Governance Choices for Corporate Social Responsibility: to Contribute,Collaborate or Internalize?

Within a competitive business environment where resources are limited, it is increasingly important for senior management to make every investment count. Measuring ‘return on investment’ occurs at every level of operations—so why not also in the arena of Corporate Social activity? Until now, much research has focused on finding the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and increased business performance. Researchers have not examined the cost implications associated with the different forms of governance utilized by companies to implement their CSR activities, e.g., outsourcing through charitable contributions, developing an in-house program, or creating a more collaborative model, which benefits both the company and the partner nonprofit organization. Careful examination and evaluation of these costs will help senior management choose the governance structure that will maximize the benefits they reap from CSR activities.Drawing upon insights from organizational economics, this article develops a framework to compare the alternative modes of CSR governance and identifies the key drivers that affect governance choice, including associated costs. Most importantly, it provides a decision-making tool that can guide senior management in this vital choice as a way to contribute to the competitive advantage of the firm.     

Connecting the Dots: Do Financial Analysts Help Corporate Boards Improve Corporate Social Responsibility?

This paper presents an examination of the joint impact of board structural elements at firm level and financial analysts as market-level corporate governance (CG) on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Our study contributes to the CG–CSR literature by adopting the bundling approach, a perspective that has recently attracted researchers’ attention as an answer to any heterogeneity and fragmentation in existing findings. It is based on an extensive sample consisting of 7,739 firm-year observations of US firms for the 2006–2015 period. The findings suggest that financial analysts complement the corporate board with more independence, gender diversity and a specialized CSR committee to realize a certain level of CSR performance of a firm. The findings also indicate that analysts substitute for those internal governance factors that are associated with weaker boards – larger sizes and dual-role CEOs. We also draw implications for research and practice from our findings.     

When Do Multinational Companies Consider Corporate Social Responsibility? A Multi‐country Study in Sub‐Saharan Africa

While African countries are becoming more and more relevant as host countries for suppliers of multinational companies little is known about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in this region. To fill this gap, the present article explores CSR considerations of foreign affiliates of multinational companies when choosing local African suppliers. The article suggests a model of three types of determinants, namely firm characteristics, exports, and intra‐trade. Analyses of a large‐scale and quite unique firm level data for more than 2,000 foreign owned firms in 19 sub‐Saharan African countries demonstrate that firms importing intermediates from their parent company abroad are more likely to implement CSR. Similarly, CSR plays a larger role for affiliates that export to developed countries. Different determinants affect environmental and social CSR activities.     

Extended Producer Responsibility for E‐Waste: Individual or Collective Producer Responsibility?

We investigate the implications of collective and individual producer responsibility (CPR and IPR, respectively) models of product take‐back laws for e‐waste on manufacturers’ design for product recovery (DfR) choices and profits, and on consumer surplus in the presence of product competition. We show that IPR offers superior DfR incentives as compared to CPR, and provides a level competitive ground. CPR may distort competition and allow free‐riding on DfR efforts to reduce product recovery costs. Thus, manufacturer preferences for IPR or CPR may differ because of the free‐riding implications under CPR, with even high‐end manufacturers having incentives to free‐ride under certain competitive conditions. The policy choice between IPR and CPR is not clear cut from an economic welfare perspective. This choice involves a comparison between the effects of superior recovery cost reduction through improved DfR under IPR and the operational cost‐efficiency under CPR.     

Product Chain Responsibility — An Industry Perspective

Traditionally, ecologically conscious product design (EcoDesign) emphasises the systematic environmental improvement of products, with tools derived from life cycle assessment (LCA) being used to record the improvements achieved. The possible integration within a company's environmental management system (EMS), taking Philips as the example, has been described in previously world-wide distributed and publicly available management guidelines called ‘Point of no return’. An operational counterpart was published in 2000 and is called ‘Greening Your Business’, it features an extended method, which includes all milestones in the total sequence from company policy via strategic choices and roadmap planning to the product's creation. This article describes the overall approach.     

