Stakeholder theory has gained currency in the business and society literature in recent years in light␣of its practicality from the perspective of managers and scholars. In accounting for the recent ascendancy of␣stakeholder theory, this article presents an overview of␣two traditional conceptualizations of corporate social␣responsibility (CSR) (Carroll: 1979, ‹A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Performance', The Academy of Management Review 4(4), 497–505 and Wood: 1991, ‹Corporate Social Performance Revisited', The Academy of Management Review 16(4), 691–717), highlighting their predominant inclination toward providing (...) static taxonomic CSR descriptions. The article then makes the case for a stakeholder approach to CSR, reviewing its rationale and outlining how it has␣been integrated into recent empirical studies. In light of this review, the article adopts a stakeholder framework – the Ethical Performance Scorecard (EPS) proposed by Spiller (2000, ‹Ethical Business and Investment: A Model For Business and Society', Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149–160) – to examine the CSR approach of a sample of␣Lebanese and Syrian firms with an interest in CSR␣and␣test relevant hypotheses derived from the CSR/stakeholder literature. The findings are analyzed and implications drawn regarding the usefulness of a stakeholder approach to CSR. (shrink)

This article provides a conceptual framework for studying the influence of mood on managerial ethical decision making. We draw on mood-congruency theory and the affect infusion model to propose that mood influences managerial ethical decision making through deliberate and conscious assessments of the moral intensity of an ethical issue. By accounting for proscriptive and prescriptive morality—i.e., harmful and prosocial behavior, respectively—we demonstrate that positive and negative mood may have asymmetrical and paradoxical effects on ethical decision making. Specifically, our analysis suggests (...) that individuals in a positive mood will be more likely to engage in prosocial behavior but less likely to refrain from activities that have harmful consequences for others, whereas individuals in a negative mood will be more likely to avoid activities that put others at risk or harm but at the same time less prone to engaging in activities that have positive consequences for others. Importantly, we account for the context within which managers make their decisions by examining how situational strength may moderate the influence of mood on managerial ethical decision making. Finally, we discuss how organizations can leverage the double-edged sword effect of mood on ethical decision making and prevent, control and manage the risk of unethical decision making on the part of managers. (shrink)

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG) has changed the corporate accountability mechanism. This has developed a socially responsible ‘corporate self-regulation’, a synthesis of governance and responsibility in the companies of strong economies. However, unlike in the strong economies, this convergence has not been visible in the companies of weak economies, where the civil society groups are unorganised, regulatory agencies are either ineffective or corrupt and the media and non-governmental organisations do not mirror the corporate conscience. (...) Using the case of Bangladesh, this article investigates the convergence between CSR and CG in the self-regulation of companies in a less vigilant environment. (shrink)

In this article, we first provide evidence that Scandinavian contributions to stakeholder theory over the past 50 years play a much larger role in its development than is presently acknowledged. These contributions include the first publication and description of the term “stakeholder”, the first stakeholder map, and the development of three fundamental tenets of stakeholder theory: jointness of interests, cooperative strategic posture, and rejection of a narrowly economic view of the firm. We then explore the current practices of Scandinavian companies (...) through which we identify the evidence of relationships to these historical contributions. Thus, we propose that Scandinavia offers a particularly promising context from which to draw inspiration regarding effective company-stakeholder cooperation and where ample of examples of what is more recently referred to as “creating shared value” can be found. We conclude by endorsing the expression “Scandinavian cooperative advantage” in an effort to draw attention to the Scandinavian context and encourage the field of strategic management to shift its focus from achieving a competitive advantage toward achieving a cooperative advantage. (shrink)

This study examines the role of foreign institutional ownership in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect as a quasi-natural experiment, our difference-in-differences estimation shows that foreign institutional ownership drives firms’ CSR corporate social responsibility. Further, the positive effect of foreign institutional ownership on CSR is motivated by foreign institutional investors shifting the stakeholders’ logics about social responsibility, not by profit maximization. We also provide evidence that this effect of foreign institutional ownership on CSR is more pronounced (...) among firms with fewer political connections and with non-overconfident CEOs. Overall, our results indicate that foreign institutional investors transmit social norms and shift stakeholders’ logics regarding social responsibility and, in turn, propel firms to improve CSR to satisfy their stakeholders’ expectations. (shrink)

