Unlike previous studies that examine the direct effect of employees’ perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) on affective organizational commitment (AOC), this article examines a mediated link through organizational trust and organizational identification. Social exchange and social identity theory provide the foundation for predictions that the primary outcomes of CSR initiatives are organizational trust and organizational identification, which in turn affect AOC. The test of the research model relies on data collected from 378 employees of local and multinational companies in South (...) Asia, as well as structural equation modeling to test the postulated relationships. Both organizational trust and organizational identification fully mediate the CSR–AOC link. However, the identification mechanism is significantly stronger than the trust mechanism in terms of building AOC from CSR. Out of four CSR components, CSR toward employees is the strongest predictor of employees’ trust, identification, and AOC, followed by CSR toward community, whereas CSR toward the environment has no effect. Finally, CSR toward community and employees are more associated with social exchange, whereas CSR toward consumers relates more to the social identity process. (shrink)

Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has tended to focus on external stakeholders and outcomes, revealing little about internal effects that might also help explain CSR-firm performance linkages and the impact that corporate marketing strategies can have on internal stakeholders such as employees. The two studies ( N = 1,116 and N = 2,422) presented in this article draw on theory from both corporate marketing and organizational behavior (OB) disciplines to test the general proposition that employee trust partially mediates the (...) relationship between CSR and employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Both studies provide evidence in support of these general relationships. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of CSR and corporate marketing research. (shrink)

A person’s financial well-being is the complete contentment gained from one’s present financial condition. This has a powerful impact on the entire achievement of an employee’s “well-being.” Researchers, financial analysts, financial planners, educationists, and economists have explored the “enablers” to improve employees’ living standards by investigating the possible “FWB” resources for decades. There is no literature available to show the connection between social capital theory, social exchange theory, social cognitive theory, financial literacy and FWB, and employees’ financial knowledge sharing a (...) moderator to expand the complete FWB. (shrink)

To help retailers gain consumers’ trust, many studies have investigated antecedents of consumer trust. However, distrust, a concept closely related to trust, has attracted only sporadic research attention. As a result, whether factors that increase consumer trust can eliminate consumer distrust is unclear. To deepen understanding of trust and distrust, this study applies the critical incident technique to identify and compare the antecedents of trust and distrust of Chinese consumers. The results show that the antecedents of distrust differ from those (...) of trust, indicating different formulation mechanisms of both. Therefore, on the one hand, retailers should pay attention to increasing consumer trust, and on the other hand, they should develop marketing activities to reduce consumer distrust. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to map the intellectual structure of scholarship on economic and social value in the sport industry. Given that bibliometric techniques are specially appropriate for identifying the intellectual structures of a field of knowledge and complement traditional literature reviews, a co-citation bibliometric analysis has been applied. This kind of analysis identifies networks of interconnections. Therefore, we aim to detect both the most and the least active research areas in this field, as well as their sub-disciplinary (...) composition. There is an abundance of literature on sport efficiency and economic efficiency in the sport industry, our main conclusion is the identification of a literature gap in regard to social value in sport organisations, which is expected to be a research opportunity for scholars. This is in line with the lack of standardisation in the measurement for social value in sport organisations. In fact, similar to analysis undertaken in the past few decades of other industries with contributions to stakeholders and the multi-fiduciary theory of stakeholders, both the creation of social value indicators for sport entities and the empirical analysis of social efficiency in sport institutions, are identified and outlined as future areas of research. Therefore, this bibliometric analysis will contribute to determine the future challenges that this area of research will face in the following years so as to fill the literature gap identified. (shrink)

