Over the last generation, American Business Ethics has focused excessively on the process of managerial decision-making while ignoring the collective impact of these decisions and avoiding other approaches that might earn the disapproval of corporate executives. This narrowness helped the field establish itself during the 1980s, when American management, under pressure from finance and heightened competition, was unreceptive to any limitations on its autonomy. Relying, however, on top-down approaches inspired by Aristotle, Locke, and Kant, while ignoring the consequentialism of Mill (...) and Rawls, made the field totally reliant upon the good will of these same corporate executives for generating any impact. Trends in employee compensation, finance, regulation, government procurement, and taxpayer subsidies suggest that Business Ethics has failed to significantly influence corporate behavior, a result that would have not surprised the realists of the post-war generation of Business and Society scholars. If Business Ethics is to prove relevant in the contemporary world, the field needs to acknowledge past failures and develop new approaches. The decline of American economic hegemony coupled to the increased internationalization of the discipline may create the opportunity to do so. (shrink)

This study examined the emergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a public issue over 25 years using a content analysis of two national news- papers and seven regional, geographically-dispersed newspapers in the U.S. The present study adopted a comprehensive definition encompassing all four CSR dimensions: economic, ethical, legal, and philanthropic. This study examined newspaper editorials, letters to the editor, op-ed columns, news analyses, and guest columns for three aspects: media attention, media prominence, and media valence. Results showed an increase (...) in the number of opinion pieces covering CSR issues over the 25-year period. The prominence of each of the four CSR dimensions varied over time. Each of the four CSR dimensions had its moment of media prominence when it was more important than the other dimensions. The most prevalent valence of the opinion pieces was negative; the volume of negative pieces increased over the 25 years, whereas the number of opinions with positive, neutral, and mixed tones showed little change over time. The study concludes by tracing the implications of the role of the news media for business ethics research. (shrink)

Considering the urgency of addressing grand challenges that affect human health and achieving the ambitious health targets set by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, the role of business in improving health has become critical. Yet, our systematic review of the business–health literature reveals that business research focuses primarily on occupational health and safety, health care organizations, and health regulations. To embrace the health externalities generated by business activities, we propose that future research should investigate the conditions under which business (...) articulates and participates in health challenges, engages in multilevel actions toward tackling health challenges, and improves health outcomes and its impact on the health of external stakeholders, including customers and local communities. We also urge business scholars to engage with the public health research community to increase impact. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this study, the learning experiences of four elementary school teachers who were basketball coaches were explored. Specifically, the learning experiences gained through observing professional basketball coaches’ sessions were examined by employing van Manen’s hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, which focuses on the thematic analysis of lived experiences. Previous coaching studies that have focused on the professional development of coaches have revealed that observing elite coaching sessions could be a major source of practical coaching knowledge because coaches could learn from experienced coaches. (...) Quantitative studies of this learning effect have revealed that observers learn new coaching methods from a general perspective. However, this study revealed that teachers give specific meaning and value to observed phenomena from the perspective of personal interest based on their coaching or teaching beliefs. This learning was interpreted from a multifaceted perspective, which was evident from their coaching interests and questions. This study disclosed that teachers reflect on their coaching philosophy, methods and attitude. Furthermore, even if teachers generally tend to highlight their coaching methods, this has a qualitatively complex nature because the meaning and value given to coaching methods varied in each teacher’s reflection. The perspective of problem-solving highlighted how to answer their personal questions based on practical coaching problems by observing a coaching session. Discovering the methodological differences between the observation session and the daily coaching session were highlighted. (shrink)

Companies seeking to effectively manage the ethical dimensions of their business have created formal and informal practices, including those with the labels “ethics and compliance” and “corporate social responsibility” (CSR). However, there is little research describing how practitioners who create and implement these practices understand their meaning and relationship. Leveraging a communities of practice theoretical perspective, this qualitative study proposes that these practices can be studied as artifacts of managerial learning. Thematic analysis of interviews with senior managers suggests that practices (...) have diverse meaning, with only informal relationships between them in most cases. Theoretically, this research offers a new lens through which to view compliance and CSR practices as socially negotiated, contextual, and dynamic. Practically, it suggests that there may be new opportunities for learning if managers create practices through an intentional exploration of shared meaning. (shrink)