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reports, outlining the economic, environmental and social impact of organisations, are increasingly viewed as a business requirement. Unfortunately, despite global frameworks, there is no one established standard against which to evaluate the social dimension. Thus, current social reporting is often disparagingly described as a public relations exercise with limited accountability, consistency or comparability. This article outlines the development of a generic TBL social impact framework and questionnaire designed to quantify an organisation's social impact. Based on valid (...) preexisting measures appropriate for organisations in the industrialised world, the proposed framework and questionnaire offers a comparable and objective social impact assessment tool for organisations. The aim is to prompt informed debate and discussion about current organisational social impact reporting, whilst providing organisations with a tool which enables the identification, quantification and comparability of social impact reporting. (shrink)

On March 12, 2009, a Sikorsky S-92A helicopter travelling to two offshore oil installations crashed into the sea about 55 km away from the coastal city of St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It sank quickly with the loss of 17 lives. There was one survivor. The article examines the circumstances of the crash to assess the effectiveness of an instrumental, business case for safety and, by extension, for corporate social responsibility. The article fills a gap in the business (...) and the management literature by adopting a qualitative, case study methodology to complement earlier, predominantly quantitative research. The study analyzes a comprehensive set of documentary data available from the offshore regulator’s public inquiry website, including many days of verbatim testimony from the industry, the union, regulators, investigators, the lone survivor and families of the deceased, in addition to written submissions and expert reports. Investigatory reports from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and the NL Inquiry were analyzed, as were regulatory documents and media coverage. Although offshore safety has improved since the Ocean Ranger disaster in 1982, the empirical evidence in this case study adds to our understanding of how reliance on a voluntary, instrumental business case for CSR in the absence of a normative concept of CSR is likely to fail, largely because of the existence of a powerful tension between oil exploration and production and investment in safety. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance for Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council region over the period 2000–2014 by generating CSR-related data through disclosure analysis of the annual reports of the sampled banks. The findings of this study indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between CSR disclosure and the financial performance of Islamic banks in the GCC countries. The results also show a positive relationship between CSR disclosure and the future financial (...) performance of GCC Islamic banks, potentially indicating that current CSR activities carried out by Islamic banks in the GCC could have a long-term impact on their financial performance. Furthermore, despite demonstrating a significant positive relationship between the composite measure of the CSR disclosure index and financial performance, the findings show no statistically significant relationship between the individual dimensions of the CSR disclosure index and the current financial performance measure except for ‘mission and vision’ and ‘products and services’. Similarly, the empirical results detect a positive significant association only between ‘mission and vision’ dimension and future financial performance of the examined banks. (shrink)

Current corporate social responsibility approaches attempt to implement the vision of sustainable development at the corporate level. In fact, the term "corporate sustainability" may be a more accurate descriptive label for these attempts. Ambitious governmental, business and academic goals, and corresponding efforts have been established. Nonetheless, a truly satisfactory implementation of the broad CSR concept as well as the more specific challenges of corporate sustainability continue to be an elusive goal at the corporate management level. This article presents a description (...) of a new management tool, a systematic method for implementing CSR successfully on the basis of a triple bottom line approach to sustainability. It fills in many of the still missing gap on the corporate level. The method presented here offers a multi-purpose approach for the collection, systematization, quantification, and evaluation of all the relevant issues found within a corporate environment. It allows for specifying and systematizing appropriate areas of action, taking into account the continuum of economic, ecologic,1 and social dimensions. Accordingly, the article is best characterized as a treatment of complex CSR issues, developed against the normative anchor of sustainability as the conceptual background. (shrink)