Sustainability is concerned with the impact of present actions on the ecosystems, societies, and environments of the future. Such concerns should be reflected in the strategic planning of sustainable corporations. Strategic intentions of this nature are operationalized through the adoption of a long-term focus and a more inclusive set of responsibilities focusing on ethical practices, employees, environment, and customers. A central hypothesis, that we test in this paper is that companies which attend to this set of responsibilities under the term (...) superior sustainable practices, have higher financial performance compared to those that do not engage in such practices. The target population of this study consists of the top 100 sustainable global companies in 2008 which have been selected from a universe of 3,000 firms from the developed countries and emerging markets. We find significant higher mean sales growth, return on assets, profit before taxation, and cash flows from operations in some activity sectors of the sample companies compared to the control companies over the period of 2006–2010. Furthermore, our findings show that the higher financial performance of sustainable companies has increased and been sustained over the sample. Notwithstanding sample limitation, causal evidence reported in this paper suggests that, there is bi-directional relationship between corporate social responsibilities practices and corporate financial performance. (shrink)

The increasing debate on corporate ethics raises the question of whether consumers are willing to reward and punish corporate behaviour based on its ethicality. In this context, this article investigates the direct effect on consumers' willingness to pay. Price response to product‐related ethical information is explored in an experiment dealing with social issues in sportswear and environmental issues in consumer electronics. It is shown that in both areas, consumers demonstrate an increased willingness to pay for ethically produced goods. However, the (...) response is subject to a negativity bias. In contrast to prior research that used abstract stimulus measures, a ratio for quantifying this bias is suggested based on consumers' willingness to pay and their price expectations. This measure allows us to analyse a consumer's individual bias. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates its ‘CSR at a tipping point’ thesis by juxtaposing views of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as essential for business and societal sustainability against those that see CSR as unaffordable or irrelevant in the current economic climate. Drawing from Kohlberg's seminal theory of moral development, CSR is conceptualised as the development of organisation moral reasoning, and the proposition is illustrated by demonstrating inter-disciplinary similarities in levels of ethical concern within different approaches to the practice of marketing, human resource (...) management (HRM) and performance management. Levels of concern for CSR are related to environmental and firm-specific drivers and constraints that influence the CSR dynamic. Environmental influences on organisational CSR stances emanate from a range of stakeholder constituencies, while the importance accorded to CSR is also influenced by firm-specific factors such as the organisation's stage of development, strategy and leadership. The paper's identification of inter-disciplinary similarities in the varying levels of concern for CSR and its delineation of CSR drivers and constraints contribute to CSR theory, and these frameworks also represent analytical tools that managers can use to assess or to change an organisation's CSR stance. The multi-level perspective on CSR adopted by the paper links an organisation's overall or ‘macro’ CSR stance to the ‘meso’ levels of CSR represented by practice within its specialist functions. It proposes that the ‘CSR at a tipping point’ proposition is assessed by utilising the conceptual model in the paper within a case-study research design to determine whether specific organisations – identified as ‘CSR-positive’ ones by their relatively high level of concern for stakeholder welfare – are changing the importance they accord to CSR as a result of the new business context, and the extent to which practice in their marketing, HRM and performance management functions are shapers or consequences of this. (shrink)

Little is known about employees’ responses to their organizations’ initiatives in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Academics have already identified a few outcomes regarding CSR’s impact on employees’ attitudes and behaviours; however, studies explaining the underlying mechanisms that drive employees’ favourable responses to CSR remain largely unexplored. Based on organizational identification (OI) theory, this study surveyed 155 employees of a petrochemical organization to better elucidate why, how and under which circumstances employees might positively respond to organizations’ CSR initiatives in the controversial (...) oil industry sector. Findings first support that perceived CSR (i.e. environmental CSR) positively relates to employees’ OI which is known as an important antecedent of employees’ outcomes (Riketta, J Vocat Behavior, 66(2):358, 2005). Furthermore, results highlighted that the relationship between perceived CSR and employees’ OI is mediated by organizational trust. Finally, this study also revealed that some contingency factors such as employees’ attributions of self-centred motives to their organization’s investment in environmental issues can moderate the relationship between perceived CSR and organizational trust. Based on these findings, it is argued that CSR initiatives can support organizations’ efforts to maintain a strong relationship with their employees, and gain their support even in a controversial industry sector. (shrink)