Most theory in business ethics is still steeped in rationalist and moral-realist assumptions. However, some seminal neuroscientific studies point to the primacy of moral emotions and intuition in shaping moral judgment. In line with previous interpretations, I suggest that a dual-system explanation of emotional-intuitive automaticity and deliberative reasoning is the most appropriate view. However, my interpretation of the evidence also contradicts Greene’s conclusion that nonconsequentialist decision making is primarily sentimentalist or affective at its core, while utilitarianism is largely rational-deliberative. Instead, (...) I propose that current research on the human brain, in conjunction with converging experimental evidence, hints at moral subjectivism and its evolutionary basis as the most persuasive explanation of morality. These anti-realist conjectures have far-reaching implications for a wide range of topics in business ethics, as illustrated with the specific case of corporate social responsibility as a potentially tribal conception of the good. (shrink)

This study examines the use of disparaging and offensive trademarks and mascots by sports teams. Specifically, this study considers whether the continued use of Native American symbols and mascots in sports comports with the Christians-Nordenstreng conceptualization of social responsibility, which considers the three principles of human dignity, truth-telling, and nonmaleficence. To do this, the article considers the history and arguments both for and against the use of these symbols in sports communication. This article concludes with a discussion of how the (...) use of these trademarks does not fulfill the three principles of social responsibility and what that means for the symbols’ continued use. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Programs aimed at increasing women’s entrepreneurship are a rapidly proliferating class of CSR initiatives across the globe with participation by many of the world’s largest corporations. The gendered nature of this phenomenon suggests that feminist approaches to CSR may offer a particularly salient mode of their analysis. In this article, I argue that insights from feminist economics regarding the historically prevalent—but narrow and gendered—definition of work, which artificially separates production from reproduction, provide fruitful tools for theory building when conceptualizing gender (...) through the lens of CSR. I demonstrate that the gendered separation of production and reproduction is typicallytaken as givenin entrepreneurship, and that mainstream CSR research has not sufficiently challenged this perspective. I present a conceptual framework of what is to be gained by examining the CSR, entrepreneurship, and feminist economics literatures in combination, and demonstrate how researchers might use this framework for future research. (shrink)

Business ethics scholars have proposed strategies for mitigating the ill effects brought on by a wealth maximization business strategy by urging managers to either embrace corporate social responsibility (CSR) or to manage according to stakeholder theory. In this article I argue that these strategies are often ineffective in bringing about the behavior they promote because it is antithetical to the nature and logic of capitalism. I examine the organizing principles of capitalism and the role it assigns to capitalists, and juxtapose (...) these with the behavior prescribed by three normative frameworks: strategic management theory (SMT), the CSR initiative, and stakeholder theory. Unlike the behaviors prescribed by the CSR initiative and stakeholder management theory, the behavior prescribed by SMT is consistent with the role of capitalists as defined by the organizing principles of capitalism, and SMT's “rules” have instilled habits that have, in turn, been able to mold managers’ aspirations and purposes. CSR and stakeholder theory must not only combat the habits instilled by the entrenched SMT, they must also find some way of instilling habits that run contrary to those defined by the nature and logic of capitalism itself. (shrink)

The globalization movement in recent decades has meant rapid growth in trade, financial transactions, and cross-country ownership of economic assets. In this article, we examine how the globalization of national business systems has influenced the framing of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is done using text analysis of CEO letters appearing in the annual reports of 15 major corporations in Sweden during a period of transformational change. The results show that the discourse about CSR in the annual reports has changed (...) from a national and communitarian view of social responsibility (cf. a negotiated view of CSR) toward an international and individualistic view of social responsibility (cf. a self-regulating view of CSR). The article contributes theoretically (1) by adding a national–global dimension to previous conceptualizations of CSR and (2) by showing that the rise of CSR discourse and activities in the last 10 years does not have to imply an increased commitment and interest in corporate responsibility per se, only that there are increased societal expectations that corporations should develop the capability to act more independently as moral agents. (shrink)

This study investigates antecedents of corporate social responsibility in multinational corporations' subsidiaries. Using stakeholder theory and institutional theory that identify internal and external pressures for legitimacy in MNCs' subsidiaries, we integrate international business and CSR literatures to create a model depicting CSR practices in MNCs' subsidiaries. We propose that MNCs' subsidiaries will be likely to adapt to local practices to legitimize themselves if they operate in host countries with different institutional environments and demanding stakeholders. We also predict that MNCs' subsidiaries (...) will be likely to adapt to local practices to avoid spillover effects if their parent companies suffer major legitimacy problems at home or abroad. However, we speculate that MNCs' subsidiaries will be less likely to adapt to local practices if they are strongly annexed to their parent companies and the benefit to gain internal legitimacy outweighs external legitimacy. This article contributes to the discourse on CSR across borders by exploring the antecedents of CSR practices in MNCs' subsidiaries at social and organizational levels, and integrating institutional and stakeholder views. We provide a number of propositions for future studies and explore implications for practitioners. (shrink)

