Ownership and corporate social responsibility: "The power of the female touch"

Using a sample of 26,029 firm-year observations over the period 2002–2017 from 4,479 firms and 44 countries, we examine the relationship between ownership concentration and corporate social responsibility by focusing on the mediating role of board gender diversity and the moderating role of family shareholding. We find that ownership concentration negatively affects corporate social responsibility, and the board gender diversity partially mediates this negative effect. Our results indicate that the mediating effect of board gender diversity leads to a 10.65 percent decrease in the impact of ownership concentration on corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, moderated path analysis indicates that family shareholding weakens the direct effect of ownership concentration on board gender diversity and its indirect effect on corporate social responsibility. In post hoc analysis, we also document that the effect of gender diversity on the board is more prevalent in high gender-egalitarian societies where women are more involved in decision-making. Our study addresses the strategic role of female board members in increasing firms’ respect for corporate social responsibility, especially in family-controlled firms. Thus, our results may provide insights to regulators and policymakers to enhance firms’ corporate social practices by encouraging women’s participation on corporate boards.     

Doing Well by Reporting Good: Reporting Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Performance

This article aimed to examine the impacts of reporting‐type corporate responsibility activities (CRA‐R) on corporate social and financial performance. Academic research has explored how varying attributes of markets, industry sectors and firms might shape corporate social and financial performance, but includes little effort to examine the impacts of different kinds of CRA on corporate performance. We build on debate about the value of firms' reporting activities related to corporate responsibility. Recent literature suggests that CRA‐R is superficial marketing or “greenwashing.” Despite this viewpoint, corporate reporting activities related to responsibility are rising. In order to solve this puzzle, this article explores the impact of CRA‐R on corporate performance. First, drawing from the institutional perspective, we propose that CRA‐R will positively impact corporate social performance (CSP) oriented toward secondary stakeholders. Second, combining the stakeholder–agency perspective and corporate responsibility literature, we motivate the hypotheses that CRA‐R positively influences corporate financial performance (CFP). Empirical testing with a unique dataset of large US corporations selected in the Fortune 500 support the proposed hypotheses. In particular, both corporate social responsibility and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) activities positively influence corporate environmental performance, and financial performance. In particular, GRI reporting is a strong indicator to impact both social and financial performance. Our findings indicate that CRA‐R should not simply reflect shallow motivations, but deliver value to noninvestor stakeholders as well as investors.     

When Boards Matter: The Case of Corporate Social Irresponsibility

While academic research has made remarkable progress in understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR), we have scant understanding of corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR). This paper adopts a stakeholder‐agency perspective towards CSiR to ask two related questions: (1) What board‐level structures can monitor management to reduce CSiR? and (2) What are the conditions that render board monitoring more effective? Employing a unique objective measure of CSiR and a sophisticated system generalized method of moments with dynamic panel model on a sample of publicly listed firms in the USA between 2002 and 2015, this paper demonstrates how firms with a specific board‐level governance bundle (i.e. a large, more independent board, with a board CSR committee, a higher proportion of women within boards with frequent director activity) are better equipped to reduce irresponsible behaviours, both in terms of number of irresponsible incidents as well as in terms of their economic costs to the firm. Moreover, the effectiveness of this governance bundle sustains under conditions of high institutional ownership and high board remuneration. This paper has implications for CSR and corporate governance literatures, as well as for managers and policymakers.     

Corporate social responsibility as a source of employee satisfaction

Corporate social responsibility has received an increasing amount of attention from practitioners and scholars alike in recent years. However, very little is known about whether or how corporate social responsibility affects employees. Because employees are primary stakeholders who directly contribute to the success of the company, understanding employee reactions to corporate social responsibility may help answer lingering questions about the potential effects of corporate social responsibility on firms as well as illuminate some of the processes responsible for them. To begin our chapter, we provide a brief history of scholarship on corporate social responsibility and highlight some of the major challenges researchers in this area currently face. We then discuss why corporate social responsibility may represent a special opportunity to influence employees’ general impression of their company. Next, we identify four distinct paths through which corporate social responsibility may affect employees’ relationship with their company that correspond to four universal psychological needs: security, self-esteem, belongingness, and a meaningful existence. Finally, we offer an agenda for micro-level research on corporate social responsibility.     

Current debates in global strategy

Debates help drive research forward. This paper is unique in its review of four current debates in the global strategy arena: (1) cultural vs institutional distance; (2) global vs regional geographic diversification; (3) convergence vs divergence in corporate governance; and (4) domestic vs overseas corporate social responsibility. For each debate, the history is tracked and the emerging tension highlighted. By introducing both sides of four lively and timely debates, the paper provides an innovative way of reviewing the literature and helping to advance the field. It is argued that an underlying theme connecting these four diverse debates is the institution-based view of global strategy.     