Media companies are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of their reputation. In order to legitimate themselves, they are starting to present themselves as ‘good corporate citizens’ by engaging in media governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The communication of those activities is crucial for the building of reputation. However, to date, no comprehensive studies have been conducted to evaluate the communication of media governance and CSR activities of media organizations. This study aims to fill this gap and examined (...) websites and reports of selected media organizations in Germany, Italy, France, Austria, and Switzerland. Results indicate that public service media organizations communicate proportionally more on media governance than private media organizations, which may be due to the fact that public service media organizations feel more accountable to the public as they have a public service obligation. Concerning the communication of their CSR activities, media organizations focus on society-oriented measures. (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)

Recent research on consumer social responsibility highlights the need to examine psychological drivers of environmentally‐friendly consumption choices in a global context. This article investigates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) more for environmentally‐friendly products across 28 European Union (EU) countries, using a sample of 21,514 consumers. A multigroup structural equation modeling analysis reveals significantly different patterns and relationships, in how (a) subjective knowledge about the product's environmental impact, (b) environmental product attitudes, and (c) the perceived importance of the products’ environmental impact (...) influence consumers’ WTP more for environmentally‐friendly products across countries. The hypothesized model predicts WTP for 20 out of 28 countries and the findings show that a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach is inadequate in capturing the heterogeneity of EU consumers. Hosfstede's cultural dimensions of uncertainty tolerance and individualism explain differences in WTP for environmentally‐friendly products across EU countries. Business, marketing communications, and policy making implications are discussed. (shrink)

Consumer trust is a key prerequisite for establishing a market for credence goods, such as “green” products, especially when they are premium priced. This article reports research on exactly how, and how much, trust influences consumer decisions to buy new green products. It identifies consumer trust as a distinct volition factor influencing the likelihood that consumers will act on green intentions and strongly emphasizes the needs to manage consumer trust as a prerequisite for the development of a market for green (...) products. Specifically, based on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, it is found that lack of consumer trust is a barrier for the development of a market for organic food in Thailand. Two focus groups and ten in-depth interviews revealed low knowledge about and low trust in organic food, certification, control, and labeling. Further, a mall-intercept survey revealed that lack of system trust reduces consumer expectations about benefits of buying organic food, and it makes them less likely to buy organic food. Mistrust in the control system and in the authenticity of food sold as organic has a significant negative impact on self-reported buying behavior. Implications for policy and future research are discussed. (shrink)

In policy-making the consumption of specially labelled products, and its role in improving the welfare of livestock, has attracted considerable attention. There is in many countries a diverse market for animal welfare-friendly products which is potentially confusing and may lack transparency. We ask whether special quality labels that involve medium levels of animal welfare, as compared with labels promoting premium levels of animal welfare, have a role to play in promoting improvements in animal welfare. The Danish pork market is our (...) reference case, but we also widen the context by comparing the markets for pork in three other European countries. Our findings suggest that in order to improve animal welfare through demand for welfare-friendly products it is important to maintain separate the market for products with strong animal welfare profiles from markets for products with medium levels of animal welfare where, often, animal welfare is bundled together with other food quality attributes. We conclude that such quality labels may indeed play an important role in promoting higher animal welfare standards provided that they offer real improvements in animal welfare as compared with standard products. They will be attractive to consumers with a positive, but not especially strong interest in animal welfare as an individual food attribute who would otherwise be inclined to purchase standard products. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate brand credibility, corporate brand equity, and corporate reputation. Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses from a sample of 867 consumers in South Korea. The results showed that CSR has a direct positive effect on corporate brand credibility and corporate reputation. In addition, the results indicate that corporate brand credibility mediates the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. Moreover, corporate brand credibility mediates (...) the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. Finally, the relationship between CSR and corporate brand equity is sequentially and fully mediated by corporate brand credibility and corporate reputation. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results and limitations are discussed, and future research directions are suggested. (shrink)

