular, it argues that epistemes, the deepest level of the ideational world, dominate the external trade policymaking process. NGOs succeed only when their attempts to achieve more democratic, just, equitable and fair external trade policies in the EU conform broadly to the dominant legal/liberal episteme. When they seek to overrule that episteme, they fail, regardless of their formal involvement in the external trade policymaking process.

This research examines the impact of dividend payout (DP) on future effective firm value for a large international sample of publicly listed companies. Besides the known share price drop right after dividend announcements, literature provides a solid basis for argumentation towards a positive as well as a negative relationship on a longer horizon, going beyond this initial market reaction. The underlying research is the first to discuss and directly examine this issue, following the valuation model introduced by Fama and French (1998). The statistically significant and robust results show a positive impact of DP towards future firm value on a one- and two-year horizon. This research further accounts for the effect of National Governance (NG), proxied by the World Governance Index, as country level moderator on the main relationship. The interacting effect on the main variables is statistically significant on horizons beyond one year.

We investigate the effect of changing national institutions on relocations of intermediary HQs. Using a dataset of 154 cross-border relocations between the period from 2000 to 2015, we draw on the intermediary HQ's middle position within the MNC and investigate how a decrease in institutional quality in the HQ's host country and a change in institutional distance between different MNC units affect the relocation decision. Our findings advance the emergent literature on HQ relocations as well as our knowledge of intermediary HQs and the effect of changing institutions on organizational location choices. Beyond our theoretical contributions, we offer policy and managerial implications.

Yes / We examine the relationships among religious governance, especially Islamic governance quality (IGQ), national governance quality (NGQ), and risk management and disclosure practices (RDPs), and consequently ascertain whether NGQ has a moderating influence on the IGQ–RDPs nexus. Using one of the largest data sets relating to Islamic banks from 10 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries from 2006 to 2013, our findings are threefold. First, we find that RDPs are higher in banks with higher IGQ. Second, we find that RDPs are higher in banks from countries with higher NGQ. Finally, we find that NGQ has a moderating effect on the IGQ–RDPs nexus. Our findings are robust to alternative RDP measures and estimation techniques. These results imply that the quality of disclosure depends on the nature of the macro-social-level factors, such as religion that have remained largely unexplored in business and society research, and, therefore, have important implications for policy makers.