Longitudinal Relationships Between Reflective Functioning, Empathy, and Externalizing Behaviors During Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Reflective functioning (RF) refers to the understanding of one’s own and others’ behaviors in terms of mental states, whereas empathy entails the abilities to understand (cognitive empathy) and to share (affective empathy) the emotions of others. Low RF and low empathy have been previously related to externalizing behaviors, such as aggression and rule breaking. However, few longitudinal studies have simultaneously examined the relationships between these variables during adolescence. The aim of the present study is to investigate the longitudinal effects of both RF and empathy on potential changes in externalizing behaviors over time, in a group of 103 adolescents and young adults from the general population assessed repeatedly up to four times. We conducted multilevel analysis in order to examine the effects of RF and empathy on the initial levels and the trajectories of externalizing behaviors over time, while accounting for other variables previously associated with externalizing behaviors, such as age, gender, internalizing problems, and cognitive abilities. The results suggest that the ability to reflect on behaviors in terms of mental states predicted a sharper decrease in externalizing behaviors over time. Moreover, externalizing behaviors at the first assessment were associated with RF impairments and low affective empathy. Age, gender, cognitive abilities, and cognitive empathy were not associated with externalizing behaviors. We discuss how our results, based on a typically developing population, might inform primary or indicated prevention strategies for externalizing behaviors by focusing on socio-cognitive processes such as RF and affective empathy

In the LEED: Racing to the Top in Environmental Self-Regulation

Does voluntary participation in eco-certification become more substantive over time, or less? Although past research on voluntary programs suggests that later participants are more likely to greenwash by only symbolically adopting voluntary standards, theories of regulatory competition suggest a possible “race to the top.” We argue that participation in voluntary programs can facilitate competition that enables a race, and we advance a theory of self-regulatory competition to explain dynamics of participation in voluntary environmental programs. Under this perspective, environmental self-regulation may facilitate a race to the top, despite possibilities for purely symbolic adoption. Analyzing data from a voluntary green building certification program in the United States, we introduce a methodology to distinguish propensities for symbolic certification from more substantive environmental performance. Data demonstrate that later adopters invest additional resources to attain higher certification, becoming greener and suggesting a race to the top in a voluntary greenbuilding certification program

Introduction to the Special Section on Business and Climate Change

We are pleased to present this special section of Management Science on 'Business and Climate Change'. We launched the call for papers in 2019 to draw more scholarly attention to the major risks and opportunities that climate change poses for a wide array of companies and industries and for society at large. In the four years since then, we have seen a growing number of examples o the physical manifestations of climate change that scientists had been forecasting for decades, including intensive heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floodin

Making Self-Regulation More than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role of the Legal Environment

Using data from a sample of U.S. industrial facilities subject to the federal Clean Air Act from 1993 to 2003, this article theorizes and tests the conditions under which organizations’ symbolic commitments to self-regulate are particularly likely to result in improved compliance practices and outcomes. We argue that the legal environment, particularly as it is constructed by the enforcement activities of regulators, significantly influences the likelihood that organizations will effectively implement the self-regulatory commitments they symbolically adopt. We investigate how different enforcement tools can foster or undermine organizations’ normative motivations to self-regulate. We find that organizations are more likely to follow through on their commitments to self-regulate when they (and their competitors) are subject to heavy regulatory surveillance and when they adopt self-regulation in the absence of an explicit threat of sanctions. We also find that historically poor compliers are significantly less likely to follow through on their commitments to self-regulate, suggesting a substantial limitation on the use of self-regulation as a strategy for reforming struggling organizations. Taken together, these findings suggest that self-regulation can be a useful tool for leveraging the normative motivations of regulated organizations but that it cannot replace traditional deterrence-based enforcement

Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies of Spanish Listed Firms and Controlling Shareholders’ Representatives

This article aims at analyzing how controlling shareholders’ representatives on boards affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies (disclosing CSR matters) in Spain, a context characterized by high ownership concentration, one-tier boards, little board independence, weak legal protection for investors, and the presence of large shareholders, especially institutional shareholders. Furthermore, among controlling shareholders’ representatives, we can distinguish between those appointed by insurance companies and banks and those appointed by mutual funds, investment funds, and pension funds. The effect of these categories of directors on CSR strategies is, therefore, also analyzed. Our findings suggest that controlling shareholders’ representatives have a positive effect on CSR strategies, as do directors appointed by investment funds, pension funds, and mutual funds, while directors appointed by banks and insurance companies have no impact on CSR strategies. This analysis offers new insights into the role played by certain types of directors on CSR strategies

Enforcing higher labour standards within developing country value chains: consequences for MNEs and informal actors in a dual economy

The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster led external stakeholders to insist on higher labour standards in apparel global value chains (GVCs). Stakeholders now expect MNEs to take ‘full-chain’ responsibility. However, the increased monitoring and enforcement costs of a large network of suppliers have been non-trivial. MNEs instead implement a ‘cascading compliance’ approach, coupled with a partial re-internalization. Elevated costs are further exacerbated in developing countries where the informal and formal sector are linked, and cost competitiveness greatly depends on this duality. Monitoring actors in the informal sector is difficult, and few informal actors can achieve compliance. GVCs have therefore reduced informal sector engagement by excluding non-compliant actors and investing in greater automation. By seeking to strictly enforce compliance, MNEs are attenuating some of the positive effects of MNE investment, particularly the prospects for employment creation (especially among women), and enterprise growth in the informal sector. I discuss how these observations might inform other cross-disciplinary work in development, ethics, and sociology. Finally, I note implications for IB theory from the disparities between the ownership, control and responsibility boundaries of the firm