Gérer les responsabilités sociales des entreprises envers leurs parties prenantes

Différents groupes de parties prenantes attendent des entreprises qu’elles jouent un rôle plus important dans la résolution des problèmes sociaux et environnementaux actuels. Gérer leurs responsabilités et leurs relations avec les groupes de parties prenantes est de plus en plus important pour les entreprises. Cependant, les études existantes ne donnent que des réponses limitées quant à la façon dont ces entreprises peuvent gérer leurs relations avec leurs parties prenantes. «Quelles pratiques responsables devraient être adoptées par les entreprises et estce que ces pratiques permettent d’améliorer leur performance sociale?» et «Y a-t-il des cultures organisationnelles permettant aux entreprises de mettre en place des pratiques responsables avec plus de succès?» sont des questions qui restent encore en suspend. Afin de répondre à ces questions, nous avons développé une enquête et recueilli des données auprès de 244 entreprises basées en Suisse

Commitment to corporate, social, and environmental responsibilities: an insight into contrasting perspectives in China and the US

This cross-national study investigates antecedents and outcomes of corporate responsibility (CR) practices to stakeholders and the natural environment in the contrasting contexts of China and the US. In general, we found partial support for the proposition that the divergence of CR stakeholder practices across nations is dependent on the institutional environments of business. Whereas customer and community stakeholder practices were found to be more prevalent in US companies, there were no significant country differences in the prevalence of employee, investor, and environmental CR practices. In addition, we found that the relationship between the prevalence of CR practices and business outcomes (financial performance, corporate reputation, and employee commitment) varied depending on the type of CR practice and country

Attitudes toward Corporate Responsibilities in Western Europe and in Central And East Europe

This study investigated the attitudes toward social, economic, and environmental corporate responsibilities of 3064 current managers and business students in 8 European countries. Participants in Western European countries had significantly different perspectives on the importance of these corporate responsibilities (CR) than those in Central and East European countries. Within each country, environmental CR is perceived as most important in both CEE and Western European countries. Across countries, Western European respondents accord more importance to social CR and less importance to economic CR. CEE countries are not homogenous, e.g., CR attitudes in the Czech Republic are closer to that of Western Europeans, possibly triggered by the accession to EU. Work experience (managers vs. business students) influences social and environmental orientations more than the economic orientation for only some countries. Generational differences were found as well: Business students attribute more importance to environmental CR and less importance to social CR than managers

A Twenty-First Century Assessment of Values Across the Global

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societallevel analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self- transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s a statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and withinsociety agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research

Ethical preferences for influencing superiors: A 41-society study

With a 41-society sample of 9990 managers and professionals, we used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the impact of both macro-level and micro-level predictors on subordinate influence ethics. While we found that both macro-level and micro-level predictors contributed to the model definition, we also found global agreement for a subordinate influence ethics hierarchy. Thus our findings provide evidence that developing a global model of subordinate ethics is possible, and should be based upon multiple criteria and multilevel variables

Societal-level versus individual-level predictions of ethical behavior: a 48-society study of collectivism and individualism

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed

Women bank managers in British Columbia

This study investigated the personal history, psychological dimensions, and career experiences of Canadian female bank managers. As part of a larger research project on bank managers conducted by Dr. L.F. Moore and Dr. B. Beck of the University of British Columbia, this thesis focussed primarily on the sex-based differences between male and female branch bank managers. Personal interview and mail-back questionnaire data were obtained from 68 male and 41 female branch managers located in the Lower Mainland of B.C. The five largest Canadian chartered banks and one western regional bank participated in the study. Analysis of the demographic characteristics of female bank managers revealed that they came from predominantly rural, blue-collar families. A substantial proportion of female managers were not married (unlike male bank managers) and tended to have few, if any, children. Female bank managers had less formal education than male managers in terms of academic achievement and attendance on bank training courses. Concerning motivational needs, female managers closely resembled male managers, exhibiting a high need for achievement, high need for power, and low need for affiliation. The female managers' managerial style conception differed significantly from that of their male colleagues. In their attributions of leadership behaviour for a "typical" bank manager, female managers often chose a consultative, communications approach. Male managers, however, more often selected a directive style consistent with traditional leadership style conception. Female managers held a higher interpersonal orientation than male managers. They, also stressed social and interpersonal values more than male managers. In terms of career experience variables, female and male managers have equivalent total years of experience in banking, however, female managers have significantly fewer years in managerial level positions. They are also working in the smaller retail-type bank branches unlike male managers who are in larger retail and commercial branches. Although the majority have experienced sex-based discrimination in their careers, female managers are generally optimistic about the future of women in banking management.Business, Sauder School ofGraduat

Power, politics and the innovation process: analysis of an organizational field in agriculture

An analysis of the organizational field of B.C. agriculture was conducted to explore the politics of the innovation process. Agricultural innovations in organic farming, synthetic agrichemicals and biogenetic engineering were studied at the individual, organizational and interorganizational levels. Research questions regarding the innovation decision—making process, innovation championship, organizational politics, organization theory and interorganizational networks were explored. A total of 137 persons (organic and conventional farmers, BCMAFF employees, farm organization employees) were interviewed in this research study. Data was collected via semi—structured interviews, questionnaires, and analysis of publications to investigate a total of 28 research questions. Similarities and differences between organic and conventional farmers in respect to their socioeconomic characteristics, motivations, actions and environmentalist beliefs were identified. Organic farmers basis for their innovation adoption decisions was found to be largely informed by their environmentalist philosophy whereas the primary motivating factor for conventional farmers was economic rather than ideological. Case studies of 33 farm organizations (20 conventional and 13 organic) were conducted. Organizational fields were found to be defined not only in terms of products, services and geographic location but also in terms of ideology. Within the conventional agriculture organizational field there was a high degree of homogeneity in organizational structures and decision making processes as well as close collaboration with government policy makers. Within the organic agriculture organizational field there was homogeneity in production practices, but heterogeneity in organizational structures, goals and decision making processes based on the radicalness of the environmentalist philosophy of an organization’s membership. The formation and operation of interorganizational networks in each organizational field confirmed previous findings of the critical problems in overorganized and underorganized networks. A longitudinal analysis of organizational politics in the organic agriculture organizational field revealed that institutionalization processes engender political contests among competing interests. The successful championship of an innovative government regulatory system was attributed to the early use of a wide variety of collaborative and competitive political games. Opponents’ efforts to neutralize champions’ escalation of commitment during the later stages of the innovation development process proved to be ineffective.Business, Sauder School ofGraduat