Is Corporate Social Responsibility in Japanese Firms at the Theoretically Derived Achievable Level? An Analysis of CSR Inefficiency Using a Stochastic Frontier Model

The purposes of this study are to investigate whether current corporate social responsibility (CSR) is at the theoretically derived achievable level (hereinafter referred to simply as achievable level), to introduce “CSR inefficiency” as the difference between actual and achievable levels of CSR, and to specify its determinants. We established that the achievable level of CSR activity is determined by a range of keiretsu group, government, sector, and resource factors, and choosing specific activities can affect the priority levels of social contributions. CSR inefficiency is affected by its own factors such as internal management, which are different from those of CSR activity. Our study suggests the importance of the differences between the achievable levels of CSR among firms. For example, firms in machinery, electrical equipment, public utilities, and service industries have greater inefficiency in environmental CSR than the other industries. Conversely, the achievable levels of construction and petroleum and gum industries for environmental CSR are higher. Service firms can achieve higher level of environmental CSR, although their emissions and wastes are not as large as those of manufacturing firms in general. In retail industries, the achievable level of environmental CSR is lowest among all industries, while those for labor issues and social contribution are as high as those of other industries. Public utilities have large CSR inefficiency compared with other industries, while construction, steel and nonferrous metals have small CSR inefficiency.     

Does Ownership Form Matter for Corporate Social Responsibility? A Longitudinal Comparison of Environmental Performance between Public,Private, and Joint‐venture Firms

This study examines whether a firm's ownership form has any influence on its social performance. Conventional wisdom suggests that public (publicly traded) corporations are more susceptible to corruption and socially irresponsible behavior than privately owned corporations because of the intense short‐term profit maximization pressure from shareholders and the lack of sufficient monitoring mechanisms. This study introduces an alternate perspective in thinking about the relationship between ownership form and corporate social responsibility. This study reasons that public corporations are more likely to become socially responsible because of their greater exposure to external influence and greater dependence on external actors with diverse interests. Using a panel data on the pollution management practices of 118 industrial facilities over a 13‐year period, this study shows that public corporations were indeed subject to greater external pressure to reduce pollution, and the pressure led to consistently stronger environmental performance.     

Social forecasting: An integral part of corporate planning?

The increasing need for business to monitor the social dimensions of its environment and, hopefully make some forecasts of future trends has met with some constructive response from academics and consultants although not as yet on a very liberal scale. The published literature does not indicate to what extent companies in general attemp social forecasting and, where they do, the degree of integration which exists within their corporate planning systems. The authors, therefore, decided to survey a sample of British organizations to see if they could shed some light on these issues and thereby add some information to the excellent accounts of individual cases of social forecasting in, they suspect, the more advanced and atypical companies. The survey suggests a general picture of: awareness of the value of social forecasting; fairly widespread ignorance of the techniques which do exist, primitive though these may largely be; successful integration of social forecasting into the corporate planning systems of a substantial number of organizations but not in the majority.     

Blending Individual Tenacity with Government’s Responsibility in the Implementation of US Non-motorized Transportation Planning (NMT)

Human powered traveling is filled with risks. It takes individual tenacity to walk and bicycle in many US city streets. The danger of being injured or fatally killed requires responsible government action and a new repoliticization of the transportation priorities. This paper examines the risks involved in exercising the right to walk and bicycle and the authority’s responsibility to account for the health, safety and well-being of all individuals. I argue that the implementation of broadly agreed upon non-motorized transportation planning is critical to the success of public policies. The paper reviews concepts, prior policies and trends, remaining dilemmas and planning implications of US non-motorized transportation planning.     

On the Regional Influence and Social Identity of Huifang Catering Culture in Xi＇an

回坊在西安是一个标志性的区域,更是一种饮食符号,其历史悠久、种类繁多的美食具有独特的饮食文化魅力。回坊饮食文化的区域影响力遍及坊上区域和坊外区域,但是在社会认同方面,回坊的饮食文化仍然存在着特色危机及文化危机。     

Carrots or Sticks? Improving Social and Environmental Compliance at Suppliers Through Incentives and Penalties

Firms are increasingly looking to eradicate social and environmental non‐compliances at their suppliers in response to increasing regulations, consumer demand, potential for supply chain disruptions, and to improve their social, environmental, and economic supply chain performance. This study develops a model of the relationship between the buyer's supplier incentives and penalties for the supplier's social and environmental compliance, and the outcomes in terms of reduction in supplier social and environmental violations as well as the buyer's own operating costs. This model is tested empirically through analysis of a dataset of opinion‐based survey responses from practitioners at 334 companies across 17 industries. The analysis finds specific penalties and incentives that are positively associated with reduced supplier violations and reduced buyer operating costs. In particular, offering suppliers incentives of increased business and training for improving social and environmental performance is strongly associated with a reduction in both violations and operating costs.     