The Mirror Effect: Corporate Social Responsibility,Corporate Social Irresponsibility and Firm Performance in Coordinated Market Economies and Liberal Market Economies

We investigate the classic management debate of agency versus institutional pressures through the application of the varieties of capitalism literature. In particular, we examine corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) and their relationships with firm performance in two types of capitalist systems: coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs). We note that while the CSR literature has tended to develop a balanced view on the influence of agency and institutional pressures, the CSiR literature has tended to emphasize the influence of agency. The latter appears to be a result of the fundamental attribution bias, where irresponsible corporate behaviours are attributed to individual managers or organizations, rather than the institutional environment. Our results, which include five years of data across 16 countries, show significantly greater CSR and significantly lower CSiR in CMEs compared with LMEs. Further, we find a positive relationship between CSR and firm performance in CMEs but not LMEs, and a negative relationship between CSiR and firm performance in LMEs but not CMEs. Overall, our results demonstrate the influence of the institutional environment, suggesting that corporate behaviours mirror the external environment.     

Does the market value corporate response to climate change?

Motivated by the controversial debate on mandatory reductions of greenhouse gases in the U.S., this study explores whether the market values corporate response to tackle carbon dioxide emissions. We measure corporate responses using the measure of media tone based on the positive and negative words in each news article. Our results show that the market reacts favorably to the negative media exposure of corporate response to climate change over the announcement period and the one-year period, which implies that the socially responsible action to tackle climate change is costly. We further find that the positive response is less pronounced for firms from polluting industries and firms with poor environmental performance.     

Strategies and determinants of corporate support to the arts: Insights from the Italian context

Drawing on the agency theory and the stakeholder theory, this study assesses strategies for corporate support to the arts and analyzes their organizational and contextual determinants. Based on an original dataset of Italian companies benefitting from a tax incentive program, we observe the following findings: smaller companies are more likely to contribute to the maintenance of the artistic heritage of the local area where they are located, with the aim of sustaining the cultural capital of their community (local legacy strategy); larger companies are more likely to support arts and culture as part of their social responsibility strategy (rich patronage strategy); medium-sized service companies are more likely to contribute a small amount of money to cultural and artistic events with a national appeal, with the aim of enhancing their reputation (Market-oriented strategy). Our research provides useful insights to artistic and cultural organizations for designing their fundraising activities and to policymakers interested in stimulating private donations for the preservation of a country's cultural heritage.     

中国情境下企业社会责任与财务绩效关系的实证研究——基于大、中小型上市公司的对比分析

本文以2012年发布的中国500强且在沪深上市的企业为大型企业样本,以中小板上市企业为中小型企业样本,选取各企业2010-2012年会计年报数据,运用结构化方程模型和多元回归分析方法,分别实证检验了大型企业、中小型企业承担社会责任对企业短期财务绩效和长期财务绩效的影响。研究结果表明:(1)无论是大型企业还是中小型企业,承担社会责任都不会引起其短期财务状况的恶化。(2)大型企业和中小型企业的社会责任与长期财务绩效关系的表现不完全相同,大型企业多呈正向关系,中小型企业则负向关系较多。(3)特别值得关注的是,无论大型企业还是中小型企业,对员工和顾客的社会责任与长期财务绩效都呈负相关关系。本文研究揭示了在当前中国情境下企业履行社会责任不容乐观的现状,同时研究结果对于引导企业履行社会责任,促进我国经济社会的健康和谐发展,也具有重要的借鉴价值。     

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 through Cross‐sector Partnerships: Implications for Civil Society,the State,and the Corporate Sector in India

Corporations are increasingly forced to widen their agendas to include social and environmental concerns, or corporate social responsibility (CSR). This development has been recorded in the current academic debate, and the views regarding its implications for business, the state, and civil society diverge. However, there is agreement within the CSR and corporate governance literatures that there is a lack of thorough empirical studies of these effects. Based on a case study of the multinational wind energy company Suzlon Energy's CSR projects in rural India, this article contends that CSR projects implemented through cross‐sector partnerships can help to build the capacities of civil society organizations (CSOs). Although the risk of corporate steering of the civil society agenda is reduced when CSR prioritizes community needs over business imperatives, CSOs tend to bear the highest costs in partnerships, through credibility losses and insecurity concerning project terms and funding, reinforcing the importance of critical cooperation and complementary core competencies in cross‐sector partnerships. The results have implications for the strategies of corporations, CSOs, and governments as well as for the planning of national and international development aid.     

The Dilemmas of Internationalization: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Multinational Corporation

We add to the global–local debate by highlighting concerns with the empirical and conceptual validity of the construct ‘integrated’ as it operates within corporate social responsibility (CSR). We do so by investigating the extent to which foreign national culture and related local issues are incorporated into the CSR policy of 37 multinational corporations, examining strategy development and implementation across global locations. This research suggests that integrated internationalization strategies do not resolve global and local CSR issues. In fact, they reinforce outcomes similar to global strategies, where core issues identified by headquarters are legitimated and local issues are marginalized, an outcome that appears somewhat at odds with the spirit of local responsiveness embedded in CSR thinking.     

