How transnational companies behave as political actors when human rights are being violated

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How transnational companies behave as political actors

when human rights are being violated

By Milan Shoukri

Master Dissertation

Course module Rijksuniversiteit Groningen: EBM091A25 Course module Newcastle University Business School: NBS8199

December 2017

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Abstract

This study was conducted to better understand the behaviour that transnational companies portray when they act as political actors. Apple, Shell and Nestlé have been involved in human rights violations, which has been researched through three different case studies. The behaviour that these firms portray during these human rights violations have been examined by looking through three different forms of democracies that companies can adopt to deal with these issues. These forms of democracies are (i) deliberative democracy, (ii) radical democracy, and (iii) liberal democracy. To identify these forms of democracies in the selected cases, nine traits have been purposed to be related to each form of democracy. There are three traits for each democracy, namely: (1) consensus reaching with the parties involved, (2) transparency, (3) procedural fairness, (4) conflict/dissensus orientation, (5) powerplay, (6) direct democracy, (7) self-interested behaviour, (8) maximising profit, and (9) actively separating state and business affairs, respectively. All these traits seem to be present depending on the company and its human rights violations. Moreover, the internal consistency of these traits seems fairly high within each separate form of democracy. In other words, if one radical democratic trait is not (or barely) present, the chances of another radical democratic trait being present is also fairly low. Additionally, there seems to be a direct association between the different forms of democracies. If the traits of radical democracy are highly present, then the likelihood of display of liberal democratic traits also seems to be high (and vice versa). Lastly, if radical and liberal democracy are highly present then the likelihood of deliberative democratic traits to be present seems to decrease when these human rights violations occur. This new framework can offer methodological guidance for future research.

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1. Introduction

During the past decades, firms have started to gain an increasing amount of responsibility for activities which were before solely regarded as governmental activities (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011). Companies are becoming increasingly transnational (i.e. selling or producing goods in several countries) and starting to formulate and implement government-related policies. Meaning that they themselves are starting to develop soft regulations and governance methods on how to conduct business internationally (Scherer, Palazzo & Bauman, 2006). This is due to states being responsible for governing the territory of their own nation, causing certain gaps with regard to governance issues on a global level (e.g. human rights or environmental issues in other countries). Globalisation is therefore weakening the power of the nation-states due to their limited territory and, as a result, creating space for transnational companies (TNCs) to fill in this gap (e.g. TNCs collaborating with other parties to form international auditing methods inside their supply chain) (Matten & Crane, 2005).

These changes have created a shift from neoliberal thought, which has been particularly advocated by Friedman (1970) on how companies should exclusively focus on maximizing firm profits as long as it stays within ‘the rules of the game’. As companies become transnational, however, the rules of the game become different depending on the institutional environment the firms find themselves in (Scherer, Palazzo, Bauman, 2006). As a result, a great deal of literature has emerged (e.g. Wittneben, Okereke, Banerjee & Levy, 2012; Dahan, Doh & Raelin, 2014) to determine how companies should behave responsibly on a global level within different institutional settings, since it is currently still unclear what roles firms should take in this socio-political landscape.

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1997). Although literature is growing with regard to the global infrastructure in CSR (i.e. how to deal with CSR in a globalised society), many of the approaches have been built on the same assumption of an intact nation-state order to provide the legal and moral implications for their analyses (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011).

As a complementary perspective, Political Corporate Social Responsibility (PCSR) has been introduced by Scherer and Palazzo (2007) in order to rethink the debate on how companies should act, specifically in a global setting. PCSR suggests an extended model of governance, whereby firms turn into political actors and contribute to global regulations. These companies should also offer the provision of public goods in cases where public authorities are incapable or reluctant to fulfil this role, which goes beyond the mere view that firms should solely focus on maximizing profit making (Scherer, Rasche, Palazzo & Spicer, 2016).

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Within PCSR many theoretical and normative discussions have taken place (e.g. Ryfe, 2005; Scherer and Palazzo, 2007; Edward & Willmott, 2013). However, there are relatively few empirical studies that focus on the behaviour of TNCs when they act as political actors (Giuliana & Macchi, 2013). The purpose of this study is therefore to increase our knowledge within this domain. This paper examines how TNCs behave when they act as political actors in a globalised society and in particular how they deal with human rights violations, as evidence suggests that the human rights violations by corporations are rising and more attention should be given towards this specific problem (e.g. Panda, 2013). Examining and defining certain behavioural traits of these TNCs improves our understanding of what is currently taking place in society and gives the possibility to observe the consequences of their actions based on the behaviour these companies display. This also allows future studies to better understand what approach(es) are appropriate in practice and which direction(s) could be taken in order to dissolve this gap in global governance. The above-mentioned aspects thus lead to the following research question:

What traits do TNCs show when they behave as political actors when human rights are being violated?

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2. Literature review

The first section in the literature review will discuss the relationship between CSR and PCSR. Section 2.2 will provide background information on firms as political actors. Section 2.3 discusses three different types of democracies firms can adopt while behaving as political actors and discusses each type of democracy. Lastly, in section 2.4, the limitations of the current literature are given and how this research will contribute to current research.

2.1 The relationship between CSR and PCSR

According to Dahlsrud (2008) there are 37 different ways the literature defines CSR, which suggests that there is currently no agreed-upon description of what it actually entails. Nevertheless, what is clear is that companies are expected to do more than solely focus on maximizing shareholder’s profit (Hay, Stavins & Vietor, 2005). For this study, a broader accepted definition of McWilliams and Siegel (2001) is used which defines CSR as actions of companies that further the social welfare, which go beyond the immediate interest of an organization and that what is required by the law. What makes PCSR distinctive in this regard is its aim to facilitate a political role that firms need to incorporate due to the increasing gap in global governance, which has been underemphasized within the CSR literature (Scherer & Palazzo, 2007). The following definition is therefore introduced by Scherer et al. (p. 276, 2016) in order to describe what exactly is meant by PCSR and the political behaviour of TNCs:

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different areas of governance, such as public health, education, public infrastructure, the enforcement of social and environmental standards along supply chains or the fight against global warming, corruption, discrimination or inequality.”

