Corporate Citizenship and Managerial Motivation: Implications for Business Legitimacy

In 2000, Business and Society Review published a Special Issue of the journal to explore scholars’ ideas about how the practice of corporate citizenship would evolve in the 21st century. Contributors to the volume predicted a change in business motives for engaging in social initiatives, suggesting that managers would begin to see corporate citizenship as a strategic necessity to preserve organizational legitimacy in the face of changing social values. This article uses data from a study of corporate citizenship practices in over 500 Norwegian companies to explore the validity of the Special Issue predictions. We begin by reviewing the foundations of organizational legitimacy theory and examine recent research documenting the growing importance of corporate citizenship for assessments of business legitimacy. We describe our study methods, present our results, and discuss the implications of our findings in this context.     

Organizational Stages and Cultural Phases: A Critical Review and a Consolidative Model of Corporate Social Responsibility Development

Based on a stakeholder-oriented conceptualization of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this paper offers a multi-dimensional, dynamic perspective which integrates moral, cultural and strategic aspects of the CSR development process, together with its organizational implications. Therefore, the authors link existing stage models of CSR development with stakeholder culture and social responsiveness continuums and provide a consolidative model which highlights a seven-stage development process towards CSR, articulated around three cultural phases (i.e. CSR reluctance, CSR grasp and CSR embedment). In a context in which literature on CSR development and implementation tends to be overly segmented, this consolidative model integrates organizational values and culture together with management processes and operations. In its emphasis on the importance of the organizational context and characteristics in analyses of organizations' CSR development, the proposed consolidative model offers novel research perspectives and highlights the relevance of adopting a phase-dependent approach.     

员工社会化、组织认同与组织公民行为——基于中国科技制造企业的实证研究

组织社会化的策略、内容及其对员工态度和行为影响的研究已经比较丰富,但在结果变量上对组织公民行为的分析和实证研究都很不足。本文选取了组织社会化中的历史、语言、价值观和目标社会化三项内容,考察它们对组织公民行为的影响及其机制,尤其是组织认同在其中的中介作用。层级回归、结构方程建模分析的结果表明,历史、语言、价值观和目标社会化正向影响组织公民行为,组织认同在语言、价值观和目标社会化与组织公民行为的关系中起完全中介作用,在历史社会化与组织公民行为的关系中起部分中介作用。     

团队心理安全、组织公民行为和团队创新--一个中介传导模型的实证分析

团队和创新已经成为新经济条件下企业所关心的重要问题,而团队如何创新的问题则更为理论界和实践界所关注.以往的研究认为团队心理安全(Team Psychological Safety)有助于团队创新的实现,而关于团队心理安全通过怎样的具体机制来影响团队创新则一直存在争议.本文认为,组织公民行为(OCB)能够充当这一过程的中介变量.团队心理安全影响团队创新的途径可能是团队心理安全能够导致组织公民行为,而组织公民行为则能够导致团队创新.本文采用实证分析方法,在Baron和Kennv中介变量判断原则的基础上验证了这一假设.文章还对本研究的局限性和进一步研究方向进行了讨论.     

Financial Returns of Corporate Social Responsibility,and the Moral Freedom and Responsibility of Business Leaders

A number of theorists have proposed mechanisms suggesting that corporate social responsibility produces better financial results. Others subscribe to the theory that, realistically, less ethical means are necessary. This article contains an analysis of these perspectives drawing on observations from evolutionary game theory and nature. Based on these analyses, it is concluded that the financial returns of corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility (CSR and CSI) are equal on average. The explanation is that CSR and CSI aredriven to a state of equilibrium, because if one or the other were to offer higher profits, it would attract more players who would compete for the best opportunities until there was no difference in average profit. Existing empirical research generally shows a positive correlation between CSR as measured and corporate financial performance. It is argued that what is actually causing that finding is probably not CSR but management skill. More skillful managers, whether actually responsible or irresponsible, are able to obtain both higher profits and greater credit in imperfect measures of CSR. Next it is shown that this theory of equal returns implies greater moral freedom and therefore responsibility for business leaders. It is concluded that this insight can intensify the interest of decent business leaders in vigorously championing CSR.     

