Business, peacebuilding, violent conflict and sustainable development in Myanmar: presenting evidence from a new survey dataset
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-11-2020-0428 |
| Published date | 09 August 2021 |
| Date | 09 August 2021 |
| Pages | 600-617 |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
| Author | Jason Miklian,Ralf Barkemeyer |
Business, peacebuilding, violent conflict
and sustainable development in Myanmar:
presenting evidence from a new
survey dataset
Jason Miklian and Ralf Barkemeyer
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to present a new survey data set of 9,065private sector respondents and
other stakeholder groups,in Myanmar. The primary aim of this paper is to offer new insight avenues on
local business–conflict–development interactions, and offer the full survey data set itself as an open-
sourceresearch tool for scholars and practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach –The survey was conducted over smartphone in 2018. It asked
questions that aimed to better understand the relationships between business, ethnic conflict,
investment, corporate social responsibility and the United Nations sustainable development goals in
Myanmarand in Rakhine State in particular.
Findings –The data set capturesa series of significant differencesin corporate leadership perspectives
on the role of business in society, across sectors (e.g. banking, agriculture, retail, manufacturing,
extractives)and variations across firm country of ownership(e.g. national firms, Global North firms, Indian
firms,Chinese firms).
Research limitations/implications –The authors concludewith a brief discussion of possible research
findings from the survey, offering suggestions for possible forward analysis. The authors offer here the
raw surveydata as an attachment for full global open-sourceuse and application.
Practical implications –This data set offers a unique window into stakeholder perceptions and
understandingsof working through conflict, and the role of business in developmentin a fragile conflict-
affected state (Myanmar).The authors also conduct two example analyses of the data set using ANOVA
and Kruskal–Wallistests to illustrate possibleuses and findings of the data set.
Social implications –The authors briefly discusssocial implications as well, particularly regardingthe
role of businessin peacebuilding and development.
Originality/value –This data set offers a unique window into stakeholder perceptions and
understandingsof working through conflict, and the role of business in developmentin a fragile conflict-
affected state (Myanmar).The authors also conduct two example analyses of the data set using ANOVA
and Kruskal–Wallistests to illustrate possibleuses and findings of the data set.
Keywords Myanmar, United Nations sustainable development goals, Peacebuilding, Ethnic conflict,
Private sector, Business ethics, Multinational corporations, Rakhine, Survey, Data set,
Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
Paper type Case study
1. Rationale for survey and case background
This survey data set on business, peacebuilding and development in Myanmar was
commissioned in January andFebruary 2018 to better understand the business and conflict
environment in Myanmar after the outbreak of violence and military operations in Rakhine
state. The role of business in peacebuilding and sustainable development has expanded
Jason Miklian is based at
Centre for Development
and the Environment,
University of Oslo, Oslo,
Norway. Ralf Barkemeyer is
based at KEDGE Business
School, Marseille, France.
Received 1 November 2020
Revised 15 February 2021
Accepted 5 April 2021
©Jason Miklian and
Ralf Barkemeyer. Published by
Emerald Publishing Limited.
This article is published under
the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Anyone may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create
derivative works of this article
(for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes),
subject to full attribution to the
original publication and
authors. The full terms of this
licence maybe seen at
http://creativecommons.org/
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PAGE 600 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jVOL. 16 NO. 4 2022, pp. 600-617, Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 DOI 10.1108/JABS-11-2020-0428
rapidly over the previous decade, as business owners, shareholders and communities
increasingly understand that they cannot extricate themselves from the societies within
which they operate. The United Nations has supported this expansion, building and
promoting a series of initiatives to help business be better social stewards, including the
United Nations Global Compact and Businessfor Peace platforms.
Perhaps, the most heavily celebrated (and promoted) such expansion has been in
Myanmar, which opened its economy in 2011–2012 to foreign investment after decades of
restrictions. Most internationalorganizations and businesses entered the country promoting
a variation of liberal economic peace theory, that stronger economic ties with the rest of the
world would make Myanmar more likely to democratize and less likely to backslide into
conflict, a cornerstone philosophy of the Washington Consensus-supported platform of
market expansion and regulation streamlining by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank
and other international financial institutions (Findlay et al.,2015). Typically, market
expansion is coupled with overhaul of financial regulations to increase efficiency,
transparency and stability (Hendrix and Noland, 2015;Findlay et al.,2016). Some
businesses embraced a more direct role as peacebuilders. As one example, the Myanmar
head of Norwegian mobile telecomsfirm Telenor, Petter Furberg, argued that his firm’s work
in creating mobile infrastructure and negotiating with rebel leaders was in fact nation-
building (Furberg, 2016;Miklian,2019).
However, economic liberalization can also be conflict-generating, particularly when
economic growth exacerbates inter-group inequality (Sorens and Ruger, 2015;Midtgard
et al., 2017). This is visible in Mynamar, where large influxes of foreign funding, coupled
with a difficult transition from military rule to representative democracy, placed significant
strains on Myanmar’s social fabric. Shortly after opening, several of the country’s long-
simmering ethnic conflicts slid back into violent conflict, culminating most notably in a
large-scale military operation in Rakhine state starting in 2014 that United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra‘ad al-Hussein called “a textbook example of
ethnic cleansing,” killing or displacing over 700,000 citizens (United Nations, 2017;
UNHRC, 2018).
In response, scholars have extensively studied and debated the role of economic
opening upon society in Myanmar (Meyer and Thein, 2014;Jones, 2014;Ko, 2015;
Crouch, 2017;Andrews et al., 2019), particularly in relationship to ethnic tensions after
the period of opening (Mangan, 2018;Miklian, 2019). As if to punctuate the point, as of
this writing (7 February 2021), a military junta has again taken over the country through a
coup d’e
´tat. What is notable is that even though Myanmar’s democracy prospects have
significantly dimmed, there is little risk that the new liberalized economic system
established over the previous decade is in similar danger. In fact, liberalization was a key
trigger for the coup itself, enriching the junta enough to buy them widespread support
and legitimacy for such action within the country’s power corridors (Miklian and Katsos,
2021). In short, economic opening is here to stay in Myanmar, to great benefit to the
country’s military leaders.
However, there is less researchinto how economic opening has influenced the perceptions,
livelihoods and actions of local stakeholders, in particular local small and medium-sized
business owners. This group, constituting millions of people within the country, is often
portrayed (incorrectly) as a passive actor as concerns the country’s macroeconomic
fortunes (Bissinger, 2020),but also has an active role in issues that strain social fabrics, and
may have the ability to collectively either help promote ethnic conflict resolution (Press-
Barnathan, 2006;World Bank, 2017), or fan the flames of violence (Miklian, 2018). Mangan
(2018) is a notable exception, particularly in the emphasis of business upon conflict and
vice versa in Myanmar since 2012, but tends to focus on large, state-led or state-driven
infrastructure types of business development, with less analysis of local business
specifically. Another exception is a survey of 900 small and medium-sized enterprises in
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