Different perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) exist, each with their own agenda. Some emphasise management responsibilities towards stakeholders, others argue that companies should actively contribute to social goals, and yet others reject a social responsibility of business beyond legal compliance. In addition, CSR initiatives relate to different issues, such as labour standards and corruption. This article analyses what types of CSR initiatives are supported by political and economic arguments. The distinction between different CSR perspectives and CSR issues on the (...) one hand and between political and economic arguments on the other could help to advance the debate on the justification and welfare impact of CSR. It is argued that ordinary boundary conditions for business behaviour in a market economy provide support for some, but not all, CSR initiatives. This has implications for policy priorities. Building on the analysis, it is proposed that more attention should be paid to the behaviour of large multinational enterprises in their normal business operations and to CSR issues with a potentially large impact on market functioning. (shrink)

The charged debate on the ‘C‐S‐R‐ization’ of organizational practices seems to have produced two opposing and seemingly incompatible explanations for why organizations should engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR): one, the normative rationale based on an appeal to ethics; and the other, the instrumental rationale, based on an appeal to business pragmatism. This paper argues that a missing link in this debate is the failure to recognize that the normative and instrumental approaches to corporate social responsibility are underpinned by substantively, (...) differentiating, relative logics of emotional rationalism on the one hand, and instrumental rationalism on the other. The paper makes a case that for CSR as a management practice to be practicable and actionable within a sustainable business agenda, it will need to be stripped of its current normative undertone and reconstructed in the instrumentally, pragmatic (utlish) language of business. Otherwise, the whole concept of CSR may continue to dwell in the realm of abstract theorizing without yielding many beneficial and practicable outcomes. The paper concludes that such an approach that situates CSR within a pragmatic business lingua, rather than a non‐business lingua, will help in legitimizing CSR as a ‘neutral’ management practice. (shrink)

We develop a framework for understanding how lack of clarity in business press coverage of corporate social responsibility functions as a mediated and emergent form of strategic ambiguity. Many stakeholders expect CSR to exhibit clarity, consistency, and discursive closure. But stakeholders also expect CSR to conform to varying degrees of both formal and substantive rationality. These diverse expectations conflict with each other and change over time. A content analysis of press coverage in Denmark suggests that the business media reflect and (...) amplify the ambiguity generated by these shifting demands. We propose that this very public lack of discursive closure provides strategic advantages to CSR stakeholders by rendering the concept of CSR adaptable, resilient, and meaningful to diverse interests. From this perspective, strategic ambiguity emerges from a relational and mediated process, not from the direct intentions of individual stakeholders. Our framework suggests that CSR is best understood not as a clear or consistent agenda, but rather as a forum for sensemaking, diversity of opinion, and debate over the conflicting social norms and expectations attached to corporate activity. (shrink)

This article explores the dynamics of the discourse and practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in France to illustrate the interplay between endogenous and exogenous factors in the development of CSR in a country. It shows how the cultural, socioeconomic, and legal traditions influence the way ideas are raised, the kinds of questions considered relevant, and the sorts of solutions conceived as desirable and possible. Furthermore, the article traces how expectations and practices evolve as a result of various social and (...) economic factors within a country, and increasingly, as a result of global influences such as the international academic discourse, the international practices of multinational companies, nongovernmental organizations and trade unions, and initiatives of supranational organizations. The article closes with reflections about what can be learned from the French experience with CSR and how to stimulate such cross-border learning. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has existed in name for over 70 years. It is practiced in many countries and it is studied in academia around the world. However, CSR is not a universally adopted concept as it is understood differentially despite increasing pressures for its incorporation into business practices. This lack of a clear definition is complicated by the use of ambiguous terms in the proffered definitions and disputes as to where corporate governance is best addressed by many of the (...) national bodies legislating, mandating, or recommending CSR. This article explores the definitions of CSR as published on the Internet by governments in four countries (United Kingdom (UK), France, the United States, and Canada). We look for a consensus of understanding in an attempt to propose a more universal framework to enhance international adoption and practice of CSR using the triple bottom line. Our results concur with the findings of both national and international bodies and suggest that both within and among the countries in our study there exists no clear definition of the concept of CSR. While there are some similarities, there are substantial differences that must be addressed. We present a number of proposals for a more universal framework to define CSR. (shrink)

