The authors discuss the consistency of transnational companies in their home, as well as in less developed host countries, concerning ethics, values and social responsibility. Ethical behavior offers good reputation, credibility and tradition to the corporation. It leads to corporate social, environmental and economic responsibilities, cooperating to the desired sustainability. This paper analyzes the inversion of values that corporate governance systems have suffered. The meaning and implication of the corporate social responsibility is investigated and discussed. A "pyramid of values" is (...) built upon individual ethical values at the basis. Over them, the organizational ethical values should indicate the limits of operations, so that the corporate social responsibility can be sustained, in the top. The authors comment that ethical values no longer lead the organization. Its communication with the stakeholders, specifically through reports, has been gradually replacing the code of ethics and corporate values. These reports have taken the basis of the pyramid leading the organizations to socially irresponsible and unethical behavior. They do not guarantee transparency or communicate the needs of the society. It appears that transnational companies do not behave the same way in their home country as they do in host countries, particularly in less developed regions like Latin America and Africa. Lack of communication and transparency may induce employees to unethical decisions and transform the reporting system into a marketing instrument. In order to guarantee compliance with the codes, transparency and ethical responsibility, communication within the organization is essential. (shrink)

Over the last decade, and culminating in the 2008 global financial meltdown, there has been an erosion of trust and a concomitant rise of distrust in domestic companies, multinational enterprises, and political economies.In response to this attrition, this article presents three arguments. First, we suggest that trust is the “glue” of any viable political economy, and we propose that the stakes of violating public trust are particularly high in light of the asymmetry between trust and distrust. Second, we identify a (...) constellation of key barriers to overcoming distrust that companies face in the current environment: (1) corporate mind-sets that promote a preoccupation with quantification, hierarchical leadership models, and “blind trust” in authority; (2) the anonymity of core stakeholders; (3) the agency of the media as a driver of the political economy; and (4) firm-centric models of stakeholder relationships.Third, we argue that, notwithstanding these challenges, these phenomena are not fatal and can be addressed through a holistic transformation in corporate culture. Such a transformation might include a shift to collaborative leadership models and replacing authority models with responsibility, a “names and faces” approach to stakeholders through cases and stories, more egalitarian communication exchanges with external stakeholders, and a reprioritization of the firm as a vital element among others within a system rather than the central core of a network.We conclude that the value of trust at the individual, institutional, national, and global levels cannot be overstated. Without a reinvigoration of trust in our political economies, at all levels, the future of an economically vibrant planet is indeed bleak. (shrink)

Integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in business is one of the great challenges facing firms today. Societal stakeholders require much more from the firm than pursuing profitability and growth. But these societal stakeholders often simply assume that increased societal expectations can easily be accommodated within efficiently run business operations, without much attention devoted to process issues. We build upon the core—periphery thesis to explore potential avenues for firms to add recurring CSR initiatives to their existing business practices. Based on (...) Siggelkow's (Admin Sei Quart 47: 125-159, 2002) analysis of organizational change, we conceptualize seven major patterns of CSR initiative adoption. We develop a new organizing framework showing how a firm can integrate CSR initiatives in business. Within the new framework, each of the seven patterns represents an idiosyncratic path through which recurring CSR initiatives can be included as practices into conventional operations. We also explore the nature of the resulting internal fit between recurring CSR initiatives and business practices. (shrink)

