Responsabilidad social corporativa y resultado financiero: un análisis empírico

Durante los últimos años el concepto de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa (RSC) ha adquirido un notable protagonismo y ha ido calando de forma continua entre los distintos agentes de la sociedad (empresas, Estado y organismos públicos, organizaciones sindicales, mercados financieros, medios de comunicación, etc). La Responsabilidad Social Corporativa implica una nueva filosofía de empresa que trata de buscar la excelencia en la relación de la empresa con todos sus stakeholders, a través de la superación de las exigencias legales y de la máxima calidad de sus comportamientos en los ámbitos laboral, social y medioambiental. Se trata de una concepción estratégica de la empresa que va más allá del beneficio al accionista y que proyecta la empresa en un entorno institucional, laboral, ecológico y social. La RSC se convierte en una palanca clave de creación de valor, afectando la viabilidad de la empresa. Siguiendo este enfoque estratégico, se nos plantea la necesidad de analizar la repercusión del comportamiento socialmente responsable de las empresas en sus beneficios. Ya que en la medida en que seamos capaces de demostrar que existe una relación positiva entre la RSC y los beneficios de la empresa, conseguiremos que los directivos de máximo nivel consideren la RSC como un tema estratégico. El objetivo de nuestra investigación es analizar la relación entre la Responsabilidad Social de la Empresa y su resultado financiero, a través de un estudio empírico aplicado a una muestra de empresas españolas. Para ello se ha utilizado la reputación corporativa como medida de la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa basándonos en el Monitor Español de Reputación Corporativa (MERCO). Los resultados alcanzados en nuestra investigación sugieren la existencia de una relación positiva entre la RSC y el resultado financiero, aunque ésta no resulta significativa. Por otra parte, se pone de manifiesto como existen diferencias significativas en el comportamiento socialmente responsable de las empresas en función del sector en el que operan, y en función de su pertinencia al índice español de cotización bursátil (IBEX-35). Nuestro trabajo nos permite también señalar algunas líneas futuras de investigación en el estudio de la relación entre la responsabilidad social corporativa y la rentabilidad de la empresa.In recent years Corporate Social Responsibility concept has acquired a remarkable momentum. Various institutions of society (companies, State and public organisms, financial markets, mass media, etc) have also played a important rol in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) implies a new philosophy that tries to look for the excellence in the relation of the company with all stakeholders, through the overcoming of the legal exigencies and the maximum quality of its behaviors in the labor, social and environmental fields. CSR means managing a company in a way that respects all the company’s stakeholders and it requires a strategic approach that has to form part of the day to day decision making and operations throughout the organization, thus creating long-term value and competitive advantages that are sustainable over time. For that reason, we need arguments that convince to the companies´ managers about the key importance of adopting this new management approach in order to get their commitment and their implication with the CSR. It is not enough with intuiting that the CSR is profitable for the company, it’s necessary to demonstrate it. The purpose of this article is to analyze the relation between the CSR and the financial performance, through empirical research in a sample of Spanish companies. Corporate Reputation (MERCO) has been used as corporate social responsibility measure. The results of our research suggest that the positive association between CSR and financial performance is not significantly supported. However, we have found significant differences between corporate social behavior based on the sector in which companies operate, and based on its relevance to the IBEX-35

The Relationship between femininity and sustainability reporting

Most research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and stakeholder engagement with sustainable development has focused on the internal factors of corporations, leaving aside the characteristics of the institutional, cultural, and economic context of the country where corporations operate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of femininity in the disclosure of sustainability information based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines at a developed country context. We use three measures of the CSR information disclosure by country: the GRI reports per million of inhabitants, the GRI reports application level, and the percentage of GRI reports with external assurance. The results of this study show that countries with higher femininity orientation provide a higher quantity of sustainability reports, but do not provide higher quality sustainability reports. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environmen

Encouraging environmental sustainability through gender : a micro-foundational approach using linguistic gender marking

While studies show that organizational diversity is beneficial to organizations’ practice of environmental sustainability, we know very little about the effect that the gender of an individual director can have on sustainability practice. In this empirical paper, we employ a micro-foundational approach to examine whether the number of women on an organization’s board of directors has a direct effect on its attitude towards environmental sustainability, regardless of the national culture in which the organization is located. Culture in this study is measured through grammatical gender marking, a unique approach to measuring female-oriented cultural effects. Previous studies show that certain cultures have more gender roles than others, which in turn affects general and organizational behavior in that society. Grammatical gender marking enables us to study the impact of gender of the individual director on the organization’s attitude towards environmental sustainability across cultures, by empirically examining data from 71 countries, sampling a total of 4,500 organizations for multiple years and industries. Our findings show that organizations become significantly more proactive in environmental sustainability with the appointment of even one woman to the board of directors, regardless of the local culture. We further show that the organization’s level of disclosure regarding its sustainability activities, increases with the number of women on the board of directors. Our data also show a significantly negative relationship between various gender-based language indices and the presence of women on the board of directors. In cultures defined by a language that has clear grammatical gender markings, there is a tendency to appoint fewer women to boards of directors, thereby influencing indirectly the organization’s attitude towards environmental sustainability

Learning from Poverty: Why Business Schools Should Address Poverty, and How They Can Go About It.

In the past few years, business schools have begun to address poverty issues in their teaching, learning and curricula. While this is a positive development, the arguments for reconfiguring educational programs to address such matters remain undeveloped, with much of the impetus for such endeavors rooted in calls for social responsibility in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the Social Compact, the Principles for Responsible Management Education and benchmarks such as ISO 26000. This article seeks to clarify the pedagogical grounds for integrating poverty issues in management education by examining the intellectual and personal development benefits of doing so. By critically examining four modes of business involvement in poverty reduction, the article shows how such initiatives can be used as intellectual lenses through which to view the complex and often paradoxical interconnections between socioeconomic and environmental systems. It is thus concluded that a consideration of poverty issues is not a marginal matter, but is key to grasping the 21st century complexities of global business and management

Integrando la ética, la responsabilidad social y la sostenibilidad en la formación universitaria

El contexto actual provoca en las empresa la necesidad de adquirir y desarrollar las habilidades y las competencias apropiadas en el el ámbito de la ética, la responsabilidad social y la sostenibilidas. En este sentido, las universidades ocupan una posición estratégica desde la que pueden contribuir a desarrollo de las mismas. Ello hace que se plantee la necesidad de revisar el sistema educativo y aplicar los ajustes pertinentes que permitan a los futuros profesionales hacer frente a la era de la globalitzación creando un crecimiento económico y un futuro sostenible para las personas y el planeta. El objetivo de este trabajo es doble, en primer lugar, pretendemos reflexionar sobre la importancia de la incorporación de contenidos relacionados con la ética, la RSE y la sostenibilidad en la formación universitaria, y en segundo lugar proporcionar un marco conceptual que nos permita analizar las principales variables que deben ser consideradas en las estrategias de integración, teniendo en cuenta la existencia de factores contextuales que pueden ejercer cierta influencia en su adopción. Finalmente concluimos señalando que cada universidad debe adoptar la estrategia de integración que más encaje con su propio contexto, y además para coseguir su efectividad será necesario que perciba su importancia formando parte de una estrategia mucho amplia de la universidad.Peer Reviewe

Sustainable Development Goals: A Powerful Framework for Embedding Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability in Management Education

In this editorial we are delighted to present the four papers included in this special issue. Each of them tackles different issues with important academic and managerial implications. Then, we will discuss the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the potential they represent for higher education institutions and management education, in particular. One of the most important challenges in this field will be how to introduce SDGs in management education, an area of interest for practitioners and academics