This research focusses specifically on the political activities of TNCs when human rights violations have been detected inside of the company or its supply chain. This is to examine the different approaches that the companies could take to deal with these issues when public authorities fail to do so.

2.2 Firms as political actors

History has shown that politics and business has been a blurry shifting line in the last few centuries and that firms did have a political role for a very long time. It also shows that the nature and extent of this political role changed in history through shifts in dominant ideologies. The debate on when social responsibilities of businesses should end and when governments should take this responsibility even goes back to the 18th century opposition between Mercantilism and Liberalism (Djelic & Etchanchu, 2015). Nowadays, famous claims such as that from Friedman (1970) of firms to only focus on maximizing profits to its shareholders have been heavily engrained in the mind-set of businesses and people. This has become one of the leading views, which even suggests an axiomatic separation between state and business responsibilities (Djelic & Etchanchu, 2015).

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Forest Steward Council (FSC), a non-profit organization, as an illustrative example of how companies can solve problems by engaging in political discourses through deliberative conversations. These deliberative debates have also been suggested as an effective way to resolve urban-planning issues, as it can allow for a fair and effective procedure for addressing some of the issues surrounding policy proposals designed to counteract urban sprawl. Further research and application of the use of deliberative democracy in business has therefore been recommended to better understand its usefulness in practice (Resnik, 2010).

This approach has, however, been criticised on the fact that when looking solely through the lens of deliberative democracy it inclines to have a tendency to obscure, marginalize, and silence indigenous dissent and differences between parties (Edward & Willmott, 2013). Moreover, Rhodes (2016) recently examined the Volkswagen emission scandal as an illustrative example, showing that despite that firms still having self-interested motivations, (e.g. by solely caring about maximizing profits), the agonistic nature of political discourses has allowed to challenge this behaviour and allowed for appropriate changes to be made through democratic means. The Volkswagen scandal illustrated that being involved in a scandal may not be a barrier and can even enable self-interested behaviour through well-orchestrated and large-scale of conspiracies, which involves lying, cheating and fraud. Nevertheless, it also showed that institutions and people can effectively resists against such corporate misbehaviour through pressure and dissent. This suggests that reaching consensus and focusing solely on rational conversation might not always be the best (democratic) approach to make progress, which makes it unclear what the best approach(es) should be for firms to act as political actors to help fill in this gap of global governance.

2.3 Forms of democracies within PCSR

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more suitable grounding for the conversations within CSR that need to take place in a post-national constellation (i.e. a globalized world). CSR previously has mostly been approached from a liberal democratic point of view, which is developed under a nation state that divides labour between civil society, business, and governments (Wittneben et al. 2012). Firms within the liberal framework are seen as private and not political actors. Governments are periodically elected through democratic means, however, managers within firms are not and the political framework to allow companies to participate in global public policy through democratic channels is thus insufficient (Scherer et al. 2016).

The deliberative theory of democracy is therefore being proposed to be more suitable in dealing with the post-national constellation and tackle this democratic deficit through deliberation and consensus (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011). There has however, as mentioned in section 2.2, been wide scepticism of this approach whereby radical democracy has been proposed as an alternative. Instead of consensus reaching, radical democracy values differences in opinion and dissent and believes that this would be best to deal with these issues (Edward & Willmott, 2013).

Deliberative and radical democracy offer an approach for corporations on how to actively take part in the political discourse and many scholars have focussed on further developing these concepts. However, little attention has been given on the practical utility and application of these theories (e.g. Hansen 2008) and it remains unclear how companies behave in practice when they act as political actors. Several case-studies have been conducted observing TNCs behaviour as political actors, nevertheless, the way these studies were conducted provide limited results (see section 2.5).

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these firms still behave mainly to maximize their profits during these political discourses (i.e. through liberal-democratic principles), in order to offer a more complete view of the behaviour of these political actors. These forms of democracies will be further discussed in the next sections.

2.3.1 Deliberative democracy

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TNCs responsibility efforts were so far excluded within deliberative democracy and it has been unclear how these firms could be aligned with democratic accountability. This changed when Scherer & Palazzo (2007) developed a model of how firms could act as political actors. This allows corporations to take part in environmental and social challenges like global warming, deforestation and human rights (Scherer et al. 2009). This concern for the public good goes beyond merely maximizing economic interests (Scherer et al. 2016). Signs of this behaviour can be found when companies engage in multistakeholder initiatives (MSIs) or take part in stakeholder forums such as the FSC, the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) or the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Initiatives like these provide examples of how communication between civil society and business can take place and develop into the terrain of deliberative democratic governance structures (Baur & Arenas, 2012). These initiatives, nevertheless, are different then traditional stakeholder management initiatives where corporations take the leading role in establishing the relationship with their stakeholders by weighting, assessing and addressing their interests. This new form of governance aims to bring a diverse set of corporate and non-corporate stakeholders together to define soft regulations and co-existing goals (Moog, Spicer & Böhm, 2013).

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scholars called for thinking beyond the current existing paradigms of deliberative democracy and democratic institutions (Jhagroe & Loorbach, 2014).