Assessing the impact of CSR initiatives can be a complex task for marketers given the variety of methods of communicating about CSR as well as the broad range of stakeholders that CSR initiatives might interest. Social media helps increase the visibility and credibility of CSR communication and provides new ways of reaching and involving stakeholders in CSR initiatives. Using data collected and coded from Facebook pages of the Top 100 Global Brands, the authors introduce a new measure of effectiveness for (...) CSR communication; CSR communication productivity (CCP). The findings indicate that CCP has a positive impact on firm performance (Tobin’s Q). The authors also investigate the impact of External Stakeholder Involvement in CSR initiatives. The results suggest that when external stakeholders are involved in an organization’s CSR initiatives, both CCP and firm performance (Tobin’s Q) improve. In addition, third-party evaluations of CSR performance positively moderate the impact of External Stakeholder Involvement on CCP. These findings offer contributions to CSR communication and social media marketing theories. They also have implications for marketing managers regarding how to measure and benchmark CCP, and how to maximize returns by involving external stakeholders in CSR efforts. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of individual and firm moral philosophies on marketing exchange relationships. Personal moral philosophies range from the extreme forms of true altruists and true egoists, along with three hybrids that represent middle ground (i.e., realistic altruists, tit-for-tats, and realistic egoists). Organizational postures are defined as Ethical Paradigm, Unethical Paradigm, and Neutral Paradigm, which result in changes to personal moral philosophies and company and industry performance. The study context is a simulation of (...) an exchange environment using a variation of the prisoners' dilemma game. A literature review is provided in the opening section, followed by details on the simulation, discussion of the results, and the implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of individual and firm moral philosophies on marketing exchange relationships. Personal moral philosophies range from the extreme forms of true altruists and true egoists, along with three hybrids that represent middle ground. Organizational postures are defined as Ethical Paradigm, Unethical Paradigm, and Neutral Paradigm, which result in changes to personal moral philosophies and company and industry performance. The study context is a simulation of an exchange environment using a variation of (...) the prisoners' dilemma game. A literature review is provided in the opening section, followed by details on the simulation, discussion of the results, and the implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has become a much-discussed subject in the business world. The Internet has become one of the main tools for CSR information disclosure, allowing companies to publicise more information less expensively and faster than ever before. As a result, corporations are increasingly concerned with communicating ethically and responsibly to the diversity of stakeholders through the web. This paper addresses the main question as whether CSR information disclosure on corporate websites is influenced by country of origin and/or industry sector. (...) Analysing the websites of 127 corporations from emerging countries, such as Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand and South Africa, it becomes evident that both country of origin and industry sector have a significant influence over CSR information disclosure on the web . Based on the data studied, country of origin has a stronger influence over CSRIDOW than industry sector. (shrink)

Ethics training—an important means to foster ethical decision-making in organisations—is carried out formally as well as informally. There are mixed findings as regards the effectiveness of formal versus informal ethics training. This study is one of its first kinds in which we have investigated the effectiveness of ethics training as it is carried out in the Indian IT sector. We have collected the views of Indian IT industry professionals concerning ethics training, and employed positivist and interpretive research. We first have (...) argued that the importance of the perception towards ethics has bearings not only on the individual ideologies but also on the organisational ethical values. In doing so, first we have conceptualised a theoretical framework: Perception of Ethics Training in Employees and Organisations. Second, we have studied the correlations between various components of this model. Third, we, under the rubric of PETINEO, examined the effectiveness of ethics training programmes for the Indian IT companies. Fourth, we have elaborated upon the results of our study. Our results suggest that the combination of both formal and informal means to undertake ethics training has superior impact on ethical decision-making in the Indian IT industry as compared to the use of any one of them in isolation. (shrink)

Role conflict occurs when a job possesses inconsistent expectations incongruent with individual beliefs, a situation that precipitates considerable frustration and other negative work outcomes. Increasing interest in processes that reduce role conflict is, therefore, witnessed. With the help of information collected from a large sample of individuals employed at an education-based healthcare institution, this study identified several factors that might decrease role conflict, namely mindfulness and organizational ethics. In particular, the results indicated that mindfulness was associated with decreased role conflict, (...) and that perceived ethical values and a shared ethics code were associated with decreased role conflict and increased mindfulness. Despite the study's limitations, these findings imply that companies might better manage role conflict through the development of mindfulness and organizational ethics. (shrink)

A growing number of studies have investigated the various dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the literature. However, relatively few studies have considered its impacts on employees. The purpose of this study is to analyze how CSR affects the organizational commitment of employees based on the social identity theory (SIT). The proposed model was tested on a sample of 269 business professionals working in Turkey. The findings of the study revealed that CSR to social and non-social stakeholders, employees, and (...) customers were the significant predictors of organizational commitment. However, there was no link between CSR to government and the commitment level of employees. (shrink)

The globalization movement in recent decades has meant rapid growth in trade, financial transactions, and cross-country ownership of economic assets. In this article, we examine how the globalization of national business systems has influenced the framing of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is done using text analysis of CEO letters appearing in the annual reports of 15 major corporations in Sweden during a period of transformational change. The results show that the discourse about CSR in the annual reports has changed (...) from a national and communitarian view of social responsibility (cf. a negotiated view of CSR) toward an international and individualistic view of social responsibility (cf. a self-regulating view of CSR). The article contributes theoretically (1) by adding a national–global dimension to previous conceptualizations of CSR and (2) by showing that the rise of CSR discourse and activities in the last 10 years does not have to imply an increased commitment and interest in corporate responsibility per se, only that there are increased societal expectations that corporations should develop the capability to act more independently as moral agents. (shrink)