This study examines to what extent perceived corporate social responsibility reduces employee cynicism, and whether trust plays a mediating role in the relationship between CSR and employee cynicism. Three distinct contributions beyond the existing literature are offered. First, the relationship between perceived CSR and employee cynicism is explored in greater detail than has previously been the case. Second, trust in the company leaders is positioned as a mediator of the relationship between CSR and employee cynicism. Third, we disaggregate the measure (...) of CSR and explore the links between this and with employee cynicism. Our findings illustrate that the four distinct dimensions of CSR of Carroll are indirectly linked to employee cynicism via organizational trust. In general terms, our findings will help company leaders to understand employees’ counterproductive reactions to an organization, the importance of CSR for internal stakeholders, and the need to engage in trust recovery. (shrink)

Little is known about employees' responses to their organizations' initiatives in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Academics have already identified a few outcomes regarding CSR's impact on employees' attitudes and behaviours; however, studies explaining the underlying mechanisms that drive employees' favourable responses to CSR remain largely unexplored. Based on organizational identification (OI) theory, this study surveyed 155 employees of a petrochemical organization to better elucidate why, how and under which circumstances employees might positively respond to organizations' CSR initiatives in the controversial (...) oil industry sector. Findings first support that perceived CSR (i.e. environmental CSR) positively relates to employees' OI which is known as an important antecedent of employees' outcomes (Riketta, J Vocat Behavior, 66(2):358, 2005). Furthermore, results highlighted that the relationship between perceived CSR and employees' OI is mediated by organizational trust. Finally, this study also revealed that some contingency factors such as employees' attributions of self-centred motives to their organization's investment in environmental issues can moderate the relationship between perceived CSR and organizational trust. Based on these findings, it is argued that CSR initiatives can support organizations' efforts to maintain a strong relationship with their employees, and gain their support even in a controversial industry sector. (shrink)

The present paper aims to confirm the influence of CSR policies on Perceived Value for the consumers, and the influence of this value on satisfaction and loyalty. To achieve this purpose, a causal model which establishes the relationship between those variables has been developed and empirically tested. In order to verify the proposed hypothesis a structured survey was developed. The survey was given to a sample of 708 customers of modern distribution retail stores in Spain. All hypotheses are supported. Thus (...) confirming that the consumer perception on CSR policies carried out by the retailer influence on customer perceived value. As this variable affect satisfaction and loyalty. These results also confirm the indirect influence of CSR on customer satisfaction, through the perceived value. In addition, we analyzed the results based on the degree of involvement of the consumers with social responsibility. The study demonstrated that more involved socially consumers have significantly higher average scores than consumers with low social involvement on all the variables analyzed. (shrink)

With regard to the topicality of corporate social responsibility in retail practice, only a few studies have comprehensively analyzed the role of CSR in retail. Due to the specific role of a retailer as a gatekeeper between the producer and the consumer in the supply chain, a comprehensive understanding of the impact of consumer perceptions of CSR activities is of great relevance. Therefore, this study contributes information regarding the impact of CSR activities on retailer performance. Using a comprehensive conceptualization of (...) CSR, the results of our customer survey suggest that CSR has positive implications as driver of customer loyalty and favorable consumer purchasing behavior. The authors demonstrate the CSR dimensions that are most important for retailers to influence positively consumer purchasing behavior. This study highlights the significance of the credibility of retailer CSR activities and show that consumers’ CSR orientation impacts the relationship between retailer CSR activities and consumer behavior. (shrink)