This article develops an integrative perspective on corporate responsibility by synthesising competing perspectives on the responsibility of the corporation at the organisational and societal levels of analysis. We review three major corporate responsibility perspectives, which we refer to as economic, critical, and politico-ethical. We analyse the major potential uses and pitfalls of the perspectives, and integrate the debate on these two levels. Our synthesis concludes that when a society has a robust division of moral labour in place, the responsibility of (...) a corporation may be economic without jeopardising democracy and sustainability. Moreover, the economic role of corporations neither signifies the absence of deliberative democratic mechanisms nor business practices extending beyond compliance. The study underscores the value of integrating different perspectives and multiple levels of analysis to present comprehensive descriptions and prescriptions of the responsibility phenomenon. (shrink)

The instrumental benefits of firm’s CSR activities are contingent upon the stakeholders’ awareness and favorable attribution. While social media creates an important momentum for firms to cultivate favorable awareness by establishing a powerful framework of stakeholder relationships, the opportunities are not distributed evenly for all firms. In this paper, we investigate the impact of CSR credentials on the effectiveness of social media as a stakeholder-relationship management platform. The analysis of Fortune 500 companies in the Twitter sphere reveals that a higher (...) CSR rating is a strong indicator of an earlier adoption, a faster establishment of online presence, a higher responsiveness to the firm’s identity, and a stronger virality of the messages. Incidentally, the higher CSIR rating is also found to be associated with the stronger virality. Our findings also suggest that socially responsible firms can harvest proactive stakeholders’ participation without investing more resources. As the first study that conceptualizes the social media as a proponent of CSR, this paper contends that “being socially responsible” makes more practical sense for firms with the rise of social media. (shrink)

The practice of corporate social responsibility has often been described as a balance of profitability and social or societal responsibility by scholars as well as practitioners. It is assumed that regulations and guidelines of CSR practices link competitiveness and responsibility together. While recognising that formal CSR statements represent a goal-oriented managerial approach to CSR, we argue based on the description of a qualitative case study that the relationship between profitability and social or societal responsibility is not as clear and simple (...) as it is often described. Instead, CSR should be considered as a continuously negotiated process between companies and stakeholders. Hence, the creation of a constructive link between profitability and social or societal responsibility is dependent on the amount of effort that has been put into exploring the concerns of the stakeholders, vis-a-vis the company, while simultaneously accepting changes when they are necessary. (shrink)

Most empirical studies of corporate social responsibility (CSR) focus on variables at the company level. In this article, I focus on the sector level: I consider features of the international clothing business and of the global economy in general, that may influence the CSR potential. There is high ‘CSR potential’ when sector-specific features indicate that the risk of violating CSR standards is high. Thus, ‘high CSR potential’ indicates that there is a potential for positive influence through CSR-related actions. Based on (...) several empirical studies of the clothing business, I identify six features that indicate a high CSR potential. These features are shown to be consistent with more general features of the global economy. This holds whether we emphasize asymmetric relations and unequal distribution, the product cycle, or transnationalization. Thus, the CSR potential of the international clothing business seems not only to be a product of sector-specific properties, but also of more systemic and general features of the global economy. This suggests that the CSR performance of individual companies may enhance their social and environmental impact, but will probably have little effect on the features that determine the CSR potential. In order to affect these features I argue, we rely on other institutions to act – mainly governments. Finally, I conclude that this study shows that it is useful to identify the CSR potential of a business sector. We get a picture of which part of the international CSR standards companies run the greatest risk of violating and of which structural issues intergovernmental actions should address to reduce the potential for violating CSR standards. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The present study investigates how business ethics are related to vocational interest. Special attention has been paid to the relationship between business ethics and the interest in ‘enterprising’ and ‘social’ oriented professions. The results show that business ethics is only significantly correlated in a negative way, to enterprising vocational preferences. Moreover, the negative contribution of business ethics to the preference for entrepreneurial and managerial professions remains after controlling for personality and work values. Some work values also predict the entrepreneurial interest: (...) Earnings, Influence, Competition, Innovation and Creativity. The personality traits Extraversion (positive) and Agreeableness (negative) have predictive validity, but this effect disappears after controlling for work values. In the ‘Discussion’ section, we pay attention to possible consequences of the negative relationship between business ethics and Entrepreneurial interest for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We argue that efforts concerning realistic job previews will only be meaningful if they are completed with efforts to make people more sensitive for ethics in two other domains, namely education and business. (shrink)