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Call for Papers
for a Special Issue in
Asian Business & Management (ABM)
Identity of Asian Multinational Corporations- Influence of Tax Havens
Submission deadline: 31st May 2018

Guest Editors
Vijay Pereira, University of Wollongong, Dubai, UAE
Yama Temouri, University of Wollongong, Dubai, UAE and Aston University, UK
Chris Jones, Aston University, UK
Ashish Malik, Newcastle University, Australia

Geographically, located in both the northern and eastern hemispheres, Asia is by far the largest and most populous of our continents. It encompasses 30% of the world's land area and more importantly 60% of the world's current population of 7.1 billion. Economically, it has the highest growth rate, and its estimated population in 2016 was 4.4 billion (UN ESCAPE, 2017). The last few decades, in particular, have seen an exponential increase in countries in this region being involved in global business activity. Large multinational corporations (MNC) either have their head-offices in these Asian regions or have regional subsidiary operations. The mature economies of Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia, to name a few, are now being overshadowed by the newer economic giants such as the People’s Republic of China, India, and South Korea in terms of trade and the regional and global proliferation of their MNC (UNCTAD, 2016; Hughes, 2017). More specifically, the global shift towards offshoring, both services and manufacturing, has led to the emergence and increasingly vital role of these economies. Moreover, this economic shift in power has led not only to an increase in national GDP in this region, but has also seen the per capita income of people in this region go up. Thus, for example, the purchasing power of people in this region has been an attractive proposition for MNC to not only operate in terms of manufacturing their goods and services (i.e. efficiency seeking FDI), but also in terms of market seeking motives (Dirlik, 1992; Acharya, 1997; Serrano, 2017).
A related trend is the establishment of tax-haven subsidiaries by global MNCs to and from the Asian region. The business and management literature has only recently started to outline the ways in which the use of tax havens by MNC is a different form of foreign direct investment (FDI) compared to the standard forms of FDI identified in the literature (Beugelsdijk et al., 2015). In terms of evidence on the use of tax havens by MNC, the literature offers cases and analyses from the Western world, but we have very limited evidence on such activity and its ramifications for Asia and other developing countries (Buckley et al., 2015).
It is under this backdrop that we seek to investigate MNC behaviour and how their use of tax-havens, corporate social responsibility, and governance practices may have an impact in shaping their perceived identity. To this end, this call for papers is an attempt to try and unbundle how MNC create their identity. More specifically, the call is open to explore the identity making process and its influences, for example, based on its ownership, industry affiliation, customer base, cultural values, government backing, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and internationalisation strategies (Yu et al., 2015). A recent special issue by Pereira & Malik (2017) captured the various identities of MNC globally. For example, Sharma et al. (2017) evaluate MNC identity through leveraging the shared identity of “Australianness” and “Indianness” in conducting business in India. Another example by Patnaik et al. (2017) investigate the identity of the world’s largest gold mining company from the US when operating in an emerging country, such as Ghana. The identity of an MNC can be formed through different scenarios, drivers, environments, local and foreign influences, cultures, institutions, firm leadership etc. Over a period of time, a specific MNC identity gets socialised, institutionalised and legitimised. Such MNC identity dilemmas persist because of the volatility, complexity, and dynamism that these MNC face in today’s globalised world (see Munjal, Budhwar and Pereira, 2017 for different MNC identity dilemmas).
In view of the arguments made above, we argue that there is limited literature analysing how tax haven behaviour of MNC impacts identity formation. For example, an MNC may portray, on the one hand, a strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) image through its various deeds (Drucker, 1984; Carroll, 1999; Lorenzo-Molo, 2009), but on the other hand, it may well undertake financially less ethical activities, such as tax haven investments (Oxelheim et al. 2001; Eden, 2009). In such scenarios, how would the MNC stakeholders perceive an MNC’s identity? More specifically, how would other MNC perceive a particular MNC that utilises tax havens? How would key stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, employees, and communities respond to such activity?
Another area of interest for this Special Issue relates to the large body of literature which has examined the use of transfer pricing techniques by MNC from developed countries, to shift profits into jurisdictions that provide low levels of corporate tax and legislation that allow a significant level of secrecy for both individuals and firms (Eden, 2009). However, is this the case for Asian MNC? What jurisdictions do Asian firms strategically target and are there differences across regions, countries, and industries? (Chen and Ku, 2002) Is it possible to measure and determine the size of assets located offshore by using corporate registers and national statistical data to examine the extent of tax haven activity?
A recent study by Jones and Temouri (2016) show that for developed economy MNC, the variety of capitalism matters in explaining the likelihood of an MNC utilising a tax haven subsidiary (Hall and Soskice 2001; Loveridge, 2006; Meyer and Peng, 2016). So, do firms from the Asian region, who have links with the liberal market economies of the UK and US, show increasing tax aggressiveness compared to those firms which have links with the coordinated market economies of Germany, Austria, and the Nordic countries? Also, how does corporate governance at the firm-level matter, such that there is greater regulatory and tax arbitrage opportunities for MNC that have a particular ownership type and structure (e.g. business groups)? Yiu et al. (2013). Last, but not least, do institutional factors across countries drive tax and regulatory arbitrage? (Lee et al. 2009)
The above questions are only indicative to our call for papers and are not exhaustive in any manner. We invite both empirical and conceptual/theoretical papers on this topic, that utilise relevant methods, but a precondition being that contributions should develop or challenge existing literature or theories, so that it adds new knowledge on this topic.