This article develops a conceptual framework that explains how organizations can influence employees’ attitudes and behaviour through their corporate social responsibility activities. There are plenty of studies to suggest the financial benefits of CSR. However, studies are scarce to link CSR with non-financial measures of organizational effectiveness, such as, affective commitment, job engagement and organizational citizenship behaviour. Moreover, studies are rare to delineate the process through which CSR can bring positive attitudes. Thus, this article focuses on organizational prosocial identity as (...) a mediating variable. The role of communicating CSR activities is almost negligible and to address this gap, this article considers CSR communication as a moderating variable. Drawing from literature, this article argues that the success of an organization lies in enhancing positive attitudes among employees and probably, one of the ways to promote this is through CSR. Based on this assertion, the framework identifies CSR activities towards four stakeholders and its impacts on employees. Several research implications are proposed based on the propositions highlighted in this article. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been increasing managerial and academic attention given to a variety of mechanisms for companies to respond to stakeholder concerns about global business ethics. One area that merits further analysis is the role of industry‐level cooperation regarding issues in global business ethics such as labor practices. There are two main issues that we will address in this article: institutional pressures that predict when an industry will create a code of conduct and institutional complements for an industry‐level (...) code of conduct to be “successful” with regard to responding to stakeholder concerns about international business operations. We offer a number of propositions—bringing together work from both the corporate social responsibility and institutional theory literatures—with regard to both predictors and complements of industry self‐regulation in reference to labor practices. (shrink)

In this article we explore the conceptual relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation and real option reasoning. We argue that the firm's attitude, communication, and behavior toward CSR will act as significant determinants to the firm's sensemaking approach to real options; that is, if and how it (the firm) acknowledges, receives, and manages strategic real options. Integrating the previous work of Basu and Palazzo with Barnett, we propose a new model that extends the influence of CSR orientation/character to general (...) strategic decision making while simultaneously developing the attention‐based view to real options. (shrink)

Alternative food networks are emerging in opposition to industrial food systems, but are criticized as being exclusive, since customers’ ability to patronize these market spaces is premised upon their ability to pay higher prices for what are considered the healthiest, freshest foods. In response, there is growing interest in widening the demographic profile given access to these alternative foods. This research asks: what barriers do alternative food businesses face in providing access and inclusion for low income consumers? Surveys and interviews (...) with 45 alternative food businesses in British Columbia, Canada uncovered five key barriers. The findings indicate that the barriers are symptomatic of structural issues in the Canadian food and social welfare systems. Although opportunities exist for business operators to widen access for low income shoppers, these alone cannot meaningfully ameliorate food-access inequality. Rather, these barriers underscore issues of income-disparity, poverty, and food-access inequality more broadly, and require structural and societal change to rectify. (shrink)

Developing trust in a company is a significant part of building the company-consumer relationship. Previous studies have sought to identify the positive consequences of trust such as loyalty and repurchase, but the question of what builds trust remains largely unanswered. To answer the question, we developed a model that depicts the relationships among transparency, social responsibility, trust, attitude, word-of-mouth (WOM) intention, and purchase intention. An online survey was conducted with a US nationwide sample of 303 consumers, and the data were (...) analyzed using the structural equation modeling method. The results indicated that consumers’ perceptions of a corporation’s efforts to be transparent in the production and labor conditions and to be socially responsible by giving back to the local community directly affected these consumers’ trust and attitudes toward the corporation, and indirectly affected their intentions to purchase from and spread positive WOM about the corporation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This article focuses on the perception of the importance of business ethics among Czech and Slovak entrepreneurs (this includes business owners and managers) within the SME sector. The comparison is based on an analysis of the approach to business ethics according to a set of parameters, namely company size, years in business, and the gender and education of the entrepreneurs. Empirical research was conducted in 2020 on a sample set consisting of 454 respondents in the Czech Republic and 368 respondents (...) in Slovakia. The most important outcome of the research was the finding that business ethics is considered extremely important in both countries. The research results not only revealed that just over 90% of Czech entrepreneurs and 88% of Slovak entrepreneurs within the SME sector agreed that they should take into account the moral and ethical consequences of their decisions, but that the structure of their answers was very similar. Also, of interest were the findings that women were more aware of business ethics than their male counterparts, as were those entrepreneurs who possessed a higher education over those with a secondary education. (shrink)