I present a review of the top management teams (TMTs) of the largest public corporations in the U.S. and Scandinavia (one thousand in total) to identify corporations that have a TMT position with “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) or a “CSR synonym” like sustainability or citizenship explicitly included in the position title. Through this I present three key findings. First, I establish that a number of CSR TMT positions exist and I list all identified corporations and associated position titles. Second, I (...) show that Scandinavian corporations are significantly more likely than U.S. corporations to have such CSR TMT positions. This finding serves as evidence that the U.S. may have been surpassed by a subset of Europe, i.e., Scandinavia, in at least one relevant measure of explicit CSR, whereby this study may serve witness to a noteworthy juncture post Matten and Moon’s (Academy of Management Review, 33(2):404–424, 2008) “Implicit & Explicit CSR” article. And third, I show that corporations with a CSR TMT position are three times more likely to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) than corporations with none. A range of further research opportunities stemming from these findings include exploring whether explicit attention to CSR by the corporation is indicative of a longer term trend that has to do with attention to responsible business and whether a move away from the expression ‘CSR’ toward the expression ‘sustainability’ is underway and what this may entail. (shrink)

Owing to the growing academic and practitioner’s interest in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, there is a need to do a comprehensive assessment and synthesis of research activities. This article addresses this need and examines the academic literature on Corporate Social Responsibility and Performance using a paradigmatic and methodological lens. The objective of this article is fourfold. First, it examines the status of CSR research from its beginning especially after 1970 to year 2008 in leading academic journals and reports (...) to assess the focus areas of research on CSR so far. Second, it analyzes the research paradigms adopted in these research articles using the Operations Research Paradigm framework. Third, it compares and contrasts various kinds of research articles, methodologies, and research designs used in various researches in literature. Finally, it uncovers the implications of this study and directions for future research. (shrink)

This article analyzes the adoption of voluntary environmental management programs by firms operating in Mexico. Mexican firms can obtain national certification (Clean Industry) and/or international certification (ISO 14001). Based on institutional entrepreneurship theory, we posit that the role played by first movers as institutional entrepreneurs is crucial if these programs are to become established with sufficient strength and appeal. This understanding is especially important in an environment where more than one program can be adopted. We tested several hypotheses on the (...) behaviors of 1328 facilities operating in Mexico, half of which (664) had certified environmental management programs. Of the 664 certified facilities, 217 were classified as early adopters. Three variables predicted the likelihood of a facility being an early adopter: (1) connected to international market, (2) in the maquila sector, and (3) linked to an industry association that offers free resources. (shrink)

This article advances the idea that shareholders who seek to influence corporate behaviour can be understood analytically as norm entrepreneurs. These are actors who seek to persuade others to adopt a new standard of appropriateness. The article thus goes beyond studies which focus on the influence of shareholder activism on single instances of corporate conduct, as it recognises shareholders' potential as change agents for more widely shared norms about corporate responsibilities. The article includes the empirical example of US internet technology (...) companies who, in their Chinese operations, face conflicts of norm systems in regard to freedom of expression on the internet. Shareholders have been active in seeking to persuade these companies to adopt a norm of adhering to global standards for human rights over restrictions implied by authoritarian regimes to which they deliver services. (shrink)

Organizations and their leaders are challenged to assume a responsible behavior given the increase of corporate scandals and the deterioration of employee commitment. However, relatively few studies have investigated the impact of responsible leadership on employee commitment and the effect of corporate social responsibility in this relationship. Using the social identity theory this article examined the mediating effect of CSR practices in the relationship between RL and affective organizational commitment. Data collection was done through a paper survey completed by 309 (...) full-time Colombian employees. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results showed that CSR fully mediated the influence of RL on AOC. Thus, RL is an effective mechanism to develop CSR practices that in turn increase the levels of AOC of employees. (shrink)

We investigate the effect of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender -supportive corporate policies on credit ratings. To the extent that LGBT-friendly policies are beneficial to the firm and therefore improve its expected cash flows, credit rating agencies should assign more favorable credit ratings to the firm. To alleviate endogeneity concerns, we exploit the variations in the LGBT populations across the states in the U.S. as our instrument. Our instrumental-variable analysis reveals that firms that adopt LGBT-supportive corporate policies enjoy better credit (...) ratings, supporting the stakeholder and good management hypothesis. Further analysis using propensity score matching also yields consistent results. (shrink)