2.3.2 Radical democracy

Solely focussing on trying to reach consensus with other parties can be detrimental according to radical democrats, since it allows to bury differences while simultaneously privileging the powerful. Dissensus is not seen as negative in this view, but a productive way to exercise democracy (Rhodes, 2016). The ‘other’ is not an enemy that needs to be dissolved but someone whose ideas you are going to struggle with and has the right to defend them, which nature is distinctive from the liberal notion of a ‘competitor’. The agonistic element is therefore crucial in this regard. Furthermore, radical democracy suggests that meaning and implementation could not be resolved through a deliberative discourse. A radical change is needed in the political identity, and these changes have more in common with a conversion than that of a rational persuasion (i.e. a paradigmatic shift in being) (Mouffe, 1999). It is therefore suggested to base this radical discourse on Laclau and Mouffe’s social theory of hegemony (STH) (Hansen, 2008; Edward & Willmott, 2013) as an alternative approach for Scherer & Palazzo’s model, which places one’s attention to difference rather than consensus as the focal point of politicization to further inform our understanding of PCSR (Edward & Willmott, 2013).

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and can even product new antagonistic elements. A crucial element of post-foundational democracy of Laclau and Mouffe’s STH is that it accepts antagonism and its disruptive force (Moog, Spicer & Böhm, 2013). Furthermore, besides the consensus bias that can occur, a control bias can also take place by combining the opinion of the masses and therefore marginalizing and excluding opinions of some groups (e.g. people without a right to vote, illegal immigrants, animals) (Schultz, Castelló, Morsing, 2013). It is therefore argued that deliberative democracy does not possess a ‘true’ democratic foundation for its decision making.

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by the established structures of the ‘elites’ and of established institutions (Bevir, 2006). Traits of radical democracy are therefore its (1) conflict/dissensus orientation, (2) its tendency to create a powerplay between the parties involved (Edward & Willmott, 2008), and the possibility to allow for (3) direct democracy (i.e. firms directly engaging with civil society) (Rhodes, 2016).

2.3.3 Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy is currently present in the most powerful and influential nations (e.g. United States, France, Japan and South Korea). People within these countries have the opportunity to express their political opinions in any media outlet and the freedom to form and participate in political groups (Bollen, 1993). When it comes to business, however, these expressions of ethics and justice become subordinate to the value of maximizing shareholder growth and business performance (Rhodes, 2016). For decades it has been ingrained in the mind-set of these societies that firms should solely focus on maximizing shareholder value, while governments should aim to solve social responsibility and environmental issues (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011). Liberal democratic values, by which corporations are seen as private actors, are therefore present in most countries (Edward & Willmott 2013). As a result, if companies take part in these political discourses it will most likely only be used as an instrument to maximize their firm performance and not for any altruistic motivations (Callanan, 2015; Donaldson, 2010).

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summarized as the following: (1) business executives are (or should be) responsible of their businesses, (2) if you run a non-profit organization or a privately held firm, one can have responsibilities other than profit making, (3) the only interests that shareholder should have in common is to maximize their profits, (4) company owners of publicly held firms should have an obligation to maximize their profits while complying with ‘the rules of the game’, (5) executives commitment to social responsibility other than providing monetary returns is seen as ‘extra’ and spending money that is not theirs (i.e. money spend that could increase prices for consumers or lower wages for employees), (6) company executives do not necessarily possess the expertise to implement social related tasks and these actions can be detrimental, since shareholders could fire executives for ‘unnecessarily’ spending company resources, (7) company executives can spend resources on projects that could increase profits within the organization. It, nevertheless, would be hypocrite to classify this as being ‘socially responsible’. In short, the only social responsibility firms should have is to increase their profits while engaging in open and free competition without any deception or fraud.

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Deliberative democracy Radical democracy Liberal Democracy

Discipline PCSR PCSR CSR

Main political actors State, civil society, MSIs,

NGOs, and corporations

State, civil society, NGOs, and corporations

State

Separation of political

and economic sphere Low Low High

Global political discourses Through deliberation/consensus Through conflict/dissensus - Philosophical underpinnings

Habermas Laclau & Mouffe Friedman (and others)

Table 1. Differences in the forms of democracies

2.3 Limitations of current research

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studies will be conducted in order to increase the robustness of the results and strengthen the external validity (Yin, 2009, p. 214). Also, by contrasting the case study results with one another allows for additional depth to understand how companies behave as political actors, and allows to help recognize the limitations and strength of each theory in comparison to one another.

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3. Methodology

The first section in this chapter discusses which research paradigm has been adopted for this study. In section 3.2 and explanation is given which research strategy has been used. After that, in section 3.3, the research design of this study will be explained, which includes the case study design, the choices of the cases, how the data is being collected and how the data will be analysed. Lastly, in section 3.4 an explanation is given how each individual trait will be examined for the selected cases.

3.1 Research Paradigm

This research has been conducted through a post-positivist philosophical lens. Post-positivists emphasize the importance of using multiple sources for their observations. Each of them may possess different types of errors and it is therefore argued to use triangulation methods allowing to better understand what is happening in reality to minimize errors (Decrop, 1999). This approach is often used for case studies (Welch et al. 2011) to form social constructions that can examine shared patterns of (predictable) behaviour amenable to scientific inquiry (Decrop, 1999). An understanding of the (social) behaviour of TNCs and the discourses and interactions that are taking place with its related parties is examined in this study. The post-positivist research paradigm will therefore be the theoretical framework for this research.

3.2 Research Strategy

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setting (Benbasat, Goldstein & Mead, 1987), which, as mentioned before, is the adoption of liberal, deliberative and radical democracy practices of firms when they behave as political actors. Other sources of qualitative data (e.g. observation, personal interviews or questionnaires) do not provide the right tools to answer the research questions or are too time-consuming and expensive to conduct for this study, which have therefore not been included for this research.

