Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and Value Creation among Large Firms: Lessons from the Spanish Experience

Can corporate social responsibility (CSR) be a source of good and a wellspring of innovation, competitive advantage and value creation for the firm? Although CEOs and government leaders insist in public that CSR projects create value for the firm, privately they admit that they do not know if CSR pays off. To address this question and drawing on experience for the Spanish context, we test one of the few efforts to model how the strategic management of CSR may contribute to improving firm profitability (Burke and Logsdon, 1996). To do this, we examine the impact of three strategic CSR variables – visibility, appropriability, and voluntarism – on value creation among large Spanish corporations. The conclusions from these findings suggest that managers need to understand how CSR is similar to and different from other traditional corporate market activities if they are to pursue value creation through CSR. We also suggest avenues for future research to explain how CSR may be integrated into firm processes to create resources (assets) and capabilities (routines) that may lead to competitive advantage and superior economic performance.     

联盟信任与伙伴机会主义的关系研究——来自我国医院间联盟的证据

传统的交易成本理论认为,信任与机会主义负相关。但在战略联盟背景下,这种观点具有明显的局限性。首先,它只考虑了联盟成员间的善意信任,忽视了能力信任这一重要维度;其次,社会交易理论认为,(善意)信任具有阴暗面(dark sides),从而信任与机会主义之间并不总是线性关系。本文在社会交易理论的基础上,深入分析了善意信任及能力信任对伙伴机会主义的影响,并采用190份我国医院间联盟的数据进行了实证检验。结果表明,善意信任并不是越高越好,过高的善意信任会由于缺少监控而增加伙伴的机会主义行为,从而善意信任与机会主义之间呈现一种先降低后增加的U型关系;能力信任与机会主义之间负相关的假设没有获得通过。     

Banking: Time to unbundle the services?

Banking services have undergone radical changes—but this is a continuing process and restructured competition in the financial services calls for a restructured financial system. One significant area for restructure is the distribution—whether to personalize or de-personalize. If depersonalization means cheaper and more efficient service this may well be acceptable. The banks must also make decisions on the services offered and how to counteract the downward trend of maturing techniques by innovation and the encouragement of economic growth.     

Lessons from the trenches in physician integration

Beyond the theoretical basis for integration, three core considerations stand out as the primary reasons for pursuing integration from a physician's perspective. In the authors' experience, the ability to make a case for physician integration stands or falls based on the ability of the integrated delivery system to address these considerations: Gain greater access to capital; develop human resources with talents in managed care and the full spectrum of care services; and sustain an information infrastructure. This article explores the lessons learned in pursuing physician integration.     

Articulating Values to Inform Decision Making: Lessons from Family Firms Around the World

Both the popular and the academic press stress that management grounded in values is fundamental to decision-making. High performance companies know that clarity about values is key to getting the job done. However, many family-owned firms do not adequately articulate their core values into a workable orientation for the business. As a result, they are in danger of seriously impairing their decision-making. The authors analyzed family business mission statements from around the world to identify the core values expressed therein. The authors also analyzed how efficiently these values were articulated. They propose that family businesses can make their decision making more effective by identifying and including their core values in the business's mission statement. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

How Close Is Close Enough: Public Perceptions of the Risks of Industrial Facilities

Public opinion poll data have consistently shown that the proportion of respondents who are willing to have a nuclear power plant in their own community is smaller than the proportion who agree that more nuclear plants should be built in this country. Respondents' judgments of the minimum safe distance from each of eight hazardous facilities confirmed that this finding results from perceived risk gradients that differ by facility (e.g., nuclear vs. natural gas power plants) and social group (e.g., chemical engineers vs. environmentalists) but are relatively stable over time. Ratings of the facilities on thirteen perceived risk dimensions were used to determine whether any of the dimensions could explain the distance data. Because the rank order of the facilities with respect to acceptable distance was very similar to the rank order on a number of the perceived risk dimensions, it is difficult to determine which of the latter is the critical determinant of acceptable distance if, indeed, there is only one. There were, however, a number of reversals of rank order that indicate that the respondents had a differentiated view of technological risk. Finally, data from this and other studies were interpreted as suggesting that perceived lack of any other form of personal control over risk exposure may be an important factor in stimulating public opposition to the siting of hazardous facilities.     

战略联盟的范围、治理与稳定性间关系的实证研究

本文从联盟伙伴间的关系视角出发,分析了战略联盟的合作范围和治理类型对伙伴间关系稳定性的影响.由于稳定性是一个抽象且难以用显性指标直接测量的变量,本文把它构建为一个二阶因子结构,并用企业间信任、相互依赖和冲突解决这三个一阶因子来度量它.在此基础上,通过问卷调查获得127家德国联盟企业的数据,并对提出的假说进行了检验,分析结果表明合资企业比非股权契约联盟更有可能享有稳定的伙伴间合作关系,而联盟的范围即联盟协议中所包含的合作活动的多少对联盟稳定性没有显著的影响.     

Input-output analysis of tourism benefits: Lessons from Scotland

Input-output, a powerful method of economic analysis, can demonstrate in detail the direct and indirect effects of tourism on income, employment, and output. Drawing on the results of a Scottish study, the author stresses the diverse nature of tourism-related employment and establishments. He also points out that tourist purchases of imports can allow a significant leakage of economic benefits.     

Building Reputations: The Role of Alliances in the European Business School Scene

How should businesses best choose foreign partners as they seek to internationalise? We use reputation theory to examine this question. Building reputation is a key aim on the European Business School scene, and this article starts by using more than 2,000 articles written by European academics in top quality journals to update the LRP research reputation rankings of European Schools. We then look at the way international research collaboration takes place, and find that alliances between schools are far from random. It seems that academics from US and European schools are strongly attracted to form alliances with one another, and the choice process appears to be consistent with reputation theory that suggests US schools seek out the most reputable foreign partners. Moreover, the “charmed circle” of high-reputation partners appears to be defined on a country-to-country basis rather than from a whole-Europe perspective. The lessons for managers in internationalising industries are that international alliance choice must include a reputation perspective, with great care being paid to the exact nature of the foreign partner's achievements.     

Informal Caregiving and Women's Work Choices: Lessons from the Netherlands

This paper focuses on the effects of Dutch long‐term care and labour market policies on women's labour market participation and informal caregiving decisions. Labour market participation and informal caregiving are estimated jointly through a multivariate dynamic binary probit on European Community Household Panel data. Under Dutch policy, informal care decisions appear to be independent of household non‐labour income and no significant impediment seems to hinder the contemporaneous practice of work activities and care. However, past informal care provision still slightly reduces the probability of currently working and vice versa, leaving room for policy improvements to enhance labour market participation.     

Developing realistic scenarios for the environment: Lessons from Brent Spar

Why did Shell—renowned for its scenario planning—find itself so badly adrift with the Brent Spar? And why, later in 1995, was it wrong-footed again in Nigeria? The answers reflect deep currents already clear to the company's scenario writers in the 1980s, but retaining their ability to surprise. The authors conclude that Shell's scenarios have been ‘individualist’, ‘hierarchist’ or some combination of the two; none have adopted an ‘egalitarian perspective’. They also suggest that the ‘Values Shift’ scenario—developed for European Partners for the Environment—may hold clues to future shifts in business strategy.