领导情绪智力对员工组织认同、组织公民行为影响的跨层分析

本文探讨了领导感知自我情绪智力、员工感知领导情绪智力与员工组织公民行为之间的跨层关系.并且在不同层次上讨论了领导情绪智力对员工组织认同、组织公民行为的影响,同时分析了领导情绪智力对组织公民行为的影响机制.研究通过对九家制造业企业的70个团队的领导与员工的问卷调查发现,领导感知自我情绪智力跨层调节员工感知领导情绪智力与组织公民行为、组织认同之间的关系.且在单层模型与多层模型中,组织认同都是员工感知领导情绪智力与组织公民行为之间的完全中介变量.当员工感知领导情绪智力大到某一范围时,领导感知自我情绪智力正向调节员工感知领导情绪智力与组织公民行为之间的关系.而当员工感知领导情绪智力低于某一范围时,领导感知自我情绪智力反而负向调节这一关系.     

Unknown Knowns and Known Unknowns: Framing the Role of Organizational Learning in Corporate Social Responsibility Development

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now widely seen as an increasingly significant concern for firms because of moral, relational and instrumental motives. Nevertheless, practical aspects and challenges associated with CSR development in firms remains only partially understood. In this setting, the organizational learning (OL) discipline is recurrently put forward as key in the pursuit and successful development of CSR, but the existing literature remains disjointed. This study critically reviews the existing literature to conceptualize how research to date has approached CSR development in terms of OL, and to provide a two‐dimensional structuring framework of the role of OL in CSR development that emphasizes key OL‐related aspects supporting CSR development and goes beyond an organization‐centric viewpoint to consider not only learning within the organization, but also from others, and with others. In particular, the authors identify key learning processes and sub‐processes and critical areas that remain understudied. Overall, the authors propose a macro view of the work done to date at the intersection of OL and CSR, and in doing so help make the ‘OL for CSR development’ scholarship more recognizable as a sub‐discipline.     

Transformational Leadership,Organizational Clan Culture,Organizational Affective Commitment,and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Case of South Korea's Public Sector

The present study examines whether transformational leadership is associated with clan culture, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior and whether affective commitment is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior. The study also examines whether affective commitment mediates the effects of clan culture on organizational citizenship behavior and whether clan culture mediates the effects of transformational leadership on affective commitment. The results of this study indicate a positive relationship between transformational leadership and clan culture as well as between transformational leadership and affective commitment; no significant relationship between clan culture and organizational citizenship behavior as well as between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior; and a significant positive relationship between affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior as well as between clan culture and affective commitment . Thus, the results clearly show that affective commitment fully mediates the relationship between clan culture and organizational citizenship behavior and that clan culture partially mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and affective commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings as well as interesting avenues for future research are discussed.     

企业领导者的社会责任取向、企业社会表现和组织绩效的关系研究

企业领导者的社会责任取向、企业社会表现和组织绩效存在一定关系。根据以往的研究,企业社会责任取向包括经济取向、法律取向、伦理取向和慈善取向4个维度。在研究中,把企业社会表现拟合为员工、消费者、股东、强制环保、自觉环保、社区和特殊群体7个因子,把组织绩效分为市场绩效、财务绩效和人力绩效3个因子。研究发现,在企业社会责任取向、企业社会表现和组织绩效3者的关系中,企业社会表现起着中介作用。此外,对国外学者设计的企业社会责任取向问卷进行了本土化,并首次将企业社会责任取向、企业社会表现和组织绩效纳入一个研究框架中。     

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Complementary Perspective of Community and Corporate Leaders

Research studies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS) often focus on revealing corporate leaders’ attitudes toward various issues of CSR. The position of the present paper is that to understand CSR, we must grasp the collaborative perspective of CSR, and discern the attitudes of community leaders as well as corporate leaders. To this end, the study compares attitudes of community leaders with those of corporate leaders in three localities in Israel. The study examines various issues of CSR, highlighting the benefits to both community and corporation of reciprocal relations. Results from t‐tests confirmed significant differences between the groups. Some important implications for CSR particularly in terms of collaboration between community and corporation are discussed.     