3.3 Research Design 3.3.1 Case study design

A holistic (single-unit of analysis) and multiple case study analysis (consisting of three cases) has been conducted. As mentioned in section 2.3, multiple case studies can allow for more robust findings and increase external validity (Yin, 2009, p. 205 - 206). Also, multiple-case studies allow for a more convincing analysis, as the suggestions are more grounded in several empirical observations and offer the possibility for a wider exploration of research questions (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007), while a single-case study is more vulnerable as you will have to rely your analysis solely on one case (Yin, 2009, p. 214). Lastly, a holistic approach has been adopted as only one unit of analysis (TNCs) has been examined.

3.3.2 Choices of the selected cases

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inadequacies (Deva, 2003). Evidence also suggests that the human rights violations by corporations are rising and more attention should be given towards this problem (Panda, 2013). Additionally, there are few researches that have focussed on studying human rights violations by TNCs and there is, relatively speaking, little understanding how to best solve these issues at hand (Humphreys, 2015). Although progress has been made by developments such as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human rights there, nevertheless, needs to be done more in business to better understand and solve human rights violations (Ruggie, 2014). Three TNCs human rights violation cases have therefore been investigated in this study. Although there are many issues that can be examined and discussed, for practical reasons this study has focus solely on the human right violations of TNCs and the way they behave and actively try to deal with these violations.

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looking if there are at least several reports and studies available about the human rights violations on each of the cases and also if the cases meet the criteria mentioned above. Paragraph 3.3.3 and Appendix A provides further information about the sources being used. Based on the above mentioned factors, the following cases have been selected for this study: (1) Shell’s human right violations in Nigeria (Bowcott, 2014), (2) Nestlé’s human right violations in Thailand’s fishing industry (The Guardian, 2015) and (3) Apple’s human right violations in China (BBC, 2014).

3.3.3 Data collection

There are six sources of evidence that can be used to collect data: (a) documentation, (b) archival records, (c) interviews, (d) direct observations, (e) participant-observation, and (f) physical artefacts (Verner, Sampson, Tosic, Bakar, & Kitchenham, 2009). Documentation has mostly been used by, for example, examining news articles, reports, company statements, and secondary interviews. This approach offered a broad coverage of the findings, however, data access might be limited in some cases and (reporting) bias may occur during the selection of the data. (Yin, 2009, p. 327 – 330). To help deal with these problems and increase the construct validity and reliability of the results, three principles of data collection have been used.

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NGOs Media Company

Apple 6 10 4

Shell 10 5 3

Nestlé 7 5 4

Total 23 20* 11

Table 2. Distribution of the sources

* The media and company sources overlap, since company opinions/statements are also given through media sources (e.g. statements, emails, interviews etc.)

Creating a case study database: A database has been created on a free cloud storage service (Dropbox), which will be saved for at least two years, and all the different findings (e.g. documents and notes) have been classified into different categories within this database. As a backup, the database will also be saved on an USB (Yin, 2009, p. 380 – 382).

Maintaining a chain of evidence: To increase the reliability and construct validity further, a chain of evidence has been maintained, which is similar to what is being done at forensic investigations. This way, steps can be traced back by an external observer starting from the initial research questions to the conclusions of the study (and vice versa). All evidence has been saved in the database to retrieve and, as with a criminal investigation, this evidence will be strong enough to present in ‘court’ and match what was collected at the ‘crime scene’ (Yin, 2009, p. 391 – 392). Clear titles have been used that match with what is written, sufficient citations have been made to the relevant portions, together with its date of use and labels of where this information has been applied.

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to gather information about the companies. Moreover, (1) reports directly from the organization, (2) interviews, speeches or statements about the human right violations by certain (ex)staff members of the firm, (3) reputable newspapers (e.g. New York Times), and (4) non-governmental organizations (e.g. Amnesty International) have also be used to come to a firm conclusion about these events.

3.3.4 Data analysis

A pattern-matching logic will be employed as an analytical technique for this research. This technique will compare an empirical based pattern with a predicted one (or several alternative predictions). In this case, the prediction that certain traits match with the results of the case study, such as the trait ‘self-interested behaviour’ matching with the behaviour based in the selected cases when these human rights violations occur. This approach will also strengthen the internal validity if the patterns coincide (Yin, 2009, p. 439 - 442). However, how these patterns are matched should not be seen as a form of measurement, but as a way of examining which traits are mostly present or dominant in these case studies. This does not mean that if a trait is not present the company does not have these traits ingrained in them, but that during these human rights violations these traits seem not (or less) to be present. The aim therefore is to illustrate different approaches for PCSR engagement based on the traits these companies portray and which of these traits are predominant over another in their political discourse.

3.3.5 Traits

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examined in chapter 4, there will be determined to what extent each trait is present within each case study. Each case will go through all traits mentioned in the criteria list in appendix B. Based on the behavioural characteristics of each company a decision is being made if there is a high, medium or low presence of this specific trait. As explained in paragraph 3.3.4, differentiating between these is based on what type of behaviour these companies lean toward and should not be seen as a (quantifiable) measurement of a form of democracy or trait. The more behavioural traits a company exhibits of a particular form of democracy, the higher the ‘center of gravity’ will be towards this specific form of democracy or trait. Lastly, the degree on how present these traits are is decided on the overall period of examination of the selected cases. Information will be provided for each case on the duration of studied cases.

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Deliberative democracy

Trait 1 – Consensus reaching with the parties involved

This first traits regards whether TNCs take initiative to try solve the human rights violations through rational discourse in association with several other parties, such as MSIs and NGOs.

