Strategic and moral motivation for corporate social responsibility

This article examines the relationship between management’s view on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firms’ actual CSR efforts. It focuses on the practices of 111 Dutch firms with respect to five stakeholder groups—employees, supplies, customers, competitors and society at large—and their use of organisational instruments. We find that the moral (intrinsic) motive, which holds that CSR is a moral duty of companies towards society, induces a stronger involvement in CSR than the strategic (extrinsic) motive, which holds that CSR contributes to the financial success of the company in the long run. This particularly applies to ethical aspects of employee relations and the use of instruments to integrate CSR in the company’s organisation. With respect to consumer relations, the strategic and moral motives are equally important. As for relations with suppliers and competitors and society at large, we do not find a significant relationship between management’s strategic and moral view on CSR and actual CSR performance.Moral motivation

Economics and Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important economic phenomenon with broad implications for .rms, employees, consumers, investors, governments and NGOs alike. This paper collects, structures and combines scattered pieces of economic theory and empirical evidence in novel ways that shed light on various fundamental economic questions related to CSR. The main conjecture presents individual preferences as the ultimate driving force behind any form of CSR. In the presence of social stakeholder preferences, firms may use strategic CSR to maximize profits, while not-for-profit CSR may satisfy shareholders. social ambitions. Only if managers take CSR beyond strategic levels or shareholder preferences, does CSR constitute moral hazard. Incentives and mechanisms underlying for-profit CSR will be outlined in greater detail. Six frameworks for the analysis of strategic CSR are proposed and analyzed. Finally, some empirical issues related to measurement and estimation of CSR are briefly discussed.Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Goods Provision, Preferences, Strategic CSR

Do consistent CSR activities matter for firm value?

This paper investigates how investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities affect firm value. We categorise firms’ CSR activities as strategic or opportunistic based on consistency, and analyse the differential value relevance effect. We use the Egyptian Economic Justice Index (EEJI) as the most representative measure for firms’ CSR activities in Egypt. To measure valuation effect, we adopt an earnings response coefficient (ERC) model. Our main explanatory variables are interaction variables with unexpected earnings and two dummy variables; one indicating CSR activities, and one indicating their consistency. We document these variables as positively and negatively significant. Our findings show that investing in CSR activities consistently and strategically may increase firm’s profitability and firm value. However, firms that sporadically invest in CSR activities show a smaller relationship between unexpected earnings and stock returns than firms that consistently invest in CSR activities

Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications

We describe a variety of perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which we use to develop a framework for consideration of the strategic implications of CSR. Based on this framework, we propose an agenda for additional theoretical and empirical research on CSR. We then review the papers in this special issue and relate them to the proposed agenda.

Exploring employee engagement with (corporate) social responsibility: A Social Exchange perspective on organisational participation

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a recognised and common part of business activity. Some of the regularly cited motives behind CSR are employee morale, recruitment and retention, with employees acknowledged as a key organisational stakeholder. Despite the significance of employees in relation to CSR, relatively few studies have examined their engagement with CSR and the impediments relevant to this engagement. This exploratory case study based research addresses this paucity of attention, drawing on one to one interviews and observation in a large UK energy company. A diversity of engagement was found, ranging from employees who exhibited detachment from the CSR activities within the company, to those who were fully engaged with the CSR activities, and to others who were content with their own personal, but not organisational, engagement with CSR. A number of organisational context impediments, including poor communication, a perceived weak and low visibility of CSR culture, and lack of strategic alignment of CSR to business and personal objectives, served to explain this diversity of employee engagement. Social Exchange Theory is applied to help explore the volition that individual employees have towards their engagement with CSR activities, and to consider the implications of an implicit social, rather than explicit economic, contract between an organisation and its employees in their engagement with CSR

Creating Business and Social Value: The Asian Way to Integrate CSR into Business Strategies

CSR in Asia has moved from ideology to reality and become an increasingly important aspect for how businesses conduct themselves in Asia today. However, while many businesses have awakened to this demand, they are much less clear as to how to best proceed with CSR. In fact, many common CSR business actions are neither strategic nor operational, but often tend to be "cosmetic" in nature and overwhelmingly related to public relations and media campaigns. While many businesses choose to construct their images based on surface issues of CSR, this often ignores any actual substance and proves ultimately unsustainable.CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, business, strategies, Asia

CEO Transformational Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility

The overall purpose of this study is to apply transformational leadership theory to improve our understanding of the potential role of CEOs in determining the extent to which their firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We generate a theoretical argument for the existence of relationships between aspects of transformational leadership and CSR, which we test using data from 56 U.S. and Canadian firms. CEO intellectual stimulation (but not CEO charismatic leadership) is found to be positively associated with the propensity of the firm to engage in "strategic" CSR, or those CSR activities that are most likely to be related to the firm's corporate and business-level strategies. Thus, studies that ignore the role of leadership in CSR may generate imprecise conclusions regarding the antecedents and consequences of these activities. We conclude that there is a need for additional multidisciplinary research bridging micro- and macro-level conceptualizations of the role of leadership in CSR.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY DURING THE ECONOMIC CRISIS. THE CASE OF THE ROMANIAN COMPANIES

The aim of the present paper is to identify and comment on the existing relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the current economic crisis, by focusing on the experience of the Romanian companies. After briefly defining the concept of CSR, the article presents the above mentioned relationship from a triple perspective: the lack of ethics as a cause of the economic crisis, the threat of CSR in periods of crisis and the opportunity of CSR in periods of crisis, considering that the last perspective could be maximized if companies are going to approach CSR from a strategic point of view. Finally, the second part of the paper presents what Romanian companies really do, but, more important, what they should do in order to increase their effectiveness in terms of CSR implementation when social budgets seem to remain constant or even decrease.Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Crisis, Stakeholders, Risk Management

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENTS IN ROMANIA

Socially responsible investments (SRI) are one of the main instruments of corporate social responsibility (CSR) used by companies for complying with their economic, environmental, social and governance criteria. In general terms, SRI refers to an investments strategy which focuses on both maximizing financial returns and social goods. The aim of the present paper is to offer a general framework of the SRI process at the European level, but, especially, for the Romanian business environment, taking into account the corresponding opportunities and challenges associated with SRI and emphasizing the rising role of SRI for increasing competitiveness. The intended contribution of the research envisages the delineation of a set of strategic priorities for SRI in Romania, as part of CSR policies, in the context of the post-accession to the EU. In analysing the concept of SRI two main approaches should be taken into account: the corporate and the governmental one. For the corporate approach of SRI, an empirical analysis will be conducted by taking into account the business activities of the Romanian investment companies. Although CSR in Romania begins to come closer to the European requirements and to copy the social involvement models of the European companies, this is not available also for the SRI, that still are a less known and applied concept in the Romanian business environment. The aim of the paper is to identify the causes of the problem and to offer a set of strategic recommendations.competitive advantage, corporate social responsibility (CSR), socially responsible investments (SRI), strategic approach, sustainability.