With the expansion of multinational corporations (MNCs), the alarming upsurge in widely publicized and notable corporate scandals involving MNCs in emerging markets has begun to draw both academic and managerial attention to look beyond home market practices to the pressing concern of CSR in emerging markets. Previous studies on CSR have focused primarily on Western markets, reserving limited discussions in addressing the issue of MNC attitudes and CSR practices in their emerging host markets abroad. Despite this incongruity in academic response (...) to CSR in emerging markets, managers of multinational companies continue to face mounting and most often conflicting pressures to weigh among multiple strategic CSR responses in emerging markets. Such a task is often further complicated by the complexity of varying business norms and standards, regulatory environments, and stakeholder demands for CSR across national boundaries. With such a challenge in mind, I attempt to examine the explanatory factors in leading MNCs, otherwise recognized for accountability and integrity in their home markets, to employ inconsistent or negligent practices under CSR pressure in Chinese emerging economy. Preliminary findings reveal that discrepancies exist in how MNCs perform in CSR in home countries versus in host countries. While MNCs do have much to improve, the institutional environment in the emerging market, including the legal framework and the ethical culture, also needs to be improved by the host country governments, the industry associations, and local firms. Meanwhile, media interest and journalists, NGOs, third party monitors, industry stakeholders as well as consumer advocacy groups can raise the visibility of MNC's contradictory practices between their origin nations and countries with emerging economies and offer the pressures and incentives for MNCs to amend their ethical short-comings. This article also suggests implications for both theory and practice. (shrink)

Sustainable development (SD) – that is, “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations” – can be pursued in many different ways. Stakeholder relations management (SRM) is one such way, through which corporations are confronted with economic, social, and environmental stakeholder claims. This paper lays the groundwork for an empirical analysis of the question of how far SD can be achieved through SRM. It describes the so-called SD–SRM (...) perspective as a distinctive research approach and shows how it relates to the wider body of stakeholder theory. Next, the concept of SD is operationalized for the microeconomic level with reference to important documents. Based on the ensuing SD framework, it is shown how SD and SRM relate to each other, and how the two concepts relate to other popular concepts such as Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The paper concludes that the significance of societal guiding models such as SD and of management approaches like CSR is strongly dependent on their footing in society. (shrink)

Addressing the critique that communication activities with regard to CSR are often merely instrumental marketing or public relation tools, this paper develops a toolbox of CSR communication that takes into account a deliberative notion. We derive this toolbox classification from the political approach of CSR that is based on Habermasian discourse ethics and show that it has a communicative core. Therefore, we embed CSR communication within political CSR theory and extend it by Habermasian communication theory, particularly the four validity claims (...) of communication. Given this communicative basis, we localize CSR communication as a main means to receive moral legitimacy within political CSR theory. A typology of CSR communication tools is advanced and substantiated by a review of case studies supporting the categories. Thus, we differentiate between instrumental and deliberative, as well as published and unpublished tools. Practical examples for the literature-derived tool categories are provided and their limitations are discussed. (shrink)

An emerging body of literature has highlighted a gap in our understanding of the extent to which the salience attached to human rights is likely to influence the extent to which an individual takes account of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in decision making. The primary aim of this study is to begin to address this gap by understanding how individuals attribute different emphasis on specific aspects of human rights when making decisions to purchase, work, invest or support the community operations (...) for socially responsible organisations. In order to achieve this objective, a survey instrument was administered to professionals in Russia and Bulgaria. Our data indicate that there is a significant correlation between individuals’ sensitivity towards different components of human rights and their perceptions of the importance of CSR in decision making. Specifically, the recognition of political rights was strongly associated with the willingness to purchase, invest, seek employment and support socially responsible firms. Our analysis also outlines significant differences between the Russian and the Bulgarian samples with regard to the manners in which individuals rate the importance of civil, political and economic human rights. (shrink)

An emerging body of literature has highlighted a gap in our understanding of the extent to which the salience attached to human rights is likely to influence the extent to which an individual takes account of Corporate Social Responsibility in decision making. The primary aim of this study is to begin to address this gap by understanding how individuals attribute different emphasis on specific aspects of human rights when making decisions to purchase, work, invest or support the community operations for (...) socially responsible organisations. In order to achieve this objective, a survey instrument was administered to professionals in Russia and Bulgaria. Our data indicate that there is a significant correlation between individuals’ sensitivity towards different components of human rights and their perceptions of the importance of CSR in decision making. Specifically, the recognition of political rights was strongly associated with the willingness to purchase, invest, seek employment and support socially responsible firms. Our analysis also outlines significant differences between the Russian and the Bulgarian samples with regard to the manners in which individuals rate the importance of civil, political and economic human rights. (shrink)