Trait 2 – Transparency

The second trait, transparency, examines if the TNCs are open about the human right violations that occurred (e.g. by giving statements about the issues and reconfirming it) and if they are transparent about their approaches to solve these issues at hand (e.g. by publishing clear reports with their goals and motives for the future).

Trait 3 – Procedural fairness

The third trait, procedural fairness, examines if the TNCs provide systems for procedural fairness to solve the human right violations (e.g. by providing audits of their progress or setting up (new) clear rules of governance).

Radical democracy

Trait 4 – Conflict/dissensus orientation

Trat 4 will investigate if there are signs showing that the TNCs are using conflict to solve the human rights violations (e.g. by filing lawsuits or publishing statements of disagreement).

Trait 5 – Powerplay

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Trait 6 – Direct democracy

Trait 6, direct democracy, examines if the company is dealing and communicating with civil society groups that use direct methods of democracy (e.g. people protesting in front of their building).

Liberal Democracy

Trait 7 – Self-interested behaviour

Trait 7 examines if TNCs show signs of self-interested behaviour when the human rights violations occur (e.g. manipulating information for their own gain).

Trait 8 – Maximizing profit

Trait 8, maximizing profit, will look at if TNCs are solely focusing on maximizing profit making (e.g. lack of altruistic behaviour, no compensation for the victims, no donations offered).

Trait 9 – Actively separating state and business affairs

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In order to answer the main research question ‘What traits do TNCs show when they behave as political actors when human rights are being violated?’ the following sub questions have been formulated and will be explored in the next chapter:

1) How are the interactions taking place between the selected companies and their stakeholders?

2) What traits are present within each company when they behave as a political actor?

Figure 1 will illustrate how this analysis will take place.

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4. Analysis

In section 4.1 a description is given on all three cases, explaining how the interactions are taking place between the selected companies and their stakeholder. Section 4.2 will examine which traits are present in each of the selected cases. Thereafter, in section 4.3, a single-case analysis will be provided and lastly, section 4.4, will provide a cross-case analysis.

4.1 Case description

A case description of Apple’s human rights violation in China will be discussed first. Thereafter, Shell’s human rights violations in Nigeria will be investigated and Nestlé’s human rights violations in Thailand will be reviewed in the last paragraph.

4.1.1 Case one – Apple’s human rights violations in China (2009 – present)

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Apple: work hours are limited to 60 hours.

CLW: workers spend approximately 66 – 69 hours at the Pegatron. Apple: overtime must be voluntary.

CLW: All Pegatron factories demand workers to work overtime.

Apple: No child labour is allowed and young workers get special treatment.

CLW: Many workers <18 worked the same long hours with the same conditions as the adults.

Apple: Harassment is not allowed and the managers are trained to insure the rights of the workers.

CLW: Managers harass an abuse their workers by swearing and by threatening for collective punishments.

Apple: The suppliers have to provide proper gear and protection and have to train their employees accordingly.

CLW: The training was minimal and many workers in the factory were not wearing masks, even though the employees are working with harmful chemicals.

Apple: environmental violations are not allowed.

CLW: Industrial wastewater is poured into the sewage system.

Apple: We do not tolerate environmental violations.

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It is also suggested by other NGOs, such as the Economic Policy Institute, to treat the information of Apple’s suppliers reports cautiously. Since (1) the audits are not executed in an independent manner, (2) transparency and details are lacking (e.g. data is mostly presented in an aggregate form without any explanation how it is constructed), and (3) the results seem not always to match what is happening in practice when independent investigations have been conducted. Also, many rhetorical statements are being made that are self-serving and factual inaccurate. For instance, the company stated that if firms want to do business with Apple, they need to behave ethically and fair at all times. Nevertheless, Foxconn the largest supplier of Apple has, even by Apple’s own acknowledgement, engaged in several human rights violations in the last years (Economic Policy Institute, 2013). BBC also did an undercover investigation which showed that many of Apple’s promises were routinely broken (BBC, 2014). Additionally, CLW and Green America suggested that Catcher Technology, a company that facilitates the manufacturing of metal iPad covers, to have many serious health and safety, environmental and human rights issues (CNET, 2014).

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participate more to improve the live of workers around the world (Amnesty International, 2015). Moreover, Apple’s CEO also became a board member of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Initiative (Business Insider, 2016) and keeps regularly updating its statements on efforts on how to combat human trafficking and slavery in their business and supply chains (Apple, 2017). Although Apple received a lot of criticism in the past, according to their annual yearly reports the conditions started to improve in many directions (e.g. in safety and amount of over hours worked), which can also be tracked in their yearly annual reports (China Labor Watch, 2016). The company has also recently been praised by groups such as Greenpeace for its annual reports and increase in transparency (Business Insider, 2017). The senior director of Apple’s supply chain has also claimed that 2016 was the best year for the company in terms of improving its supply chain (China Labor Watch, 2016).

4.1.2 Case two – Shell’s human rights violations in Nigeria (1996 – present)

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meetings discussing human rights incidents, and more. This, nevertheless, contradicts with the actions that they are taking in practice. They also settled with the London High Court to avoid going to court, by paying £55 million, by which 35 million will go directly to the individuals that have been affected and the rest towards the Bodo community in Nigeria (The Guardian, 2015). Nevertheless, in the human rights section of their annual report of 2016 the company claims it respects human rights and that it is one of their main business principles in their Code of Conduct. Their approach, according to them, align with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the core conventions of the International Labour Organization and the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’. The company also has a Corporate and Social Responsibility Committee (CSRC) on their board to review policy and performance (Shell, n.d.). They have also been working with institutions such as The Danish Institute for Human Rights since 1999 to implement respect for human rights across four areas, namely: (1) employee relations, (2) procurement, (3) community impact and (4) security (The Danish Institute for Human Rights, 2017). However, this year Shell’s US law firm has refused to hand over more than 100.000 internal documents that are crucial for the legal investigation in the Netherlands, which is alleging Shell’s compliance in the unlawful arrest, detention and execution of nine men in Nigeria in the 1990’s. Amnesty International commented that: “Having reviewed the available evidence we believe that Shell was complicit in putting the Ogoni Nine at the mercy of a government it knew to be a serial human rights abuser. Given the seriousness of the allegations, it is vital that Shell releases the rest of the information.” (Amnesty International, 2017). Their statements and efforts again appear to be inconsistent with their performance.

