This paper explores the role of strategic conversations in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy formation. The authors suggest that explicitly engaging stakeholders in the CSR strategy-making process, through the mechanism of strategic conversations, will minimize future stakeholder concerns and enhance CSR strategy making. In addition, suggestions for future research are offered to enable a better understanding of effective strategic conversation processes in CSR strategy making and the resulting performance outcomes.

This paper is a response to Ray's recent proposal that the intellectual property rights attached to potentially life saving/life sustaining innovations should become public goods in cases where markets are either unable or unwilling to pay for the creation of the intellectual property. Using a free market approach to innovation based on Western moral philosophy, we suggest that treating intellectually protected life saving/life sustaining innovations as public goods will likely reduce social welfare over the long term.

This study focuses on the managerial issue of should social enterprises become more marketing oriented. It adapts the Kohli et al. MARKOR marketing orientation scale to measure the adoption of marketing by SEs. The items capture Vincentian-based values to leverage business in service to the poor as a measure of a Vincentian marketing orientation. A VMO is an organisational wide value-driven philosophy of management that focuses a SE on meeting its objectives by adopting a more marketing orientated approach to serve (...) the needy and poor in a just and sustainable manner. SEs that exhibit a VMO seek to understand and respond to both the needs of their beneficiaries and stakeholders. They are constantly generating, disseminating, and responding to environmental, beneficiary, and stakeholder information and develop their business propositions to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the poor, while guided by a philosophy of leveraging business for social good. This study of SEs in Australia found that a VMO is strongly and positively correlated with social, economic, and environmental performance. These findings suggest that SEs may benefit by leveraging marketing capabilities to better serve their beneficiaries and stakeholders. (shrink)

Corporate reputation is an intangible asset that is related to marketing and financial performance. The social, economic, and global environment of the 1990'shas resulted in environmental performance becoming an increasingly important component of a company'sreputation. This paper explores the relationship between reputation, environmental performance, and financial performance, and looks at the contingencies that impact environmental policy making.

This paper discusses how adoption of the social dimensions of the marketing concept may unintentionally restrict innovation and corporate entrepreneurship, ultimately reducing social welfare. The impact of social marketing on innovation and entrepreneurship is discussed using the case of multinational pharmaceutical firms that are under pressure when marketing HIV treatments in poor countries.The argument this paper supports is that social welfare may eventually be diminished if forced social responsibility is imposed. The case of providing subsidized AIDS medication to less developed (...) nations is used to illustrate how social blackmail may result in less innovation, entrepreneurship, and product development efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, ultimately reducing social welfare. (shrink)

Social Responsibility (SA) 8000 registration/certification is a response by the business community to address consumer and investor perceptions of the importance of emerging global social issues such as child labor, worker rights, discrimination, compensation, etc. As more U.S. and European firms outsource production to less developed nations, social, environmental, and reputational issues have become more important. SA8000 is a series of behavioral standards that represents a comprehensive, and potentially global, corporate social responsibility registration system that provides a standard of socially (...) responsible treatment of workers. This paper explores how SA8000 adoption may impact a firm's marketing activities. (shrink)