Attention-Based Constraint to MNC Coevolution in China's Changing Stakeholder Environment

Meng Zhao (), Xufei Ma (), Seung Ho Park () and Lingli Luo ()
Additional contact information
Meng Zhao: Nanyang Technological University
Xufei Ma: Chinese University of Hong Kong
Seung Ho Park: Nanyang Technological University
Lingli Luo: Zhejiang University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2023, vol. 186, issue 4, No 6, 797-814

Abstract: Abstract The coevolution process enables organizations to adapt to and influence their external environment. Multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in dynamic foreign markets use this capability to achieve operational sustainability. MNCs in China operate in a changing stakeholder environment that features rising consumer activism and local stakeholders' persistent ethical problems and encounter recurrent consumer crises. Coevolving with this environment requires MNCs to react to consumer challenges and actively influence the environment by improving stakeholders’ ethical behavior. Based on the attention-based view and bounded rationality studies, we propose that the tension between expansion attention and stakeholder attention hinders MNCs from coevolving with this environment. Our analysis of MNC-linked consumer crises in China reveals that MNCs can reduce the consumer crisis risk by maintaining continuous attention to improving the ethical behavior of local employees, suppliers, and dealers. In contrast, MNCs' rapid local expansion weakens this stakeholder's attention, expanding MNCs' crisis risk. Our findings reveal an attention-based constraint to MNCs' coevolution and inform approaches to overcoming this constraint. This paper also extends international attention studies by affirming the significance of matching the focus of attention with environmental change for MNCs’ operational sustainability in foreign markets.

Keywords: Attention-based view; Coevolution; Consumer crisis; Bounded rationality; Stakeholder management; Multinational corporation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-023-05433-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:186:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-023-05433-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05433-w

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().