Information technology and the Internet have added a new stakeholder concern to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda: online privacy. While theory suggests that online privacy is a CSR, only very few studies in the business ethics literature have connected these two. Based on a study of CSR disclosures, this article contributes to the existing literature by exploring whether and how the largest IT companies embrace online privacy as a CSR. The findings indicate that only a small proportion of the (...) companies have comprehensive privacy programs, although more than half of them voice moral or relational motives for addressing online privacy. The privacy measures they have taken are primarily compliance measures, while measures that stimulate a stakeholder dialogue are rare. Overall, a wide variety of approaches to addressing privacy was found, which suggests that no institutionalization of privacy practices has taken place as yet. The study therefore indicates that online privacy is rather new on the CSR agenda, currently playing only a minor role. (shrink)

Information technology and the Internet have added a new stakeholder concern to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda: online privacy. While theory suggests that online privacy is a CSR, only very few studies in the business ethics literature have connected these two. Based on a study of CSR disclosures, this article contributes to the existing literature by exploring whether and how the largest IT companies embrace online privacy as a CSR. The findings indicate that only a small proportion of the (...) companies have comprehensive privacy programs, although more than half of them voice moral or relational motives for addressing online privacy. The privacy measures they have taken are primarily compliance measures, while measures that stimulate a stakeholder dialogue are rare. Overall, a wide variety of approaches to addressing privacy was found, which suggests that no institutionalization of privacy practices has taken place as yet. The study therefore indicates that online privacy is rather new on the CSR agenda, currently playing only a minor role. (shrink)

“Work–life balance” is a relatively modern expression. However, there is no novelty in the core concept, as resistance to excessive incompatibility between work roles and personal roles has a history that predates contemporary struggles for a decline in unnecessary work–life conflict. The authors of this manuscript aim to convey a portion of this history by instilling, from an ethics perspective, an awareness of the efforts of early labor organizations, including labor unions, and a social organization that addressed labor issues. They (...) will also communicate the resolve of key individuals, especially women, including labor leaders and activists, who contributed to labor reform and served as early proponents for WLB. In addition, implications and suggestions for practice and future inquiry will be provided. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship among ethical philosophy, thinking style, and managerial ethical decision-making. Based on the premise that business ethics is a function of culture and time, we attempt to explore two important questions as to whether the national differences in managerial ethical philosophies remain over time and whether the relationship between thinking style and ethical decision-making is consistent across different national contexts. We conducted a survey on Korean managers’ ethical decision-making and thinking style and made a cross-cultural, cross-temporal (...) comparison with the results presented by previous studies that surveyed Korean and US managers with the same questionnaire at different points in time. Our analysis revealed that Korean managers have become more reliant on rule utilitarianism for ethical decision-making over the last two decades, which is dominantly used by US managers, corroborating our convergence hypothesis built on social contracts theory. However, as opposed to previous research, we found that managers with a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style do not necessarily make more ethical decisions compared to those with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. This study contributes to international business ethics literature by presenting a theoretical framework that may explain the convergence of ethical philosophies employed by managers in different national contexts over time, and that the relationship between thinking style and managerial ethical decision-making may not be universal, but contingent on contextual factors. (shrink)

In the management and business ethics literatures, stakeholder engagement has been demonstrated to lead to more ethical management practices. However, there may be limits on the extent to which stakeholder engagement can, as currently conceptualized, resolve some of the more difficult ethical challenges faced by managers. In this paper we argue that stakeholder engagement, when seen as a way of reducing five types of knowledge problems—risk, ambiguity, complexity, equivocality, and a priori irreducible uncertainty—can aid managers in resolving such ethical challenges. (...) Using a practical illustration of the ethical challenges surrounding the development and application of genetic modification technologies, we demonstrate how stakeholder engagement enables managers to better address these knowledge problems, thereby to manage more ethically. In this way, we suggest that stakeholder engagement has an even more crucial role to play in business ethics research and practice. (shrink)

Organizations that believe they should "give something back" to the society have embraced the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although the theoretical underpinnings of CSR have been frequently debated, empirical studies often involve only limited aspects, implying that theory may not be congruent with actual practices and may impede understanding and further development of CSR. The authors investigate actual CSR practices related to five different stakeholder groups, develop an instrument to measure those CSR practices, and apply it to a (...) survey of 401 U.S. organizations. Four different clusters of organizations emerge, depending on the CSR practice focus. The distinctive features of each cluster relate to organizational demographics, perceived influence of stakeholders, managers' perceptions of the influence of CSR on performance, and organizational performance. (shrink)