4.1.3 Case three – Nestlé’s human rights violations in Thailand (2012 – present)

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claimed to be a double standard and raised questions on the true motivations of the company (Counter Human Trafficking Compliance Solutions, 2016), especially since Nestlé is already being sued again for slave labour association with Thai Union Frozen Products (CBC, 2015). There is also doubt that the examples of self-reporting needs people to trust and have faith in these companies in the future on how well they could actually apply these techniques. Outside pressure is therefore also seen as valuable to make sure these companies are held accountable (School of Global Policy and Strategy, 2016). Nevertheless, although one can doubt the intent of Nestlé this is seen as step forward when it comes to increasing transparency to solve these issues (Counter Human Trafficking Compliance Solutions, 2016).

4.2 Case analysis

An analysis is being conducted to determine which traits are present and to what extent they are present for each individual case. The following section will provide an overview of the behavioural traits of the companies and gives examples on the type of behaviour these firms have portrayed during the period of examination.

4.2.2 Traits of Shell (1996 – present)

Company Trait Example of behavior Timeline

Apple (2009 – present)

1 Willing to work with several parties to reach common goals. ± 2015 – present 2 Behaving more transparent with reporting and collaboration efforts with other

parties. ± 2015 – present

3 To some degree, developing procedures and strategies by forming methods to

audit suppliers. ± 2011– 2012

3 New initiatives of independent auditing (and other solutions) were set up to

handle human rights issues. ± 2015 – present 4 Conflicts with media centers such as BCC for their undercover investigation. ± 2014

5 Publicly denying results such as that of BCC and claiming they are inaccurate. ± 2014 6 Civil society (e.g. sociologists) confronting Apple and starting to take actions to

keep Apple accountable. ± 2011 – 2013

7 Claiming to have contacted affected employees for compensation. These claims

have been found to be inaccurate. ± 2010 – 2011 7 Report statements of Apple have been contrasted with independent investigations

and suggest to be either false or inaccurate. ± 2013 - 2014 8 Prioritizing monetary value above human right victim compensation or help (e.g.

long working hours and low wages). ± 2009 – 2014 9 No active initiatives taken to solve the human rights issue. There were no (or

barely) any actions taken on the human rights violation (e.g. for the suicides and

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Shell (1996 – present)

4 Showing disagreements with claims that were being made about the human rights violations that they were involved in. There were many disagreements with several findings by NGOs that investigated Shell’s responsibility in the Niger Delta.

± 1996 – present 4 Being part of a lawsuit and also showing disagreement during these lawsuits. ± 1996 – present 5 Using their power several times to avoid lawsuits. ± 1996 – present 5 Refusing to publish their 100.000 internal documents, which provide critical

information for an internal investigation. ± 2009 – present 6 NGOs investigated Shell’s responsibility in the Niger Delta showing their lack of

progress. Amnesty International investigated the cause, suggesting that Shell was complicit in human rights abuses and that Shell should release information (100.000 internal documents) to the public.

± 2016 7 Reports of progress were published claiming to improve communities and supply

chains, which are inconsistent with their actions, showing signs of information

manipulation. ± 2013 – 2015

8 Lack of altruistic behaviour, since there were no compensation for the victims

and no donations offered when these human rights violations occurred. ± 1996 – present 9 Passive behaviour dealing with these human rights violations. Making things

worse in parts of the Niger Delta and not taking active responsibility for their actions.

± 1996 – present

Nestlé (2012 – present)

1 Collaborating with the Danish Institution of human rights. ± 2010 – present 1 Communicating with organizations such as the FLA to finds solutions for the

human rights issues. ± 2012

1 Communicating with Amnesty International after their publication of their report

and with other parties such as Verité. ± 2015 – 2016 2 Exposing themselves that human rights violations occur in their supply chain. ± 2015 2 Being transparent about their mistakes with Amnesty International and other

parties. 2016

3 Forming and improving their Human Rights Due Diligence Programme. ± 2012 – present 3 Setting up procedures with organizations (e.g. the FLA and Verité) to improve

the working conditions in their supply chain. ± 2012 – present 3 Banning transshipment. ± 2017 – present 6 Civil society organizations (e.g. Blue Plant Project or the Food & Water Watch)

confronting Nestlé and claiming that their human right assessment are full of

holes). ± 2013

7 Reports claim that Nestlé selectively examens and governs their corporate

practice (i.e. not collectively adressing all of their policies). ± 2015 8 Reports claim Nestlé's behaviour to be a double standard, since they are being

sued (again) for slave labour association with Thai Union Frozen Products. Suggesting that their human rights violations are not a top priority in other parts of their supply chain.

± 2016

Table 3. Behavioural traits of the companies with regard to the human right violations of the organizations

4.2.4 Traits of all three companies

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Deliberative democracy Radical democracy Liberal democracy Company Level of

display

Trait 1 Trait 2 Trait 3 Trait 4 Trait 5 Trait 6 Trait 7 Trait 8 Trait 9

Apple High _x _x Medium _x _x** _x** _xx** _xx** Low _x* _x* Shell High _x _x _x _x _x _x Medium Low _*** _*** _*** Nestlé High _x _x Medium _x** _x _x** Low _*** _*** _x _***

Table 4 Placing the behavioural of the TNCs in the different forms of democracies.

