Center for
Transnational Studies
Transnational Studies
ZenTra - Center for Transnational Studies
Overview of the Research Programme
ZenTra is a an interdisciplinary and collaborative initiative joining researchers from the Universities of Bremen and Oldenburg from the fields of economic, organizational, sociological and legal scholarship.
We employ the term transnational not just to refer to a particular organizational form, as is common in the business and management literature, but also in its more general sense that is common in the legal and sociological discourse. In this broader sense, the research on transnational governance is concerned with transnational law and institutions, namely different forms of transnational regulation, including firm self-regulation, and the development of private law through mechanisms such as arbitration agreements.
Transnationality thus refers to phenomena that are both cross-border and private, and occupies the regulatory space where national regulation no longer applies, and/or where there are gaps or deficiencies in the supranational framework of institutions.
The work carried out by ZenTra is organized under four interlinked pillars:
ZenTra is a an interdisciplinary and collaborative initiative joining researchers from the Universities of Bremen and Oldenburg from the fields of economic, organizational, sociological and legal scholarship.
We employ the term transnational not just to refer to a particular organizational form, as is common in the business and management literature, but also in its more general sense that is common in the legal and sociological discourse. In this broader sense, the research on transnational governance is concerned with transnational law and institutions, namely different forms of transnational regulation, including firm self-regulation, and the development of private law through mechanisms such as arbitration agreements.
Transnationality thus refers to phenomena that are both cross-border and private, and occupies the regulatory space where national regulation no longer applies, and/or where there are gaps or deficiencies in the supranational framework of institutions.
The work carried out by ZenTra is organized under four interlinked pillars:
Pillar I
Pillar I focuses on the micro level on the operations of transnational corporations (TNCs) and explores the governance challenges of transnational value chains. These challenges arise from the control and coordination of the internal and external network of activities of firms, ranging from exploratory activities like research to procurement and production, and to the market-facing activities like marketing and distribution.
Pillar II
Pillar II moves from the micro to the meso level of analysis, and examines the paradoxical reality that while the individual activities carried out by transnational firms may be flexible and footloose, transnational firms are simultaneously embedded in multiple institutional contexts in their home and host countries. Thus while under pillar one we are primarily interested in the ways in which firms need adjust to different market contexts, under pillar two we examine the process whereby firms as transnational actors adjust to local institutions and eventually also engage in efforts to shape the local normative and regulatory institutions to their own advantage.
Pillar III
Pillar III deals with the macro level of institutions, where TNCs, governments and civil society organizations all act as institutional entrepreneurs. In contrast to pillar two, the projects in pillar three are concerned with the broader societal impact of the various co-evolutionary processes initiated by firms, governments or civil society, that seek to shape the rules of contemporary capitalism.
Pillar IV
Pillar IV is the crosscutting structure where the researchers engaged in projects under Pillars I-III come together to develop and refine the conceptual foundations in the area of transnational studies.
Conceived in this way, changes in one pillar are likely to induce changes in the other pillars. Thus for instance a change originating in Pillar I, e.g. TNCs reconfiguring their value chains in ways that introduce new technologies and organizational practices into emerging markets, is likely to have impacts on Pillar II.
This happens over time, as the changes induced by foreign firms begin to transform the local normative and regulatory structures, resulting for example in new labour market regulations. This in turn may provide further impetus for activities at the supranational level under Pillar III, with initiatives such as the Ruggie principles on human rights becoming adopted as part of the OECD code on multinational enterprises (upstream processes).
Conversely, the change agents may initially appear at the macro level, where for example a new multilateral agreement on climate change would induce changes both in the ways in which TNCs configure their value chains, as well as in their efforts to embed themselves in local institutional structures (downstream processes).
Recent developments in financial markets, where innovations in the structuring of transnational value chains have contributed to a global crisis that has exposed governance failures and problems of policy coordination at the macro level, provide further examples for the interaction between the three pillars. Indeed, the interaction between the different levels of analysis, cutting across pillars, forms the essence of many projects dealing with the formation of the prevailing ‘rules of the game’.
We believe it is a particular strength of the ZenTra initiative that we are able to employ multiple disciplinary perspectives to carry out research in all four areas. In this way, we are in a better position to examine the dynamics that generate the complex governance structures of the contemporary global economy, which are neither bottom-up nor top-down in their essence, and where public and private actors engage in constant interaction.
This happens over time, as the changes induced by foreign firms begin to transform the local normative and regulatory structures, resulting for example in new labour market regulations. This in turn may provide further impetus for activities at the supranational level under Pillar III, with initiatives such as the Ruggie principles on human rights becoming adopted as part of the OECD code on multinational enterprises (upstream processes).
Conversely, the change agents may initially appear at the macro level, where for example a new multilateral agreement on climate change would induce changes both in the ways in which TNCs configure their value chains, as well as in their efforts to embed themselves in local institutional structures (downstream processes).
Recent developments in financial markets, where innovations in the structuring of transnational value chains have contributed to a global crisis that has exposed governance failures and problems of policy coordination at the macro level, provide further examples for the interaction between the three pillars. Indeed, the interaction between the different levels of analysis, cutting across pillars, forms the essence of many projects dealing with the formation of the prevailing ‘rules of the game’.
We believe it is a particular strength of the ZenTra initiative that we are able to employ multiple disciplinary perspectives to carry out research in all four areas. In this way, we are in a better position to examine the dynamics that generate the complex governance structures of the contemporary global economy, which are neither bottom-up nor top-down in their essence, and where public and private actors engage in constant interaction.
A joint initiative of
Transnationalization explained
Transnationalization refers to processes and phenomena that are
both cross-border and private, and occupy the regulatory space
where national regulation no longer applies, and/or where there are
gaps or deficiencies in the supranational framework of institutions.