Supply Chain Structure Incentives for Corporate Social Responsibility: An Incomplete Contracting Analysis

Downstream firms increasingly recognize the importance of integrating social and environmental concerns with their businesses. As a consequence, they urge to create incentives for their suppliers to invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Contracts to provide these incentives are rarely observed in practice. If not totally absent, contracts may be incomplete, in that unforeseen contingencies or some CSR attributes that are difficult to measure may not be included in the contract. We show that incentives for CSR investments can also be provided through the supply chain structure, which consists of the distribution of ownership rights over the firms' assets of production, and involves horizontal and/or vertical alliances among supply chain members. Motivated by examples in agricultural contexts, this study adopts the property rights approach to study the impact of supply chain structures on the adoption of CSR activities. We show that the structure that best incentivizes CSR investments depends on the interaction between CSR vertical synergy, free‐riding, and countervailing power. One of the main findings is that the alliance between suppliers is beneficial only if the revenues generated by a downstream investment are sufficiently high. In fact, only in this case, the suppliers can appropriate a sufficiently large stake of the revenues generated downstream, thanks to their countervailing power. When the upstream investment costs become high, however, the suppliers will invest in CSR only if the downstream distributor is vertically integrated. The resulting structure of a cooperative will best incentivize CSR investments only if the CSR vertical synergy between the two tiers of the supply chain is sufficiently high.     

Organizational Improvisation: A Consolidating Review and Framework

Organizational improvisation is increasingly recognized as a relevant area of management research. However, the cumulativeness of research on improvisation in organizations remains low. This paper organizes existing contributions on organizational improvisation within a new consolidating framework combining degrees (minor, bounded and structural) and levels (individual, interpersonal and organizational) of improvisation. The proposed degree/level framework allows for reviewing the existing literature on organizational improvisation in the management disciplines of strategy, organizational behaviour, organizational theory, innovation and marketing in a systematic manner. It also exposes potential areas for future research across management disciplines, research areas, organizational settings and industries, and beyond existing metaphors, most notably of jazz and improvisational theatre.     

An Empirical Investigation of Corporate Citizenship in Australia and Turkey *

This paper describes a study of corporate citizenship practices and its relationship to dimensions of internal and external corporate culture, customer loyalty and organizational commitment. Empirical data was collected from a cross‐industry sample in Turkey and Australia using a questionnaire form developed and validated for other cultures. It was shown that Australian and Turkish firms' practices differed significantly on a number of important variables, but also that it is possible to compare corporate citizenship practices in a way that is not culture‐specific.     

Organizational Form,Ownership Structure and Corporate Performance: A Contextual Empirical Analysis of UK Companies1

This paper contributes to the literature on organizational form and performance (the performance-conduct paradigm) by examining the impact of two sets of variables that have not been examined previously: measures of environmental uncertainty and alternative forms of controlling separation of ownership from control. The paper first examines the extent to which contextual variables such as perceived environmental uncertainty and age of the organizational form moderate the relationship between organizational form and corporate performance. Next, the paper extends the analysis by examining the possible effects of ownership and control structures on performance. Measures suggested by agency theory, such as conventional ownership proxies (i.e. proportion of shares held by identifiable, homogenous groups), the proportion of non-executive board members and Fama and Jensen's concept of separation of decision management from decision control are used in the analysis. The results indicate that these measures have direct impact on corporate performance in their own right, though the main impact is indirect through interactions with organizational form variables.     

The Primary Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethicality in Corporate Reputation: An Empirical Study

We examine three assumptions commonly held in the corporate reputation literature: (1) reputation ratings of owners and investors are generally representative of all stakeholders; (2) stakeholders will generally provide a higher reputation rating to firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility versus firms that do not; and (3) profitability is the primary criterion of importance to all stakeholders when rating a firm's reputation. Using an exploratory in‐class exercise, our findings suggest that: (1) there are significant differences among stakeholder groups in their reputation ratings; (2) firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility are not rated more highly across all stakeholder groups; and (3) for all stakeholder groups, the ethicality criterion explained more of the variance in firms' reputation ratings than the profitability criterion.     

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting as Substantive and Symbolic Behavior: A Multilevel Theoretical Analysis

This article describes a multilevel theoretical framework that examines the multiple causes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the social environment of business. We argue that substantive and/or symbolic reporting flows from individual‐, aggregate‐, organizational‐, and institution‐level phenomena, and is thus a complex outcome of CSR and corporate social performance (CSP). Theoretical lenses range from reinforcement theory at the microlevel to legitimacy and stakeholder theories at the macrolevel, and include a discussion of the emergence of lower‐level CSR‐relevant characteristics to higher level constructs. Our goal is to clarify how this behavior develops from microlevel, mesolevel, and macrolevel processes with a view toward assisting corporations to better enact CSR reporting, and their stakeholders to effectively promote substantive reporting behavior.