Crowdfunding platforms have revolutionized entrepreneurial finance, with 200 billion dollars expected to be dispersed annually to entrepreneurs and small business owners by 2020. Despite the importance of this growing phenomenon, our knowledge of the dynamics of successful lending-based prosocial crowdfunding and its implications for the business ethics literature remain limited. We use a social responsibility lens to examine whether crowdfunders on a lending-based prosocial platform lend their money based on altruistic or strategic motives. Our results indicate that the dynamics of (...) prosocial lending-based crowdfunding are somewhat consistent with traditional forms of financing. Specifically, despite a prosocial setting in nature, crowdfunders tend to act strategically, positively responding to signals of quality and low risk. Notably, we also find that projects that are high on both financial and social appeal receive the highest average amount of funding. Furthermore, language on the lender’s profile indicating ability to pay is positively related to both funding success and funding amount. Our study contributes to filling the gap in the business ethics literature about the dynamics of lending-based prosocial crowdfunding, and the strategic and altruistic ethical motives that drive lenders in such endeavors. (shrink)

Often overlooked in studies of the corporation is the recognition that the modern corporate form and its power are rooted in the issue of race, and more specifically, in racial oppression. The racialized roots of the corporation become exposed when we acknowledge the significance of slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment to the evolution of the corporate form along with the discriminatory role corporations have traditionally played in shaping race relations in the U.S. This article draws upon several theoretical perspectives, primarily (...) critical race theory, management theory, legal studies, diversity management, and corporate social responsibility to introduce the corporate responsibility to race concept and establish it as a new basis for understanding why corporate persons have a responsibility for improving race relations. (shrink)

This article analyzes a panel of 550 international firms, for the period 2004 to 2010, to compare the role of female directors in family and non-family firms in promoting responsible practices. Many studies have associated the presence of women on the board with a higher degree of socially responsible commitment. However, we found that this is much less so in family firms than in non-family firms. In family firms, corporate social responsibility commitment does not vary significantly with the presence of (...) female directors, as the latter tend to behave in accordance with the family orientation toward CSR. This orientation depends on the stakeholders being addressed, with greater social responsibility shown toward external stakeholders than internal ones. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in human rights abuses. This (...) is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights. (shrink)

Social reporting has become an increasingly important dimension of the corporate social responsibility process. The growing necessity to include the social dimension in reporting practices raises important questions about the nature of social responsibility and its impact on corporate and individual behaviour and performance. The literature has yet to provide a reliable theoretical definition of corporate social responsibility and performance, however. Based on the approach proposed by Simons, we argue that organisational reporting about social responsibility can be viewed as a (...) learning tool in some instances. Under this view the design and implementation of corporate social reporting procedures may lead to individual and organisational dynamic changes that foster organisational performance. Research propositions are then derived from the analysis. (shrink)

With complex buyer-driven global production networks and a labour-intensive manufacturing process, the fashion industry has become a focal point for debates on the social responsibility of business. Utilising an interview methodology with influential actors from seven export garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka, we explore the situated knowledge at one nodal point of the production network. We conceptualise factory management perspectives on the implementation of corporate social responsibility in terms of the strategic balancing of ethical considerations against the commercial pressures of (...) cost and lead time. Factory managers framed CSR in terms of compliance, rather than going above and beyond regulatory requirements; seeing it as a strategic competitive imperative and less a developmental mechanism. Sri Lankan manufacturers maintain that they have benefitted from a unique combination of factors, including strict national labour laws, an educated workforce, the characteristics of the garments produced, industrial upgrading, and long-term non-adversarial buyer–supplier relationships, which they argue has supported the establishment and maintenance of CSR practices. The paper thus provides managerial implications that relate CSR activities to CSR outcomes which include both reputational and production benefits. Such insights will be of strategic relevance for lead retail buyers as well as apparel producers keen to invest in CSR to partly mitigate against increasing price-based competition. (shrink)

Why is it so plausible that business organisations in contemporary society use values in their communication? In order to answer this question, a sociological, system theoretical approach is applied which approaches values not pre-empirically as invisible drivers for action but as observable semantics that form organisational behaviour. In terms of empirical material, it will be shown that business organisations resort to a communication of values whenever uncertainty or complexity is very high. Inevitably, value semantics are applied in organisations first when (...) the speakers are uncertain about which stakeholders to whom they have to address or when different stakeholder groups have to be addressed simultaneously ; second, when the identity of the organisation has to be described; and third, when future strategic options that cannot be expressed by quantitative terms have to be communicated. Values accordingly play a role in organisational practice when certain aspects are indeterminate. Therefore, they are a means for organisations to communicate under fuzzy circumstances. On the basis of these findings, new approaches to value management can now be formulated. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe 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. (shrink)

