DEVELOPMENT-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS IN THE EXPORT OF HAZARDOUS TECHNOLOGIES - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF 3 MULTINATIONAL AFFILIATES IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES

We reconstruct case histories of siting hazardous manufacturing facilities in India and Thailand by three multinational corporations: Du Pont, Occidental Chemical, and Xerox. The analysis focuses on the interactions of the host country development agenda, corporate culture, and the nature of business arrangements between parent and joint venture partner to explain decisions and tradeoffs during the siting process. The cases provide the foundation for a four-stage model of key determinants of management and regulatory actions in four phases of the facility life cycle. Six themes emerge: parent company preservation of environmental and occupational health management responsibilities; forces leading to responsible corporate behavior; downstream consequences of upstream decisions; key determinants of corporate performance; ''functional equivalency'' in practice; and hidden tradeoffs over the life cycle of the facility. Our findings are interpreted in the context of emerging concepts of corporate environmentalism and sustainable development.