* This trait has been placed in the low category but is very close to medium category ** This trait has been placed in the medium category but very is close to the high category

*** There is no indication that this trait is present

4.3 Single-case analysis

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and still holds liberal democratic values highly on how to conduct their business operations when these human rights violations occur. Apple, on the other hand, leans towards a radical democratic approach and liberal democratic values also seem to be fairly present. Nevertheless, it is less present here, which also shows that a deliberative democratic approach is starting to be used in the most recent years (see the timeline of Apple in table 3). Nestlé appears to solve its human rights violations in Thailand mainly through a deliberative approach and shows that liberal democratic values are relatively less present when they are solving these human rights violations.

4.4 Cross-case analysis

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democratic methods were not being applied then perhaps no progress or even worse results could also be possible.

5. Discussion

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6. Conclusion

To answer the central research question, the following traits have been discussed on how companies can act as political actors to solve their human rights issues: (1) consensus reaching with the parties involved, (2) transparency, (3) procedural fairness, (4) conflict/dissensus orientation, (5) powerplay, (6) direct democracy, (7) self-interested behaviour, (8) maximising profit, (9) actively separating state and business affairs. All these traits seem to be available depending on the company itself and its human rights violations. Moreover, these traits seem to be fairly consistent in each form of democracy. In other words, if one radical democratic trait is not (or barely) present, the chances of another radical democratic trait being present is also fairly low. Additionally, there seems to be a direct association between the different forms of democracies. If the traits of radical democracy are highly present, then the likelihood of liberal democratic traits being present seems also to be high (and vice versa). Lastly, if radical and liberal democracy are highly present then the likelihood of deliberative democratic traits to be present seems to decrease when these human rights violations occur.

7. Limitations and Recommendations

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Appendix A – Overview and selection of the sources

Apple

Category and Sources

Content

Year

NGO 1 – Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour

Critiquing Foxconn and Apple business process 2011

NGO 2 – Fair Labor Association

Highlights of an independent investigation report of Apple Supplier, Foxconn

2012 NGO 3 – Economic policy

institute Critique on Apple’s self-reports about their human rights practices 2013 NGO 4 – China Labour

Watch

Critiques on Apple’s business process 2014 NGO 5 – Amnesty

International

Apple’s response letter towards Amnesty International

2015 NGO 6 – China Labour

Watch

Report on Apple’s human rights abuses 2016

Media 1 – The Guardian Critiques on Apple’s business process 2011 Media 2 – Independent Announcing Apple’s acknowledgement, it has a

human rights problem

2012

Media 3 – The Guardian Critiques on Apple’s business process 2012 Media 4 – The New York

Times Critiques on Apple’s business process 2012

Media 5 – Independent Exposing Apple’s child labour practices 2013 Media 6 – BBC Undercover BBC Panorama investigation of Chinese

factories that make Apple products

2014 Media 7 – CNET CNET published response of China Labor Watch

and Green America about Apple’s labour practices

2014 Media 8 – The Verge Apple’s reaction towards BBC’s documentary 2014 Media 9 – Business Insider Announcing CEO Tim Cook joining the board of

human rights group 2016

Media 10 – Business

Insider Suggesting Apple’s progress in the last years 2017 Apple 2 Fair Labor Association inspecting Foxconn (press

release)

2012

Apple 3 Apple’s 2017 progress report 2017

Apple 4 Statement of Apple on their efforts to combat human trafficking and slavery in their business and supply chains

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Shell

Category and Sources

Content

Year

NGO 1 – Amnesty International

Amnesty International report exposing human rights abuses by Shell and other oil companies

2009 NGO 2 – Center for

Constitutional Rights

Critiquing Shell’s practices 2009

NGO 3 – Platform A report about the human rights abuses in the Niger Delta

2011 NGO 4 – Platform Revelations on how Shell is financially linked to

human rights abusers in Nigeria

2012 NGO 5 – Amnesty

International Oil Spill investigations in the Niger Delta 2013

NGO 6 - Platform Oil spill report 2013

NGO 7 – WAC Global A conflict expert group report on the peace and

security in the Niger Delta 2013

Amnesty International claiming Shell’s statements were falls concerning their oil spill response in the Niger Delta

2015

USA: Shell’s law firm refuses to hand over evidence critical for Ogoni Nine case

2017 NGO 10 – The Danish

Institute of Human Rights

Shell’s partnership information n.d.

Media 1 – Financial Times Disclosing how Shell is using Nigerian companies that are linked to local rebels

2006 Media 2 – Independent Announcement of Shell’s settlement of their

Nigerian human rights abuses lawsuit for $15.5 million

Media 3 – The Guardian Announcing accusations on Shell how it is paying rival militant gangs

2011 Media 4 – Reuters Dutch court announcing Shell being responsible for

Nigeria spills

2013 Media 5 – The Guardian Announcement on Shell’s £55 million pay-out for

their Nigeria oil spills

2015

Shell 1 Principle on security and human rights 2016

Shell 2 Shell’s human right statements and approaches n.d.