As corporate social responsibility (CSR) grows increasingly well known and accepted worldwide, organizations attempt to make sense of their social strategies bridge the gap between their current situation and what their stakeholders expect of them. If social strategies represent a potential stepping stone to more sophisticated forms of CSR, then research must investigate the strategies that organizations have adopted. After defining a framework for classifying and analyzing organizations' social strategies, this article considers empirical evidence from 10 case studies in Colombia (...) to reveal how organizations might build on their social involvement to engage in more sophisticated CSR practices. The framework also suggests some different trajectories that organizations might follow. (shrink)

This study questions the assumption that firms always prioritize economic stakeholders over social stakeholders. An examination of 468 Chinese private firms reveals three important conditions driving firms to prioritize social stakeholders over economic stakeholders. First, the percentage of family ownership increases the likelihood of social stakeholder priority up to a point, after which further increase in the percentage of family ownership decreases the likelihood of social stakeholder priority. Firms planning initial public offerings and smaller firms are more likely to prioritize (...) social stakeholders. The findings reveal important exceptions and nuances in stakeholder management strategies. (shrink)

Media reports that a company behaves in a socially nonresponsible manner frequently result in consumer participation in a boycott. As time goes by, however, the number of consumers participating in the boycott starts dwindling. Yet, little is known on why individual participation in a boycott declines and what type of consumer is more likely to stop boycotting earlier rather than later. Integrating research on drivers of individual boycott participation with multi-stage models and the hot/cool cognition system, suggests a “heat-up” phase (...) in which boycott participation is fueled by expressive drivers, and a “cool-down” phase in which instrumental drivers become more influential. Using a diverse set of real contexts, four empirical studies provide evidence supporting a set of hypotheses on promotors and inhibitors of boycott participation over time. Study 1 provides initial evidence for the influence of expressive and instrumental drivers in a food services context. Extending the context to video streaming services, e-tailing, and peer-to-peer ridesharing, Study 2, Study 3, and Study 4 show that the reasons consumers stop/continue boycotting vary systematically across four distinct groups. Taken together, the findings help activists sustain boycott momentum and assist firms in dealing more effectively with boycotts. (shrink)

Today, more corporations disclose information about their environmental performance in response to stakeholder demands of environmental responsibility and accountability. What information do corporations disclose on their websites? This paper investigates the environmental management policies and practices of the 200 largest corporations in the world. Based on a content analysis of the environmental reports of Fortune’s Global 200 companies, this research analyzes the content of corporate environmental disclosures with respect to the following seven areas: environmental planning considerations, top management support to (...) the institutionalization of environmental concerns, environmental structures and organizing specifics, environmental leadership activities, environmental control, external validations or certifications of environmental programs, and forms of corporate environmental disclosures. (shrink)

This paper capitalizes on an institutional perspective to analyze corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientations in the Lebanese context. Specifically, the paper compiles a new theoretical framework drawing on a multi-level model of institutional flows by Scott (Institutions and organizations: ideas and interests, 2008 ) and the explicit/implicit CSR model by Matten and Moon (Acad Manag Rev 33(2):404–424, 2008 ). This new theoretical framework is then used to explore the CSR convergence versus divergence question in a developing country context. The findings (...) highlight the usefulness of the compiled multi-layered institutional framework and the varied nuances and profound insights it offers in analyzing CSR in context. They also suggest that a cosmetic level of global convergence in explicit CSR may materialize in light of mimetic isomorphic pressures, but that the path dependence hypothesis is indeed salient in light of national history trajectories and socio-politico configurations. The findings correspond most closely to patterns of CSR crossvergence, combining elements of both convergence and divergence, and reflecting in complex hybridized CSR expressions. The findings and their implications are presented and assessed. (shrink)