This study explores the research paradigms of contemporary business ethics research in 2001–2008. With citation data from the top two business ethics journals included in the Social Sciences Citation Index, this study conducts citation and co-citation analysis to identify the most important publications, scholars, and research themes in the business ethics area and then maps the intellectual structure of business ethics studies between 2001 and 2008. The results show that current business ethics studies cluster around four major research themes, including (...) morality and social contract theory, ethical decision making, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder theory. This study helps profile the invisible network of knowledge production in business ethics and provides important insights on current research paradigms of business ethics studies. (shrink)

For four decades, research on the role and responsibilities of business in society has centered on the business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and an increasing number of studies on the corporate social performance (CSP)—corporate financial performance (CFP) link emerged leading to controversial results. Heeding the call for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms linking certain CSR efforts to certain performance outcomes, this study provides a stakeholder-based organizing framework rooted in an extensive review of existing literature on the link (...) between CSP and CFP. In so doing, we aim at guiding research and practice toward less simplistic understandings of the CSP–CFP connection, thus advancing the debate over the consequences of voluntary integrating CSR into business operations and into relationships with stakeholders. By disentangling specific drivers and outcomes of the CSP–CFP link, we underline the importance of setting clear boundaries and specifying levels of analysis to generate comparable results. (shrink)

This research examines benevolent leadership and makes three key contributions to organizational research. The first contribution is a theoretical one; the development of a theory-grounded conceptual model of benevolent leadership based on four streams of creating common good in organizations: morality, spirituality, vitality, and community. The second contribution is the development of an instrument (Benevolent Leadership Scale) to measure the construct of benevolent leadership. This scale is composed of four dimensions: Ethical Sensitivity, Spiritual Depth, Positive Engagement, and Community Responsiveness. The (...) third contribution is of empirical nature: the exploration of potential outcomes of benevolent leadership in organizations, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of three components of corporate social responsibility on team performance. In the proposed model of this study, team performance is indirectly affected by three dimensions of perceived corporate citizenship (i.e., economic, legal, and ethical citizenship) via the mediation of team efficacy and team self-esteem. Surveying members of 172 teams confirms most of our hypothesized effects. Our results show that economic citizenship influences team performance via the mediation of both team efficacy and team self-esteem. However, legal (...) citizenship influences team performance via team efficacy alone, whereas ethical citizenship influences team performance only via team self-esteem. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings. (shrink)

Do foreign direct investment (FDI) and international business ventures promote positive social and economic development in emerging nations? This question will always prove contentious. First, the impacts differ according to context. Second, the social consequences and spillover effects of knowledge diffusion and technology-sharing may be limited and hard to measure. Third, contributions to enhancing social responsibility and improving living standards in host countries are delayed in effect, causally complex, and also hard to measure. Outcomes often critically depend on collaboration of (...) governments, international institutions, the business world, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Research in this area is challenging and requires interdisciplinary collaboration between economists, financial experts, sociologists, ethicists, and other specialists. This paper explores: (1) the evidence to support the proposition that FDI and international business improve social conditions in less-developed countries, and: (2) how these improvements are linked to strategies of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical business practice. The paper draws insights from development, FDI, poverty alleviation, and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) literature. Applications are demonstrated using examples from poverty-stricken areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper attempts not only to argue theoretically but also to provide practical evidence. The approach is simultaneously descriptive, analytical, and prescriptive in order to address a wide audience. It also highlights issues and trends for further academic research and presents the viewpoint that some limitations lie in the nature of ethics frameworks widely referenced in business and that these often fail to consider the compatibility of ethical constructs with relevant incentives. In this vein, we explore the application of Homann’s framework for advantage and incentive-based ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines some of the paradoxes and dilemmas facing firms in the extractive sector when they attempt to take on a more stakeholder-responsive orientation towards issues of environmental and social responsibility. We describe the case of Shell and the Ogoni and attempt to draw out some of the lessons of that case for more sustainable operations in the developing world. We argue that firms such as Shell, Rio Tinto and others may well exhibit increasingly stakeholder-responsive behaviours at the corporate, (...) strategic level. However for reasons of strategy, lack of competency or institutional will this increasing level of corporate responsiveness may not be mirrored effectively in dealings between subsidiary business units and their most important direct stakeholders: for example local communities and in the developing world. We contrast the struggles of Shell to replicate its corporate stakeholder-responsiveness at the local level in Nigeria with the experiences of other firms that seem to have developed managerial capabilities at a somewhat deeper level throughout the firm with consequent benefits both for stakeholders and the business. (shrink)