In an ever more transparent, digitalized, and connected environment, customers are increasingly pressuring brands to embrace genuine corporate social responsibility practices and co-creation activities. While both CSR and co-creation are social and collaborative processes, there is still little research examining whether CSR can boost co-creation. In addition, while previous research has mainly related co-creation to emotional outcomes, limited empirical research has related it to rational and behavioral outcomes. To address these shortcomings in the literature, this paper examines the influence of (...) CSR on customer loyalty, considering the mediating roles of co-creation and customer trust. It also investigates the influence of co-creation on customer trust. The data were collected in Spain in late 2017 using an online survey, and the sample contained 1101 customers of health insurance services brands. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships simultaneously. The results show that CSR influences customer loyalty both directly and indirectly through co-creation and customer trust. However, the indirect impact is the stronger of the two, implying that embracing co-creation activities and developing customer trust can make it easier for CSR practices to enhance customer loyalty. In addition, co-creation has a direct effect on customer trust. (shrink)

This research explores how consumers respond to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in China with a multiproduct, comparative survey. Empirical results conclude that (1) Chinese consumers, who show a high level of awareness and trust of CSR, are more likely to transform a good CSR record into positive corporate evaluation, product association, and purchase intention; (2) Consumer responses to CSR vary across different product categories. Those firms selling experience products (vs. search and credence products) are more likely to gain consumers' positive (...) product associations and purchase support through CSR practices; and (3) The relationships between consumer demographics and their CSR responses are not linear, and those consumers with a middle level of age and income would respond to CSR more positively. Managerial implications are provided. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether companies benefit from their commitment to corporate social responsibility. The authors argue that firms which score high on CSR activities build investor confidence and find evidence that they benefit from lower information asymmetry. The authors measure information asymmetry by insider trading, which is defined as the trading of a company’s shares by corporate insiders who have an information advantage with the aim to reap gains or avoid losses. Using a sample of U.S. firms listed (...) in the MSCI World Index during the period 2004 to 2013 and the firm- and industry-level CSR rating from Global Engagement Service, the authors show that insider transactions in firms with a high score on CSR activities lead to lower abnormal returns. This investigation extends current literature on the business case for CSR by explaining the influence of CSR activities on asymmetric information. (shrink)

The increasing debate on corporate ethics raises the question of whether consumers are willing to reward and punish corporate behaviour based on its ethicality. In this context, this article investigates the direct effect on consumers' willingness to pay. Price response to product-related ethical information is explored in an experiment dealing with social issues in sportswear and environmental issues in consumer electronics. It is shown that in both areas, consumers demonstrate an increased willingness to pay for ethically produced goods. However, the (...) response is subject to a negativity bias. In contrast to prior research that used abstract stimulus measures, a ratio for quantifying this bias is suggested based on consumers' willingness to pay and their price expectations. This measure allows us to analyse a consumer's individual bias. (shrink)

Despite the emergence of corporate social responsibility, the impact of CSR efforts on customer relationships remains decidedly unclear. Moreover, previous studies have examined CSR in cross-sectional, experimental, and/or artificial settings. Through field survey data collected at both the beginning (n = 750) and conclusion (n = 469) of the 2007-2008 NBA season, the authors investigate linkages between customers' perceptions of the CSR performance of an NBA team and the strength of their relationship with this same organization. With all respondents of (...) the latter survey participating in both samples, the authors assess how CSR performance impacts customer relationships over time. The findings show how a firm that engages in CSR initiatives may reap rewards by building trusting and committed customer relationships which, in turn, help forge desirable customer behaviors. The results also demonstrate how CSR's influence strengthens over the course of the tested business cycle, thus yielding revealing insights to academics and practitioners when it comes to understanding the real-world impact of CSR performance for strengthening customer relationships. (shrink)