Heightened interest in business-conflict linkages has materialized with the advent of globalization and the rise of multinational corporations (MNCs). We examine business-conflict linkages in this article both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we examine three streams of the relevant academic literature: the academic business and society literature, the practitioner business and society literature, and the international business political behavior literature and argue that there is room and indeed need for their cross fertilization and integration in research on business-conflict linkages. We then (...) consolidate the three streams into a matrix that reconciles relevant dimen- sions and which can serve as a typology of intervention strategies of business firms in conflict zones. Empirically, the article makes use of the integrative matrix in the context of an interpretive research methodology to examine the perceptions and behavioral orientations of a sample of MNCs in Lebanon in an actual conflict context. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has gained currency in the business and society literature in recent years in light␣of its practicality from the perspective of managers and scholars. In accounting for the recent ascendancy of␣stakeholder theory, this article presents an overview of␣two traditional conceptualizations of corporate social␣responsibility (CSR) (Carroll: 1979, ‹A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Performance', The Academy of Management Review 4(4), 497–505 and Wood: 1991, ‹Corporate Social Performance Revisited', The Academy of Management Review 16(4), 691–717), highlighting their predominant inclination toward providing (...) static taxonomic CSR descriptions. The article then makes the case for a stakeholder approach to CSR, reviewing its rationale and outlining how it has␣been integrated into recent empirical studies. In light of this review, the article adopts a stakeholder framework – the Ethical Performance Scorecard (EPS) proposed by Spiller (2000, ‹Ethical Business and Investment: A Model For Business and Society', Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149–160) – to examine the CSR approach of a sample of␣Lebanese and Syrian firms with an interest in CSR␣and␣test relevant hypotheses derived from the CSR/stakeholder literature. The findings are analyzed and implications drawn regarding the usefulness of a stakeholder approach to CSR. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine the role(s) that the various vehicles of marketing communications can play with respect to communicating, publicising and highlighting organisational CSR policies to its various stakeholders. It will further endeavour to evaluate the impact of such communications on an organisation's corporate reputation and brand image. The proliferation of unsubstantiated ethical claims and so-called 'green washing' by some companies has resulted in increasing consumer cynicism and mistrust. This has made the task of communicating with, and more importantly (...) convincing, an organisation's stakeholders vis-à-vis its CSR credentials even more difficult. This paper argues that marketing communications tools can play a major role in conveying a company's CSR messages and communicating a more socially responsible image. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine the role that the various vehicles of marketing communications can play with respect to communicating, publicising and highlighting organisational CSR policies to its various stakeholders. It will further endeavour to evaluate the impact of such communications on an organisation's corporate reputation and brand image. The proliferation of unsubstantiated ethical claims and so-called 'green washing' by some companies has resulted in increasing consumer cynicism and mistrust. This has made the task of communicating with, and more importantly (...) convincing, an organisation's stakeholders vis-à-vis its CSR credentials even more difficult. This paper argues that marketing communications tools can play a major role in conveying a company's CSR messages and communicating a more socially responsible image. (shrink)

We show that the U.S. anti-discriminatory laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity identities) spur innovation, which ultimately leads to higher firm performance. We use the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index of 398 U.S. firms between 2011 and 2014, and find a significantly positive relationship between CEI and firm innovation. We also find that an interacting effect of CEI and firm innovation leads to higher firm performance. We use our understanding of Rawls’ Theory (...) of Justice and stakeholder theory to show that firms with workplace diversity policies are likely to be more innovative and perform better than those without such policies. Our results are robust to endogeneity, reverse causality and simultaneity issues. Our results will trigger debate in similar markets around the globe on the economic benefits of LGBT workplace diversity policies for firms. (shrink)

Whether to do business with rights violating regimes is one of many dilemmas faced by socially responsible corporations. In this article the difficult case of Myanmar is considered. Ruled for decades by a closed and sometimes brutal military elite, the country has long been subject to informal and formal sanctions. However, as sanctions have failed to trigger political reform, it is necessary to review the policy options. The focus here is on the contribution socially responsible corporations might make to change. (...) The article sketches contextual features of the case, examines the recent history and present pattern of business links with Myanmar, and assesses whether current approaches can stimulate reform. Concluding that they cannot, it considers fresh possibilities for corporate engagement. The argument is that socially responsible corporations, committed to improving individual life chances through engagement with developing societies, should undertake collaborative and principled direct investment in Myanmar. The underlying strategy and problems of codification and implementation are all analyzed. To close, the article contends that, by doing business with Myanmar’s rights violating regime, multinational corporations can extend the frontiers of global corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Whether to do business with rights violating regimes is one of many dilemmas faced by socially responsible corporations. In this article the difficult case of Myanmar is considered. Ruled for decades by a closed and sometimes brutal military elite, the country has long been subject to informal and formal sanctions. However, as sanctions have failed to trigger political reform, it is necessary to review the policy options. The focus here is on the contribution socially responsible corporations might make to change. (...) The article sketches contextual features of the case, examines the recent history and present pattern of business links with Myanmar, and assesses whether current approaches can stimulate reform. Concluding that they cannot, it considers fresh possibilities for corporate engagement. The argument is that socially responsible corporations, committed to improving individual life chances through engagement with developing societies, should undertake collaborative and principled direct investment in Myanmar. The underlying strategy and problems of codification and implementation are all analyzed. To close, the article contends that, by doing business with Myanmar's rights violating regime, multinational corporations can extend the frontiers of global corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