Submission Process
To be considered for the Special Issue, manuscripts must be submitted by May 31st, 2018, via https://www.editorialmanager.com/jabm/. To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for consideration for this Special Issue, please select ‘SI: Tax havens’ when you reach the ’Select Article Type‘ step in the online submission process. Authors should prepare their manuscript according to the guidelines of Asian Business & Management, see: http://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41291/authors/presentation-formatting. Submitted papers will be reviewed through a double-blind peer review process. For enquiries, please contact Vijay Pereira at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> or Yama Temouri at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. We welcome your submissions.

References

Acharya Amitav. 1997. Ideas, identity, and institution‐building: From the ‘ASEAN way’ to

the ‘Asia‐Pacific way'? The Pacific Review 10(3): 319-346.

Beugelsdijk, Sjord, Jean-Francois Hennart, Arjen Slangen, and Roger Smeets. 2010, Why

and how FDI stocks are a biased measure of MNE affiliate activity. Journal of International Business Studies 41(9): 1441-1459.

Buckley, Peter J., Dylan Sutherland, Hinrich Voss, and Ahmed El-Gohari. 2015, The

economic geography of offshore incorporation in tax havens and offshore financial centres: The case of Chinese MNEs. Journal of Economic Geography 15(1): 103-128.

Carroll, Archie B. 1999. Corporate Social Responsibility Evolution of a Definitional

Construct. Business & Society 38(3): 268–295.

Chen, Tain-Jy, and Ying-Hua Ku. 2002. Creating Competitive Advantages out of Market

Imperfections: Taiwanese Firms in China. Asian Business & Management 1(1): 79-99.

Dirlik, Arif. 1992. The Asia-Pacific idea: Reality and representation in the invention of a

regional structure. Journal of World History 3(1): 55-79.

Drucker, Peter F. 1984. The New Meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility. California

Management Review 26(2): 53-63.

Eden, Lorraine. 2009. Taxes, transfer pricing and the multinational enterprise, A.M. Rugman

(Ed.), The Oxford handbook of international business (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 557-590.

Hall, Peter A., and David Soskice. 2001. Varieties of capitalism: The institutional

foundations of comparative advantage. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hughes, Christopher W. 2017. Japan's rise and fall (and rise again) in The Pacific Review.

The Pacific Review 30(6): 1-10.

Jones, Chris, and Yama Temouri. 2016. The Determinants of Tax Haven FDI. Journal of

World Business 51(2): 237-250.

Lee, Youngwoo, Martin Hemmert, and Jongsoo Kim. 2014. What drives the international

ownership strategies of Chinese firms? The role of distance and home-country institutional factors in outward acquisitions. Asian Business & Management 13(3): 197-225.

Loveridge, Ray. 2006. Developing Institutions - ‘Crony Capitalism’ and National

Capabilities: a European Perspective. Asian Business & Management 5(1): 113-136.

Lorenzo-Molo, Marina Caterina F. 2009. Why corporate social responsibility (CSR) remains

a myth: The case of the Philippines. Asian Business & Management 8(2): 149-168.

Meyer, Klaus E., and Mike E. Peng. 2016. Theoretical foundations of emerging economy

business research. Journal of International Business Studies 47(1): 3-22.

Munjal, Surender, Pawan Budhwar, and Vijay Pereira. 2017. A perspective on multinational

enterprise’s national identity dilemma, Social Identities forthcoming.

Oxelheim, Lars, Trond Randøy, and Arthur Stonehill. 2001. On the treatment of finance-

specific factors within the OLI paradigm. International Business Review 10(4): 381-398.

Patnaik, Swetketu, Yama Temouri, James Tuffour, Shlomo Y. Tarba, and Sanjay K. Singh.

2017. Corporate social responsibility and multinational enterprise identity: insights from a mining company’s attempt to localise in Ghana. Social Identities forthcoming

Pereira, Vijay, and Ashish Malik. 2017. Identities in transition: The case of EMMNCs.

Social Identities. forthcoming.

Serrano, Lorena O. 2017. The Pacific Alliance and the construction of a new economic

regime? Lights and Shadows of the Renewal of Open Regionalism, Edition: London & New York, Chapter: 7, Publisher: Routledge, Editors: José Briceño & Isidro Morales (eds): 141-158.

Sharma, Narender, Brendan Boyle, Rebecca Mitchell, Ashish Malik, Sidney Gray, and

Barry O’Mahony. 2017. Leveraging the common and outsourcing the distinct: institutional difference and multinational company (MNC) identity in emerging economies. Social Identities forthcoming.

UNCTAD 2016. World investment report, Investor Nationality: Policy Challenges, Geneva.

UN ESCAPE 2017. Population Dynamics- Challenges and Opportunities, United Nations

Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Accessed on 17th December 2017. http://www.unescap.org/our-work/social-development/population-dynamics/about.

Yiu, Daphne W., Frank W. Ng, and Xufei, Ma. 2013. Business group attributes and

internationalization strategy in China. Asian Business & Management 12(1): 14-36.

Yu, Andy, Ding, Hung-Bin., and Hsi-Mei Chung. 2015. Corporate social responsibility

performance in family and non-family firms: The perspective of socio-emotional wealth. Asian Business & Management 14(5): 383-412.

Best wishes,
Yama

Dr Yama Temouri
Associate Professor, Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong in Dubai
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