The charged debate on the ‘C‐S‐R‐ization’ of organizational practices seems to have produced two opposing and seemingly incompatible explanations for why organizations should engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR): one, the normative rationale based on an appeal to ethics; and the other, the instrumental rationale, based on an appeal to business pragmatism. This paper argues that a missing link in this debate is the failure to recognize that the normative and instrumental approaches to corporate social responsibility are underpinned by substantively, (...) differentiating, relative logics of emotional rationalism on the one hand, and instrumental rationalism on the other. The paper makes a case that for CSR as a management practice to be practicable and actionable within a sustainable business agenda, it will need to be stripped of its current normative undertone and reconstructed in the instrumentally, pragmatic (utlish) language of business. Otherwise, the whole concept of CSR may continue to dwell in the realm of abstract theorizing without yielding many beneficial and practicable outcomes. The paper concludes that such an approach that situates CSR within a pragmatic business lingua, rather than a non‐business lingua, will help in legitimizing CSR as a ‘neutral’ management practice. (shrink)

Researchers have explored important questions about employees’ prosocial motivation to impact others through their work and about employees’ engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Studies show that job seekers are attracted to CSR-engaged employers, but little is known about whether and why prospective employees are attracted by job roles that allow them to have positive social impact. We used prosocial motivation theory to develop hypotheses about processes through which a greater desire for social impact in work is associated with (...) being predisposed to it (due to trait-like prosocial motivation), being exposed to the possibility of it (through CSR-related educational choices), and both in partially mediated sequence. Analyses of data from 187 prospective employees provided support for most hypotheses. Our findings inform new directions for research on CSR and recruitment, the CSR education literature, and recruitment practices that leverage prospective employees’ desire for social impact through performing their regular work. (shrink)

Critical scholarship often presents corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a reflection or embodiment of neoliberalism. Against this sort of sweeping political characterization we argue that CSR can indeed be considered a liberal concept but that it embodies a “varieties of liberalism.” Building theoretically on the work of Michael Freeden on liberal languages, John Ruggie and Karl Polanyi on embedded forms of liberalism, and Michel Foucault on the distinction between classical liberalism and neoliberalism, we provide a conceptual treatment and mapping of (...) the ideological positions that constitute the bulk of modern scholarly CSR debate. Thus, we distinguish between embedded liberalism, classical liberalism, neoliberalism, and re-embedded liberalism. We develop these four orientations in turn and show how they are engaged in “battles of ideas” over the meaning and scope of corporate responsibilities—and how they all remain relevant for an understanding of contemporary debates and developments in the field of CSR and corporate sustainability. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is the main engine of economic development. This paper aims to explore the impact of high executives’ entrepreneurial spirituality on the business performance in China under the background of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation.” By analyzing the relevant literature of entrepreneurship, the connotation and elements of ES are determined. According to the relevant research, we design the questionnaire of ES and business performance. The questionnaire was distributed to 100 private enterprise entrepreneurs by equidistant sampling, and 74 valid questionnaires were recovered. (...) According to the questionnaire, responsibility has the highest score, followed by innovation, proactiveness, and risk-taking. The ES of women is slightly higher than that of men. The entrepreneurs with higher education also have higher score in ES. After analyzing the impact of different elements of ES on enterprise performance using structural equation modeling and regression equation model, it is found that: ES has a positive impact on enterprise performance. Different factors of ES have different effects on business performance, and innovation and proactiveness play the greatest role. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between innovation, risk-taking, and business performance. (shrink)

In this technology-driven Digital Age, Management Education is primarily engaged in development of skills and techno-economic competence of students with dominant thrust on sharpening their rational faculties and quantitative ability. Deeper questions and nobler qualittative issues like Spirituality, Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics are naturally assigned low priority in the rush for money, career, fame, power and position both at the individual and organizational levels. The present paper engages in a Qualitative Research by conducting Focus group Interviews among Participants at (...) the Undergraduate level who had taken up Management Education. After content analysis of the responses the authors highlight their observations on the existing gaps in prevailing management education leading to failure of the present system in charging the students with a deeper Meaning of Work and a higher Purpose of Life. The paper then delves into exploration in pertinent tenets of Classical Indian Wisdom to enrich the spectrum of Management education with insights on Humanistic Philosophy, Holistic Learning, Enlightened CSR and Ethics, and Inspirational Leadership towards creating a better and more humane future for modern organizations. (shrink)

