• About
  • Contact
  • The blogger

A STABLE MATCH

A STABLE MATCH

Category Archives: Corporate Social Responsibility

The effect of Google re-entering Chinese cyberspace

18 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by tjungbau in Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Economic Growth

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

BBC, China, Google, Search engine

My fellow interviewee and former Google employee Brendan Downey made some very good points when speaking on BBC Newsnight yesterday. Btw shout out to the BBC for promoting me to Associate Professor. While it is challenging to make a deeper coherent argument in less than 90 seconds, I felt it was a good conversation.

A Western tech powerhouse such as Google legitimizing China’s “Great Firewall” by introducing a censored search engine is most certainly reason for concern. Predicting the long-term effects of a potential re-entry of Google in the Chinese market, however, appears challenging.

Since Google exited in 2010, Chinese authorities have critically upped their level of censorship all by themselves, without the support of any Western company. Thus, it is unclear why the presence of a Google search engine would make matters worse than the status quo.

Contrary, disclaimers as constant reminders of censorship and supervision could potentially contribute to a desire for change of a critical mass. Moreover, the observation which topics provoke disclaimers could foster the gain of additional information within the country. From a more general perspective, market presence of strong global brands in a country in which most companies are state-run seems desirable.

It seems naive to believe that when Google exited China in 2010 under co-founder Sergey Brin, they did so mainly due the forced censorship of content. Many believe that Chinese-led cyber-attacks on its customers, specifically human-rights activists, and Google itself were the primary reason for Google’s backtracking.

In a letter Google’s employees demand to participate in ethical reviews of the company’s practices. This seems to be a brilliant idea going forward. But let’s recall that we are talking about a censored search engine as well as a news aggregation app. Neither of these likely would increase censorship when compared to the status quo but potentially offer upside. If Google though were to offer products such as email accounts or cloud services and allow Chinese authorities to access private customer information, this would turn the tides dramatically for the worse.

 

Is Google doing evil in China?

16 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by tjungbau in Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Growth

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

China, Democracy, Dragonfly, Google, Search engine

Google’s motivations to move back into the Chinese cyberspace–as first reported by The Intercept–with its censoring Mandarin search engine, internally called project “Dragonfly,” are clearly motivated by business considerations. The number of Chinese internet users has been growing by about 70% since 2010 while the growth rate over the same time period in the US did not exceed 20%. As a result, a fifth of today’s daily worldwide four billion internet users call China their home.

In a world where a company’s success and even more so its leaders is frequently measured in growth rates rather than volume, to forfeit a share of the pie in the single most important market by size seems an insurmountable challenge for a profit-driven company. Since the news broke, Google has been heavily criticized for “supporting” and “legitimizing” the Censorship of the ruling Communist party.

Read my opinion in the Washington Post to get a glimpse of an angle how democracy could perhaps benefit from Google’s re-entry into China.

UBER and its curious case of corporate social responsibility!

13 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by tjungbau in Corporate Social Responsibility, UBER

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adultery, CSR, UBER

Companies in today’s economy compete not only via prices, quantities, marketing or product characteristics but also on a very different level, showings of corporate social responsibility. While it is impossible to disentangle the motivations behind these actions—may it be to achieve a competitive advantage or due to true societal concern— UBER’s strategy is certain to set new standards.

A French businessman once had the brilliant idea to log in to his wife’s UBER app with his credentials to order a ride for the both of them. While he insists to have logged out after doing so, due to an alleged software glitch, the UBER app continued to send reports of all his rides thereafter to his wife’s cell phone. Comparing a real-time record of her husband’s whereabouts with his accounts led her to realize that he was having an affair and ultimately to divorce from the adulterer.

Now, apparently, the left alone Frenchman sued UBER for €45m in damages. It is to be expected that the trial outcome will decisively influence UBER’s future CSR efforts to protect the family as an institution.

Read here about the hilarious events in The Guardian.

Recent Posts

  • Why Audi is slimming down
  • Amazon announces new split headquarters
  • The effect of Google re-entering Chinese cyberspace
  • Is Google doing evil in China?
  • What are the consequences of Google’s $5bn fine?

Recent Comments

tjungbau on The Trump effect and European…
napagi on Democracy or not?
John on The Trump effect and European…
Efficiency vs. distr… on Applying to multiple specialti…

Archives

  • November 2019
  • November 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • December 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015

Categories

  • Academic Organizations
  • Antitrust
  • Auction
  • Austria
  • Cartel
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Democracy
  • Economic Growth
  • Economics Laureates
  • Education
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Inequality
  • MBA
  • National Resident Matching Program
  • Oil
  • Politics
  • Probability
  • Self-Driving Cars
  • Social Dilemma
  • Statistics
  • Strategy
  • Terrorism
  • UBER
  • Voting

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Why Audi is slimming down
  • Amazon announces new split headquarters
  • The effect of Google re-entering Chinese cyberspace
  • Is Google doing evil in China?
  • What are the consequences of Google’s $5bn fine?

Recent Comments

tjungbau on The Trump effect and European…
napagi on Democracy or not?
John on The Trump effect and European…
Efficiency vs. distr… on Applying to multiple specialti…

Archives

  • November 2019
  • November 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • December 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015

Categories

  • Academic Organizations
  • Antitrust
  • Auction
  • Austria
  • Cartel
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Democracy
  • Economic Growth
  • Economics Laureates
  • Education
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Inequality
  • MBA
  • National Resident Matching Program
  • Oil
  • Politics
  • Probability
  • Self-Driving Cars
  • Social Dilemma
  • Statistics
  • Strategy
  • Terrorism
  • UBER
  • Voting

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.