Political instability and business: focus on Shell in Nigeria.
Business managers name Africa's political instability as a key obstacle to economic development, but many companies continue to invest in Africa. The article explains this apparent contradiction by looking at the case of Shell in Nigeria. Nigeria experiences serious political instability, yet Shell...
| Publicado en: | Third World Quarterly Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 457 - 479 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Sep98
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=1002107&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 1002107 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01436597 TWQ jtl: Third World Quarterly issn: 01436597 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Sep98 vid: 19 iid: 3 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 1002107 10.1080/01436599814343 ppf: 457 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 267KB tig: atl: Political instability and business: focus on Shell in Nigeria. aug: au: Frynas, Jedrzej George affil: Department of Economics, University of St Andrews, The Scores, St Andrews KY16 9AL, UK su: Political stability Industrial management Economic development Shell Oil Co. Nigeria sug: subj: Nigeria Political stability Industrial management Economic development Shell Oil Co. ab: Business managers name Africa's political instability as a key obstacle to economic development, but many companies continue to invest in Africa. The article explains this apparent contradiction by looking at the case of Shell in Nigeria. Nigeria experiences serious political instability, yet Shell is expanding its investment in the country. This article deals with sources of firm-specific political instability that have affected Shell in Nigeria in the past and attempts to explain why a specific corporation such as Shell may want to make investments in the country despite political instability. The examination of three different angles of Shell's activity, which forms the core of this paper, reveals that political instability does not hinder Shell from operating in Nigeria. Firstly, the international perspective illuminates in what way Nigeria may be more attractive to Shell than other countries. Profits in Nigeria appear to be higher than elsewhere, while Shell occupies a dominant market position unrivalled in most other countries. Secondly, the structural perspective illuminates the interconnectedness of Shell with state structures in Nigeria that may tie the company to Nigeria. Shell established a first mover advantage in the 1950s, since Nigeria was a British colony until 1960 and British oil companies were given preferential treatment. After independence, Shell managed to penetrate state structures which helped to hedge political risk in the country. Thirdly, the strategic perspective explores how Shell's strategic approaches may make political instability less significant to Shell. This article concludes that Shell has adopted to political instability. The conclusion that political instability can be conducive to business is significant since one expects political instability to be inherently harmful to business. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Third World Quarterly is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Third World Quarterly holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 1998 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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