Although there is a growing body of research on social media, only few studies have considered organic products. Therefore, this study mapped the diffusion path of the social media resources for organic products in Mexico and South Korea through Twitter and compared the contents of tweets about organic products in terms of their semantic and hyperlink networks using webometric methods. The results indicate that for organic products, Koreans sent tweets much more frequently than Mexicans. Mexican tweets focused on basic food (...) products in street markets, whereas Korean tweets highlighted promotions and firms, revealing the corporatist structure of its economy. In both cases, the findings support Twitter as a useful tool for Word-of-Mouth Communication on the online environment, among product consumers, and between consumers and enterprises. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been increasing managerial and academic attention given to a variety of mechanisms for companies to respond to stakeholder concerns about global business ethics. One area that merits further analysis is the role of industry‐level cooperation regarding issues in global business ethics such as labor practices. There are two main issues that we will address in this article: institutional pressures that predict when an industry will create a code of conduct and institutional complements for an industry‐level (...) code of conduct to be “successful” with regard to responding to stakeholder concerns about international business operations. We offer a number of propositions—bringing together work from both the corporate social responsibility and (neo)institutional theory literatures—with regard to both predictors and complements of industry self‐regulation in reference to labor practices. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has been intensively discussed in business ethics literature, whereas the social responsibility of private consumers appears to be less researched. However, there is also a growing interest from business ethicists and other scholars in the field of consumer social responsibility. Nevertheless, previous discussions of ConSR reveal the need for a viable conceptual basis for understanding the social responsibility of consumers in an increasingly globalized market economy. Moreover, evolutionary aspects of human morality seem to have been neglected despite (...) the fact that private consumers are undoubtedly human beings. In addition to that, empirical studies suggest that many consumers believe themselves to be responsible but do not act according to their alleged values or attitudes. This raises the question of what deters them from doing so. Therefore, the contribution of this conceptual paper is threefold: we conceptualize ConSR in terms of a combination of a Max Weber-inspired approach with the social connection approach to shared responsibility proposed by Iris Marion Young; shed light on the previously neglected implications of an evolutionarily induced bounded morality for ConSR, and identify potential obstacles to socially responsible consumption, particularly against the backdrop of shared social responsibility and bounded morality. In this latter respect, the paper focuses specifically on the obstacles of low moral intensity, moral stupefaction, informational complexity, and the lack of perceived consumer effectiveness. In sum, the paper advances knowledge in the field of ConSR by using a transdisciplinary, literature-based approach. (shrink)

The business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) suggests that by doing good (i.e., engaging in CSR) a firm will do well (i.e., be profitable), and this notion has permeated the linguistic sensemaking of firm actors. But how are firms that articulate business‐case justifications evaluated by various stakeholders? We hypothesize that the way firms communicate their CSR engagement (i.e., accompanied by business‐case justifications or not) differentially impacts stakeholders’ perceived integrity, benevolence and ability trustworthiness of the firm. Conducting the same online (...) experiment with two separate samples from the United States, we replicate three results; business‐case justification for CSR reduces benevolence trustworthiness among employees, increases ability trustworthiness among investors, and has no effect on perceived trustworthiness among consumers. We discuss the implications of our findings for the CSR literature and encourage future researchers to more carefully scrutinize the implications of justifying CSR with the business case. (shrink)

Media companies are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of their reputation. In order to legitimate themselves, they are starting to present themselves as ‘good corporate citizens’ by engaging in media governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The communication of those activities is crucial for the building of reputation. However, to date, no comprehensive studies have been conducted to evaluate the communication of media governance and CSR activities of media organizations. This study aims to fill this gap and examined (...) websites and reports of selected media organizations in Germany, Italy, France, Austria, and Switzerland. Results indicate that public service media organizations communicate proportionally more on media governance than private media organizations, which may be due to the fact that public service media organizations feel more accountable to the public as they have a public service obligation. Concerning the communication of their CSR activities, media organizations focus on society‐oriented measures. (shrink)