The global spread of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices is widely explained in institutional-isomorphic terms: Corporations worldwide adopt CSR in reaction to isomorphic pressures exerted on them by a pro-CSR global environment, including normative calls for CSR, activist targeting, civil regulation frameworks, and educational activities. By contrast, this article considers the proactive agency of corporations in CSR diffusion, which is informed by nonmarket strategies that seek to instrumentally reshape the political and social environment of corporations. Applying a “channels-of-diffusion” perspective, we (...) show that in the initial phase of CSR’s transnational diffusion—as exemplified by the cases of Venezuela (1962-1967) and Britain (1977-1981)—CSR traveled through learning exchanges between business elite “exporters” and “importers” whose engagement in diffusion addressed crisis-enhanced political threats and opportunities in the receiving country. The focal agents established national CSR business associations, which disseminated among local corporations CSR practices adapted to confront the challenges at hand. We identify the features of such “business-led cross-national diffusions of CSR”; formulate propositions regarding their conditions, dynamics, and effects; and suggest that further research of this mode of diffusion would advance a more nuanced and balanced understanding of CSR’s globalization. (shrink)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept suggesting that good business is about more than maximizing profit. In order to achieve social legitimacy a corporation must pay attention to a complex web of values and relations, and different CSR strategies and policies can be viewed as ways to manage this complexity. The corporate legitimacy matrix introduced in this article represents the strive for social legitimacy as a balancing act along three lines: a) The sustainability dimension: Balancing economic, social and environmental (...) considerations, b) The stakeholder dimension: Balancing considerations of stakeholders at the local, national and global level, and c) The trust dimension: Balancing rational argumentation, credibility and emotional appeal. This article explores these three aspects of corporate legitimacy and how they are related. It is intended as a theoretical contribution towards a better understanding of the relationship between CSR and corporate legitimacy, as well as a practical tool to support the analysis of actual corporate legitimacy challenges. (shrink)

There is a growing literature on corporate social responsibility, but few have focused on the implications of business groups for CSR. We examine the antecedents and outcomes of CSR behaviors of group firms in Korea. We find that group affiliation is associated with higher CSR overall and for its major societal and environmental components. However, the ownership disparity between cash flow and control by controlling inside shareholders is associated with lower CSR, consistent with opportunistic rent expropriation theory. We further find (...) that CSR initiatives can impact group firms positively in the event of bad events, consistent with insurance theory. This motive for CSR as a means of enhancing reputation capital to buffer the bad events is pronounced for group firms because of group-wide dissemination of negative reputational externality. (shrink)

This study examined the association between employee perceptions of two foci of corporate social responsibility and work attitudes in different countries. Using data collected as part of a multinational research project with a core team in the United States, we found that perceptions of externally focused CSR enactment were positively associated with employee engagement and affective commitment. Perceptions of internally focused CSR enactment were positively associated with affective commitment but not with employee engagement. Analyses across countries revealed more cultural than (...) economic differences. For example, perceptions of internally focused CSR enactment were consistently associated with affective commitment across cultural contexts, indicating that they might serve as a general foundation for building commitment. Perceptions of externally focused CSR were more strongly associated with affective commitment in Anglo than in Confucian and Latin American countries, suggesting a need for country-specific tailoring. Based on these results, we provided recommendations for planning and implementation of CSR. (shrink)

This study examined influential factors of newspaper corporation social responsibility and evaluated corporate social responsibility using a newspaper corporate social responsibility index. Results of this study, which was conducted by survey, showed that arbitrative, essential, and cultural activities were influential factors comprised of newspaper corporate social responsibility. In addition, the findings indicated that higher corporate social responsibility index was not accompanied by Korean newspaper corporations with larger circulations.

Prior research has studied the antecedents of beliefs regarding ethics and social responsibility (ESR). However, few studies have examined how individual well‐being may be related to such beliefs. In this exploratory study, we assessed the relationship between perceived importance of ESR – both individually and of one's company – and indicators of physical and psychological well‐being. Results demonstrated that perceived importance of ESR was associated with three aspects of well‐being: exuberance for life, sleep problems, and job stress. The results are (...) discussed in terms of future directions for research, and the need for a conceptual framework connecting individual and organizational perceptions of ESR and outcomes of well‐being. (shrink)