Conference Agenda

The United Nations 2030 Agenda calls for multinational enterprises to play a more active role in effectively achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article analyses MNEs’ contributions to SDG 5: Gender equality (GE) and women empowerment. After an analysis that relies on a matrix confronting six ways in which MNEs can contribute to GE and the six outcome targets of SDG 5, an integrative framework to understand MNEs’ impact on GE is proposed. The proposed framework places the focus on the subsidiary as central agent and relies on the Institutional Theory and the evolutionary approach, integrating macro-, meso-, and micro-level formal and informal institutions, considering GE outcomes within the subsidiaries and beyond them, and incorporating the role of MNEs as agents of institutional change for GE.

Objective: The relationship between the degree of internationalisation of companies and their performance has been extensively addressed in the academic literature. However, in the current dynamic and changing environment it is necessary to address how current trends related to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the development of dynamic capabilities may influence this main relationship between internationalisation and firm performance. The aim of this paper is to address these relationships in the context of hotel chains located in Spain.

Theoretical framework: Dynamic capability theory and organizational learning theory allow us to explore these relationships by incorporating sustainability management as one of the strategies addressed in the hotel sector.

Methodology: PLS-SEM structural equation modelling is used as the primary method due to the high relevance of this technique in the business sector and, the tourism sector in particular.

Implications: Important theoretical and practical contributions are drawn from the fact that engagement with the SDGs has an impact on the performance of internationalized hotel chains, an issue of concern to academics and practitioners alike, including national and international political leaders.

•Purpose: This study aims to verify whether environmental innovation types (product and process) in MNCs subsidiaries are affected by the women presence in their R&D teams, while assessing if this relationship is moderated (supported or restrained) according to the MNC’s home-ecological institutions.

•Theoretical framework: Both Gender-specific characteristics and “Value-in-diversity” perspective are used as the background of this research.

•Methodology: Based on an unbalanced panel of 974 foreign subsidiaries from 2008-2016 (6009 firm-year observations) located in Spain, and employing an econometric strategy grounded mainly on a negative-binomial regression model, hypotheses for product and process environmental innovations are tested. Different econometric estimations were used to conduct a series of robustness checks.

•Findings/implications: Our results show that women presence in MNCs subsidiaries' R&D teams is positively associated with environmental innovation initiatives, especially with product-related ones. Besides, better home-country ecological institutions catalyze the female-specific characteristics that give rise to environmental innovation within internal R&D departments, while these results are also more intense for product environmental innovation. These findings enlarge our understanding of the role of female R&D workers in the MNC context and evidence that the presence of women in the subsidiary's R&D teams can be considered a strategic asset regarding environmental endeavors.

El impacto económico, social y ambiental de la producción de alimentos hace necesaria una gestión sostenible de la cadena de suministro. Entender las interdependencias entre los distintos actores y prácticas permite desarrollar herramientas para tomar decisiones tanto a nivel intra-empresa, como a nivel sectorial.

Este estudio partiendo de una taxonomía dividida en cuatro subdimensiones, dos de prácticas duras (gestión operativa y medición del desempeño) y dos de prácticas blandas (gestión social y relaciones de colaboración), valida, mediante un estudio incluyendo 80 agentes en el contexto colombiano, una escala de medición de las prácticas sostenibles en la cadena del suministro del café.

Los resultados muestran la validez discriminante, convergente y la fiabilidad del modelo. Esto abre la puerta a utilizar la escala para analizar los antecedentes y consecuencias de las prácticas duras y blandas, tanto en el ámbito económico, como social y ambiental.

Así mismo, se confirma que las prácticas blandas tienen un impacto significativo sobre las duras, lo que permite entender mejor las dinámicas internas de las cadenas de suministro sostenible.