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Nestlé

Category and Sources

Content

Year

NGO 1 – Public Services International

Organisations denounce Nestlé’s new human rights impact assessment

2013

NGO 2 – Chartered

Institute of Procurement & Supply

Slavery case study: Nestlé exposing forced labour in its Thai supply chains

2016

NGO 3 – Counter Human Trafficking Compliance Solutions

Discussing and critiquing Nestlé’s human rights solutions

2016

NGO 4 – School of Global

Policy and Strategy Examining the Supply Chain of Nestle’s Seafood Sourcing in Thailand and Critiquing its Labour Practices

2016

NGO 5 – Greenpeace announcing how Nestlé (and Mars) are stepping up to protect the ocean and their workers

2017 NGO 6 – The Danish

Institute for Human Rights Nestlé partnership information n.d. NGO 7 – Fair Labour

Association

Nestlé’s commitments on fair labour n.d.

Media 1 – Business Insider Reporting Nestlé’s abuse in its supply chain 2015 Media 2 – CBS News Announcing Nestlé confession in admitting that

slavery and coercion is used in catching its seafood

2015 Media 3 – PR Week Public Relation experts praising 'proactive' Nestlé

announcement on human rights abuses

2015 Media 4 – The New York

Times

Public Relation experts praising 'proactive' Nestlé announcement on human rights abuses

2015 Media 5 – The Guardian Discussing Nestlé’s child labour lawsuit in the Ivory

Coast

2016

Nestlé 1 Executive Vice President writing an open letter to Amnesty International about their commitment to solve their human rights issues

2016

Nestlé 2 Modern slavery and human trafficking report 2016 Nestlé 3 Disclosing its approach in human rights

improvements n.d.

Nestlé 4 Amnesty International report on labour abuses in palm oil

n.d.

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Appendix B – Criteria of the traits of the three forms of democracies

Trait 1 Consensus reaching with the parties involved

High The company shows initiative and reaches out to other parties (e.g. NGOs, MSIs) to solve their human rights issues.

The company aims to reach consensus (e.g. trying to have an open discussion) with the parties involved to solve the human rights issues.

Medium The company works with other parties (e.g. NGOs, MSIs) to solve their human rights issues. The company shows signs that they want to solve their issues together with other parties through open dialogue (e.g. in their statements or reports).

Low The company behaves passively when it comes to working with other parties (i.e. not (really) taking part in the discourse to solve the human right issues).

There is barely any evidence of the company showing that it wants to reach consensus or to provide a solution with other parties.

Trait 2 Transparency

High The company is transparent about their approaches to solve the human rights issues (e.g. by publishing clear reports).

The company is willing to share company information with other parties (e.g. MSIs or during a lawsuit) to help solve their human rights issues.

Medium The company is, to some degree, transparent but the information provided is not fully transparent (e.g. by providing aggregated results).

The company is willing to share information, but provides rather superficial information (i.e. not providing clear explanations for other parties).

Low Company does barely provide any information.

Company is barely willing to share information with other parties.

Trait 3 Procedural fairness

High The company provides extensive (independent) audits.

The company provides fair and extensive rules of governance on how to handle human rights violations.

Medium The company provides audits occasionally.

The company provides some basic rules of governance. Low The company does barely provide any audits.

The rules of governance the company provides are inconsistent or have not been applied thoroughly.

Trait 4 Conflict / dissensus orientation

High The company is actively sabotaging the process (e.g. by filing lawsuits) for parties trying to participate in the conversation of these human rights violations.

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Medium The company is colliding with other parties trying to participate in the conversations of these human rights violations.

The company shows signs of disagreement with other parties but still participates in the conversation to solve their issues.

Low The company shows barely any signs of having any conflict with its related parties.

The company shows barely any signs of disagreement and mostly tries to reach consensus with its related parties.

Trait 5 Powerplay

High There is a high power dynamic where the company tries to exclude other parties (e.g. NGOs) from the conversation.

The company tries to dominate or influence other parties that want to take part in the conversation.

Medium The company is trying to influence other parties but is, to some degree, open for opinions of others.

The company tries to use its power to some degree to gets its way.

Low The company shows barely any signs of using its powers on others to influence results. The company does almost not try to exclude or outcast any parties with its power.

Trait 6 Direct democracy

High The company receives a lot of attention by several civil society groups to act on their human rights violations (e.g. several public media reports).

The company is being held accountable by several civil society groups for their human rights violations (e.g. through lawsuits).

Medium The company receives some pressure by civil society groups to act on their human rights violations (e.g. through a publication of a document).

The company is to some degree being questioned by civil society groups for their human rights violations

Low The company does barely receive any pressure by civil society groups to act on their human rights violations

The company is barely being held accountable or questioned for their human rights violations by civil society groups.

Trait 7 Self-interested behaviour

High The company portrays self-interested behaviour by for instance manipulating information for their own gain.

The company show behaviour of not caring about other parties (e.g. victims) involved when these human rights violations occur.

Medium The company takes other parties party into consideration.

The company shows signs of (partly) twisting information to appear more ethical than they actually are.

Low The company shows barely any signs of self-interested behaviour when the human rights violations occur.

The company publicly states to solve these human rights violations and shows signs of altruistic behaviour .

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High There are no signs (or barely) of altruistic motivations.

Keep profits as high as possible remains (one of) the top priorities when human rights violations occur.

Medium There are some (limited) signs of altruistic motivations.

Keep profits as high as possible is not (one of) the top priorities when human rights violations occur.

Low There are many signs of altruistic motivations (e.g. restoring the communities that have been affected).

There is barely any focus on profit maximisation when human rights are being violated (e.g. programs and courses are given to prevent human rights violations in the future).

Trait 9 Actively separate state and business affairs

High The company does not (or barely) take any action when human rights issues occur. The company does not show any ethical responsibility for their behaviour.

Medium The company partly takes responsibility for their behaviour (e.g. by publicly announcing that they are responsible for the human rights issues).

The company does not behave passively but does also not take much initiative to solve these human rights issues at hand.

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How transnational companies behave as political actors when human rights are being violated