Shame on Who? The Effects of Corporate Irresponsibility and Social Performance on Organizational Reputation

This study examines the relationship between corporate irresponsibility, corporate social performance and changes in organizational reputation. By combining attribution theory with expectancy violations theory, we provide the first systematic analysis of how organizational reputations are influenced by attributions of corporate irresponsibility in the context of social expectations. Drawing on a comprehensive and unique corporate irresponsibility dataset, this study reveals that firms previously believed to be most socially responsible are penalized by evaluators when corporate culpability is verified by a court of law. Conversely, firms perceived as least socially responsible were more likely to suffer reputation penalties when accused of irresponsibility, without their culpability established through litigation. Overall, the results of our study suggest that organizational reputations are mostly stable in light of irresponsibility, in that evaluators only penalize certain firms, in certain circumstances. Specifically, reputation penalties occur when highly responsible firms are perceived as hypocritical and least responsible firms were not found culpable by a court of law. Upon reflection on these findings, our study reveals that the mechanisms of social sanction previously assumed to regulate irresponsibility are weaker than currently understood. The theoretical and policy implications of this study are discussed, along with directions for future research on social evaluations.     

‘Space,the final frontier’? Social movements as organizing spaces for applying HRD

This article suggests a qualitatively different type of ‘space’ that fits the classic definition of what constitutes an ‘organization’, but that is frequently rejected as being beyond the scope of HRD because it does not fit preconceived notions of an ‘organization’. In this article, I describe how social movements are spaces analogous to organizations that can enrich our understanding of HRD principles and that may benefit from our professional experience in fostering learning and development for and within organizations. Using concepts of sensemaking in the organizing process (Weick, K. E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications) and concepts of space (Foucault, M. 1986. “Of Other Spaces.” Translated by J. Miskowiec. Diacritics 16 (1): 22–27; Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell), I show how the social movement, Occupy Wall Street, can be seen as an important site of HRD practice and research.     

The Politics of ‘Social Accountability’ in England and Germany: Democratic Control and Moral Imperatives

This article investigates how politicians in England and Germany approach social accountability during the introduction of markets in the national health care systems. It analyses the discourse among members of parliament during the law making process of the 2012 NHS Health Care Act in England and the 2011 Act for Financing of Statutory Health Insurance in Germany. Generally, the new social accountability reform agenda is attractive to policy makers as it foregrounds public engagement and bottom-up participation (Peters 2001). Social accountability refers to institutional practices that favour participatory and horizontal mechanisms that depart from traditional hierarchical Principal-Agent forms.     

The Social Policy Response to COVID-19 – The Failure to Help Vulnerable Children and Elderly People

Public Organization Review - Norway’s handling of COVID-19 has been seen as a success. Vulnerable groups among young and elderly people, have however, not been part of this success. Their...     

Internal and External Social Capital for Radical Product Innovation: Do They Always Work Well Together?

We examine the role of internal and external relational social capital (SC) as determinants of radical product innovation (RPI). By analysing both sides of SC, we provide interesting insights on their relative influence and their interaction effect on this type of innovation. Besides, traditional assumptions on SC and innovation are questioned. In our empirical study using a sample of 142 manufacturing and service companies we found that, of the two types of SC analysed, internal SC is the most relevant predictor of RPI in relation to either technological or market dimensions. The influence of external SC is not as strong as the internal one. Regarding their interaction effect, external SC reduces the positive effect of internal SC on the market dimension of RPI. Interesting implications arise for practitioners, who should pay special attention to the higher impact of internal SC on RPI and the need to carefully manage the difficulties that emerge when it is combined with external SC.     

Social construction of work stress: Australian newsprint media portrayal of stress at work, 1997–98

Public understanding of health issues is influenced by the social and political interests of those who gather the information and by the media which disseminates it. This has implications for lay people's beliefs about work stress and has potentially serious personal implications in terms of recognizing, reacting to, and reporting stress in the workplace (Furnham, 1997). The somewhat ambiguous nature of work stress renders it vulnerable to political, social and economic manipulation. This study explores how the issue of work stress is represented in the Australian newsprint media. Fifty-one work-related articles from all major Australian newspapers from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1997 were selected if 'stress' appeared in the headline. The articles were examined for dominant ideologies and themes. Attention was given to the language used to describe stress, the intended audience, and the voices represented in the articles. Results showed that work stress is represented in the media as an economically costly epidemic, as an outcome of unfavourable work conditions but with individual remedies, and as primarily situated within the public sector. The main voice represented in the media was that of the unions. The reproduction of work stress as a public sector phenomenon serves the interests of public sector unions, the newspapers, and the managers of private sector workers and is not consistent with available workers' compensation data (which is itself problematic).