The Social Responsibility of Managers: Reassessing and Integrating Diverse Perspectives

The social responsibility of business has been a prominent issue in the academic and practitioner literatures, as well as in the curricula of business schools, for many years. While Friedman's iconic defense of profit maximization as the responsibility of management has been widely and extensively assailed, emerging positions on the role of business in society offer little clear and practical guidance to current managers, as well as Masters of Business Administration students. I argue in this article that the focus of the debate should shift to considering how the rules of the game surrounding business' behavior should be formulated and what the role of socially responsible managers should be in helping to establish those rules. My contention is that the goal of society should be to strengthen the linkage between the achievement of social objectives and profit maximization by business through “bright line” regulations and laws. Socially responsible managers will participate in setting the rules of the game by advising policymakers on how specific regulations and laws can be structured so that they most effectively condition the linkage between social objectives and profit maximization. If there is a unique social responsibility of managers beyond profit maximization, it is to participate in the policymaking process “honestly,” that is, without attempting to game the system through guile and opportunism.     

An Integrational Framework of Organizational Moral Development,Legitimacy, and Corporate Responsibility: A Longitudinal,Intersectoral Analysis of Citizenship Reports

In this article, we outline a unique conceptual framework connecting legitimacy types (Suchman, 1995 ), theories of corporate responsibility (Brummer, 1991 ), and levels of organizational moral development based on Kohlberg's ( 1971 ) moral development stages. In addition, based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) categories, we found empirical support for our framework, by content analyzing Fortune 500 corporate citizenship reports from four different industries (i.e., chemicals, motor vehicle/auto parts, pharmaceutical, and utilities), at three data points (i.e., 2002, 2007, and 2012). Our analysis indicates that motor vehicle/auto parts and chemicals industries are at a higher developmental level, and portray moral legitimacy along with social demandingness corporate responsibility in recent years; while the pharmaceutical and utilities sectors are at a lower developmental level, showing signs of pragmatic legitimacy, alongside classical and stakeholder corporate responsibility strategies. This article contributes to the current organizational moral development literature by developing and finding empirical support of a conceptual framework of organizational moral development, legitimacy, and corporate responsibility. In particular, our findings provide a deeper understanding of the differences in moral development levels across four focal industries over a 10‐year timespan.     

Exploring the drivers of corporate reputation integrated with a corporate responsibility perspective: some reflections in theory and in praxis

Corporate reputation is a multi-stakeholder concept that is reflected in the perceptions that stakeholders have of an organization. There is much evidence that reputation interacts diversely with different stakeholder groups and in relation to other concepts such as corporate responsibility. In this paper, we propose the implementation of the reputational quotient on a sample of Italian SMEs and attempt to discover and measure the relationship with corporate responsibility. Thus concluding that the instruments used for measuring and managing reputation can also be usefully employed in terms of corporate responsibility.     

考虑政府补贴与企业社会责任的两级供应链优化

企业社会责任问题日益受到管理者和研究者关注。研究随机需求下由一个供应商与一个零售商组成的分散式供应链，探讨政府补贴对供应链最优生产与社会责任投入决策的影响，并比较分析了分别由供应商与零售商主导下供应链的运作效率。结果表明，在集中式供应链中价格弹性对采购数量和企业社会责任总投入量的影响更为显著；而在分散式供应链中加入政府补贴因素，会使总收益呈现出倒U形的发展趋势，且零售商主导的分散式供应链会因政府补贴的减少表现出迅速下降的趋势；此外增加政府补贴，会使得供应商主导的分散式供应链中的供应商降低其企业社会责任投入，但对于零售商主导的分散式供应链的影响却不大。     

Corporate social responsibility: an assessment of the enlightened self-interest model

Much recent discussion of corporate social responsibility has concerned operationality. Many activities subsumed under corporate social responsibility can be shown to be public or partially public goods. The theory of public goods can clarify and explain some complex problems of operationalizing the social responsibility doctrine. An examination of philanthropy provides some behavioral applications.     

基于员工视角的企业社会责任对工作投入影响的实证研究

构建了企业社会责任、组织认同和工作投入三者之间的研究模型,并基于员工视角将企业社会责任分为员工、消费者和环境3个维度,将组织认同分为认知、评价和情感3个维度,发现企业对员工和消费者履行社会责任对工作投入均呈显著的直接正向影响;履行环境责任对工作投入的直接影响并不显著,但可通过情感性组织认同对工作投入产生显著正向影响。研究结果表明,企业履行社会责任并非负担,而是提升员工工作投入度和向心力的重要内部行销工具。企业亦有必要加强履行社会责任的内部宣传,这样既可增强员工对企业的认同,从文化情感上吸引员工,又可提升员工的工作投入程度。     

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.     

Defining social responsibility

Corporate responsibility to society takes many forms and has an infinite number of dimensions. Many of the dimensions are international while others are more relevant to a particular society. This article reviews the development of the social responsibility movement in business and considers those elements most deserving of socially responsible behaviour for examples. In defining corporate responsibility to society, examples have been drawn from the South African environment.