The presentation and paper for this conference go to the heart of the relationship between globalization and poverty worldwide. Data from the United Nations reveal the dramatic increase in exports and imports from 1990 to 2004, along with the uneven economic performance/quality of life across development groupings and geographical regions. Thus, findings suggest the possibility that trade growth has failed expectations that developing countries would rise to greater levels of productivity and subsequendy reduce abject poverty. Nonetheless, the situation is far (...) from hopeless and real progress can occur with a continued movement by transnational corporations toward socially responsible human rights, proactive governmental strategies that support productive dynamism, and removal of public policies that unfairly restrict less developed nations. (shrink)

Non-domestic companies are increasingly present on the London Stock Exchange. Such companies have specific governance requirements. They may seek to access capital in a more liquid market and to diversify ownership. The reputational ‘bonding’ to a prestigious exchange should be a statement to the market of a propensity to disclosure and a willingness to protect minority shareholders. Yet, many non-domestic companies retain tightly controlled shareholding structures and are based in emerging regions where national culture norms differ to the UK. We (...) hypothesise that non-domestic companies are likely to be less compliant with the principles of the UK Corporate Governance Code and suggest a correlation between lower levels of compliance and non-domestic companies from countries that demonstrate high power distance in the Hofstede cultural value framework. We find some encouraging signs of compliance with the reigning governance code principles in Board structures. However, we find only partial compliance in leadership and Board effectiveness measures in those companies from cultures high on the power-distance scale. Further, we include analysis into ownership characteristics and find companies from emerging markets are dominated by a single or controlling group of shareholders, which is likely to impact on attitudes to compliance and is particularly evidenced in terms of Board structures with no executive directors or led by an executive Chairman. Much of the prior research effort into the levels of compliance with the UK’s ‘comply-or-explain’ approach to governance has produced mixed results and focused on all companies. In our exploratory approach to analysing only the non-domestic subsample, we report some evidence linking cultural distance to lower levels of compliance with the UK standards. We develop a framework to guide future research into the context and cultural underpinnings of this sub-sample of companies, hypothesising that frequent market capitalisation-induced index changes may divert attention away from any potential compliance issues. On the one hand, our evidence is encouraging for governance regimes based on voluntary compliance disclosures such as the UK and similar European and international markets, as we report partial compliance with the principles of the current governance code. Our research may, however, be helpful in guiding future versions of the UK governance framework and other international governance regimes adopting the ‘comply-or-explain’ approach and in setting policy to improve disclosure. It contributes to the understanding of the specific context of non-domestic companies and any cultural tendencies to non-compliance. By demonstrating evidence of lower levels of compliance with key principles of the Code by non-domestic companies, we present a framework enabling lawmakers to further improve corporate governance codes. (shrink)

A survey-based research study was conducted to analyze sustainability practices of large U.S. corporations in their domestic and international operations. Large U.S. corporations were slow to address global environmental challenges, but a majority of them now demonstrate a clear understanding of their responsibilities. Most large U.S. corporations are proactively involved in sustainability and environmentally friendly measures, and their involvement at home is more intense than abroad. Analyses revealed that U.S. corporations engage in eight activities related to sustainability: investing in energy-efficient (...) methods, generating electricity from solar power, generating electricity from wind power, using biofuels, trading carbon credits, supporting environmental organizations, generating electricity from biomass, and generating electricity from hydropower. Of these, only generating electricity from biomass and hydropower were not significantly different with respect to U.S. corporations’ foreign and domestic implementation. This paper represents the first attempt to determine whether and how U.S. corporations’ efforts to promote sustainability differ with respect to their operational locus. (shrink)

Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has tended to focus on external stakeholders and outcomes, revealing little about internal effects that might also help explain CSR-firm performance linkages and the impact that corporate marketing strategies can have on internal stakeholders such as employees. The two studies ( N = 1,116 and N = 2,422) presented in this article draw on theory from both corporate marketing and organizational behavior (OB) disciplines to test the general proposition that employee trust partially mediates the (...) relationship between CSR and employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Both studies provide evidence in support of these general relationships. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of CSR and corporate marketing research. (shrink)

This conceptual article has three parts: In the first, I discuss the shortcomings of treating the environment as a stakeholder and conclude that doing so is theoretically vague and lacks prescriptive force. In the second part, I recommend moving from broad notions of preserving nature and appeals to beauty to a more concrete analytic framework provided by the idea of human sustainability. Using sustainability as the focus of concern is significant as it provides us with a more tenable and quantifiable (...) standard for action, as in the case of carbon offsets and development of measures such as the United Nations Sustainability Indicators. In the final section, I draw on notions of stewardship to suggest that stakeholder management has a positive responsibility to promote sustainability. (shrink)

