Corporate responsibility and financial performance : the role of intangible resources.

This paper examines the effects of a firm’s intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm’s intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries.

Corporate responsibility and financial performance : the role of intangible resources

The definitive version is available at www.interscience.wiley.comThis paper examines the effects of a firm’s intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm’s intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries.En prens

Corporate responsibility, supply chain partnership and performance: An empirical examination

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in International Journal of Production Economics. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2012 Elsevier B.V.Unlike corporate and business levels, there is little research examining corporate responsibility (CR) at the functional level of the firm including supply chain strategy. The results of a firm-level survey show that CR internal awareness, and monitoring CR performance are positively related to the supply chain partnership approach, however sharing CR best practices is negatively associated. Furthermore, the impact of CR on firm performance is mediated by the functional behaviour of supply chain partnership formation. Our study provides support for including CR awareness building and monitoring in the development of partnerships but cautions against imposing CR best practices on suppliers

The financial effects of uniform and mixed corporate social performance

Firms typically present a mixed picture of corporate social performance (CSP), with positive and negative indicators exhibited by the same firm. Thus, stakeholders’ judgements of corporate social responsibility (CSR) typically evaluate positives in the context of negatives, and vice versa. Building on social judgement theory, we present two alternative accounts of how stakeholders respond to such complexity, which provide differing implications for the financial effects of CSP: reciprocal dampening and rewarding uniformity. Echoing notable findings on strategic consistency, our US panel study finds that firms that exhibit uniformly positive or uniformly negative indicators in particular dimensions of CSP outperform firms that exhibit a mixed picture of positives and negatives, which supports the notion that stakeholders’ judgements of CSR reward uniformity

The Wicked Problems of Global Sustainability Need Wicked (Good) Leaders and Wicked (Good) Collaborative Solutions

Making a difference in the pursuit of a more sustainable world increasingly requires the ability to contend successfully with the wicked problem that is sustainability, and this shift needs to happen at the societal as well as the organizational level. Dealing successfully with issues of sustainability means creating greater system resilience and using resources more wisely, which means working successfully across boundaries, be they sector, organizational, policy, or functional ones. Wicked problems are poorly formulated, confusing, and have many different constituents or stakeholders with conflicting values. This article argues that developing wicked (good) leadership that is collaboratively oriented and wicked (good) solutions that enhance system resilience are two potential strategies for creating change to reduce systemic problems associated with sustainability. Although these approaches do not deal with the problem of resource overuse, they may provide a basis for generating more sustainable approaches to resource use

Inequality, Dignity, and the Sustainability Challenge

The world is facing significant threats from inequality and climate change, both of which are potential sources of societal and civilizational instability. Sustainability crises will most likely affect the poorest in the world much more than the wealthy. Furthermore, a fundamental reason why poverty and growing gaps between the wealthy and the poor are problematic is that poverty too often has the effect of violating the dignity of the poor. Today’s business system fosters ever more materiality, consumption, and product churn, externalizing whatever costs it can and thereby placing those costs into societies and the natural environment. This article argues that greater attention to the dignity of humans and, indeed, of all beings, along with systemic changes that incorporate new measures of progress and performance, the internalization of currently externalized costs, the provision of decent work, and the consideration of ecological costs, among other shifts, could help businesses transition the world to a more equitable and sustainable context

Inequality, Dignity, and the Sustainability Challenge

The world is facing significant threats from inequality and climate change, both of which are potential sources of societal and civilizational instability. Sustainability crises will most likely affect the poorest in the world much more than the wealthy. Furthermore, a fundamental reason why poverty and growing gaps between the wealthy and the poor are problematic is that poverty too often has the effect of violating the dignity of the poor. Today’s business system fosters ever more materiality, consumption, and product churn, externalizing whatever costs it can and thereby placing those costs into societies and the natural environment. This article argues that greater attention to the dignity of humans and, indeed, of all beings, along with systemic changes that incorporate new measures of progress and performance, the internalization of currently externalized costs, the provision of decent work, and the consideration of ecological costs, among other shifts, could help businesses transition the world to a more equitable and sustainable context

Leaders as Shamans: Working to Heal a Troubled World

In a world greatly in need of healing, today’s leaders acting as shamans could potentially bring the shaman’s ancient wisdom to the effort to create a more sustainable, just, and equitable world. Today’s shamanic leaders undertake the same roles as the traditional shaman: healing, connecting, and sensemaking in the service of a better world. From a leadership perspective, the shaman’s work is that of healing the world around us and our (human) relationship with that world, which is what many leaders are already attempting to do. In this context, healing can mean making our relationships, systems, and organizations whole or sound. In a similar vein, connecting means working across boundaries of different types, such as relationships, disciplines, functions, sectors, and institutions, among others, to create collaborative initiatives or new insights that can move ideas and institutions forward in a positive way. Finally, sensemaking means helping others understand and interpret their world in new and hopefully constructive ways. It means creating a new vision of the future through tasks like developing new memes or framing new stories or narratives that help people relate to their enterprises or the world in different ways. In today’s troubled world, where our dominant cultural mythologies, policies, and practices have resulted in frighteningly unsustainable conditions and divisiveness, I argue that more leaders explicitly need to (and can) take on these shamanic roles

The development of corporate responsibility/ corporate citizenship

This paper outlines the emergence of corporate responsibility/corporatecitizenship as part of corporate practice. The paper first defines the terms, then briefly focuses on the history of corporate citizenship and its evolution over time, highlighting the current popularity of the term both in academic and practice-based work. It turns next to an assessment of the current pressures and dynamics facing major corporations, highlighting the internalization of corporate responsibility practices into companies’’ business models, and a growing infrastructure that involves new standards and principles, the social investment movement, NGO pressures, multi-sector collaborations particularly around so-called bottom-of the pyramid strategies, internal and external responsibility management approaches, and stakeholder engagement, as well as transparency and reporting. Finally, the paper addresses how some of the current pressures are likely to evolve in the future, noting the emergence of new conversations like Corporation 2020, which focus on the core purposes and definition of the corporation, as well as other pressures that are likely to continue to develop, with a brief discussion of the implications for practice of all of these shifts