A British coffee chain’s fundraising practices constitute a background for this study to examine ideological discourses behind British charitable giving. The charity executes projects in coffee growing communities by providing education for children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The study takes a critical stance from a discursive paradigmatic perspective to analyse visual contents used by the charity. The applied visual critical discourse analysis was inspired by Barthes’ semiotic theory. Findings suggest that the adverts’ interpretative repertoires can serve ideologies that sustain the donors’ (...) social-cultural dominance over the recipients by justifying group-based social hierarchies. The chains of signifiers do not question the spectators’ moral position but rationalise status quo and maintain undisturbed consumption. Findings suggest the possibility that the discourses of prosocial behaviour incited under consuming conditions do not challenge but may even justify global inequality. This finding presents challenges facing charitable organisations balancing their work within wider commercial and cultural contexts. (shrink)

Transparency is a quality of corporate social responsibility communication that enhances the relationship between the investors and the company. The objective of this paper is to analyze if the transparency of the sustainability reports is affected by the relationship of companies in different industries with their stakeholders. If this were the case, it would indicate that the pressure of significant stakeholders determines the required level of transparency of the reports. We find that the pressure of some groups of stakeholders improves (...) the quality of transparency of the reports. We extend previous research by studying the effect of stakeholder group pressure on transparency when reporting sustainability. Our results show that transparency is affected by ownership, along with size and global region. (shrink)

The logic of gift and gratuitousness in business activity raised by the encyclical Caritas in Veritate stresses a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation. The logic of gift in business includes two aspects. The first is considering the logic of gift as a new conceptual lens in order to view business relationship beyond contractual logic. In this view, it is crucial to see the circulation of goods as instrumental for the development of relationships. The second aspect is to (...) qualify the relationships established through the gift, and to think about the motivation in gift-giving, which has an ethical content. We give because we have received, and through gift-giving we develop relationships that have a high ‘bonding value’. Analysing the logic of gift in business management may permit us to gain an understanding of the ambiguity of gift-giving in organizations. Looking at the relationships between organizations and employees, and organizations and customers, we can discover why the logic of gift is often misunderstood or abused in its application, and how it should be applied to be more consistent with the message of Caritas in Veritate. (shrink)

A continuing challenge for researchers and practitioners alike is the lack of data on the effectiveness of corporate–community investment programmes. The focus of this article is on the minerals industry, where companies currently face the challenge of matching corporate drivers for strategic partnership with community needs for programmes that contribute to local and regional sustainability. While many global mining companies advocate a strategic approach to partnerships, there is no evidence currently available that suggests companies are monitoring these partnerships to see (...) if they do, in fact, represent ‘strategic’ investments. This article argues that applying the management concept of ‘investment performance’ to corporate–community partnerships requires questioning traditional evaluation methods that focus on the results of programmes or activities. We adopt a case study approach to introduce an evaluation framework that considers performance from both corporate and community perspectives and that conceptualises partnership performance as comprising four aspects: (1) the contribution of the partnership to the overall portfolio of a company’s community investment programmes, (2) the appropriateness of the partnership model, (3) the effectiveness of the partnering relationship and (4) the ability of the partners to achieve programme goals. The application of this evaluation framework to an established corporate–community partnership programme provided some useful insights as to how partnership performance can be improved. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme initial stances on climate change. We found that as stakeholder pressures rose, their IM tactics unfolded in four phases: advocating the initial stance, sensegiving to clarify the initial stance, image repairing, and adjusting the stance. Taken together, our analysis of (...) IM over these four phases provides three key insights about the evolution of IM in the face of rising pressures. First, when faced with stakeholder pressures, it seems that organizations do not immediately resort to conforming but tend to give in gradually when pressures increase and start to come from relatively powerful stakeholders. Second, evolution of IM seems to be characterized by path dependence, i.e., even as organizations’ positions evolve, they continue to show their conviction in their initial positions and try to convey that their subsequent positions flow logically from the previous ones. Finally, IM involves navigation between symbolism and substance, and companies tend to strive toward harmonizing their symbolic and substantive actions as stakeholder pressure increases. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to advance research on CSR beyond the stalemate of economic versus ethical models by providing an alternative perspective integrating existing views and allowing for more shared dialog and research in the field. It is suggested that we move beyond making a normative case for ethical models and practices of CSR by moving beyond the question of how to manage organizational self-interest toward the question of how accurate current conceptions of the organizational self seem to (...) be. Specifically, it is proposed that CSR is not a question of how self-interested the corporation should be, but how this self is defined. Economic and ethical models of CSR are not models of opposition but exist on a continuum between egoic and post-egoic, illusory and authentic conceptions of the organizational self. This means that moving from one to the other is not a question of adopting different paradigms but rather of moving from illusion and dysfunction to authenticity and functionality, from pathology to health. (shrink)