Corporate Social Behavior Research Articles

Credit ratings and corporate ESG behavior

This study examines the effect of credit rating concerns on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) behavior. We use the plus or minus test on a large sample of ESG scores and S&P credit ratings of U.S. publicly traded firms from 2003 to 2017. We find that firms with credit rating concerns often increase their ESG activities. This finding holds even after we control for various factors affecting ESG practices. Moreover, firms on the boundary between investment- and speculative-grade ratings significantly improve their ESG performance compared to other cases. Finally, we find evidence that the positive effect of credit rating concerns on ESG activities is pronounced during the global financial crisis and then strengthens further. Overall, our study highlights the impact of credit ratings on corporate ESG behavior. (JEL G24, G32, M14)

Firms’ corporate social irresponsibility behaviors during interplay with consumers in evolutionary game models

We employ an evolutionary game model to investigate the interaction between firms’ engagement in corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) behaviors (without violating laws) and consumers’ perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within a consumer market. The core paradox revolves around the trade-off between firms benefiting from pursuing economic performance without adhering to social responsibility and the maximization of social welfare achieved when firms are socially responsible, and consumers possess strong CSR perception. Through an asymmetric two-population evolutionary game model, we identify two distinct scenarios of evolutionary stable strategies based on different industrial environments. Additionally, the evolution of a healthy market is contingent upon an increase in consumers’ bargaining power, although it is also influenced by the initial states of the two-group system, resulting in path dependence as a significant feature of the system’s evolutionary equilibrium. Furthermore, we observe that the added willingness to pay for CSR, while not impacting the evolutionary outcomes, could increase the likelihood of a healthy market when consumers’ bargaining power is high. These findings underscore the diverse dynamics of firms’ CSI behaviors, which depend on transaction costs, industrial structure, and consumers’ willingness to pay, offering valuable insights from a micro perspective.

Interplay Among Responsible Leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Towards Environment: A Study of the Indian IT Sector

The environmental degradation and consequent scarcity of resources have compelled organizations to implement strategies and policies that prioritize the attainment of a sustainable environment. The significance of employees’ pro-environment behaviour is increasingly recognized and is being promoted by organizations that focus on preserving the environment. Considering the importance of pro-environment behaviour, this study investigates the relationship among responsible leadership, corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective and organizational citizenship behaviour towards environment (OCBE). This employee-level study adopted social cognitive theory to examine the context–behaviour framework. The data are collected from information technology (IT) professionals using a stratified sampling technique. The analysis of 503 respondents using PLS-SEM concludes that responsible leadership and CSR perspective have a positive relationship with OCBE. The study also confirms the partial mediating role of the CSR perspective in the relationship between responsible leadership and OCBE. The study identifies organizational-level contextual factors such as responsible leadership and CSR perspective that promote an environment-friendly behaviour among employees, i.e., OCBE. The paper extends the context–behaviour framework literature and highlights the benefits of OCBE in the organization.

The influence of corporate philanthropic donations on private investors' valuation judgments: Experimental evidence

AbstractCorporate donations towards disaster relief efforts, often called corporate philanthropic disaster relief (CPDR), are commonplace practice and one critically observed subcategory of CSR, with high visibility in the global media. We investigate whether private investors value firms differently based on their perception of firm's engagement in CPDR. Therefore, we created an experimental investment scenario in which we manipulate the magnitude of a hypothetical Firm Y's CPDR efforts to evaluate investment decisions of private investors recruited from Amazon's Cloud Research platform. Our findings suggest that higher CPDR generally affects private investors' assessment of a firm's value positively. Using a structural equation model and the CSR skepticism concept to examine private investors motive attribution to firms' CPDR, we find that private investors perceive high CPDR as an indicator for honest and values‐driven corporate social behavior and a low CPDR as an ingratiating attempt to win favor. Thus, we extend prior research by unveiling through which channels of impact CPDR potentially affects firm value and find an explanation why CPDR can have adverse effects on firm value.

Synthesizing and comparing the different effects between internal and external corporate social responsibility perceptions and organizational citizenship behavior: A need theory perspective

AbstractThis study examines the comparative effects of internal and external CSR perceptions on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and focuses on two consequences to compare CSR perception types. It also attempts to develop logical linkages between CSR perceptions and OCB through individual‐level psychological mechanisms, perceived external prestige, and affective commitment. The study is centered around the Chinese manufacturing and service industries using an online data‐collection platform similar to Qualtrics. The structural equation modeling technique was based on 200 supervisor/subordinate dyads. The quantitative analysis utilized SPSS and AMOS software. Results demonstrate that internal CSR perception has more benefits for OCB than external CSR perception. Since internal CSR inputs are often neglected by companies, results provide scholars and managers with a new view to pay attention to the potential of internal CSR inputs.

Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility Environmental Actions in Comparison of Small, Medium, and Large Enterprises in the Slovak Republic

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a highly debated topic in recent years. The aim of this approach is to achieve sustainability through three basic pillars: the economic, social, and environmental. Today, corporate environmental responsibility is coming to the fore with the aim of solving global and regional environmental issues. An important aspect of the study was to identify the influence of the size of a company on the involvement in CSR. The results of the study suggest the potential impact of the legislative obligation to disclose non-financial information (CSR activities) on involvement in CSR, where only large companies have this obligation. No study has been conducted in the Slovak Republic on the impact of the size parameter of a company on CSR activities in the environmental area comparing small, medium, and large enterprises. The findings also indicate differences between the approach companies take to global and regional environmental issues, showing that companies are more involved with regional environmental issues. This paper adds to the literature on the issues of sustainability, corporate social behaviors, and the environmental access of companies of different sizes. The research showed the highest involvement in CSR activities in the field of ecology in large companies, which creates the need for further research with regard to possible legislative changes, with the possibility of extending the mandatory reports of CSR activities to small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Corporate social performance: An analysis of corporate social responsibility implementation in the electrical energy industry

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a corporate concern for the economy, society, and environment. CSR activities reflect the company's social performance (CSP), using productivity, profits, employee welfare, and product quality measurement. This research is a case study of implementing a CSR program with a CSP approach at PT. Pembangkitan Jawa Bali (PJB). It aims to describe and analyze the implementation of PJB's CSR to assess its social performance. Theoretically, this research used the concept of Corporate Social Performance, which explained the principles of corporate social responsibility, and corporate social behavior. This study used a qualitative descriptive method with in-depth interviews to analyze data collection documents. The study results showed that the implementation of PJB's social responsibility programs was focused on Community Involvement and Development (CID) by implementing four main pillars of the program, namely: PJB Smart Innovation, PJB Green Innovation, PJB Superior, and PJB Cares. CSR programs were implemented based on the company's social mapping, including four circular areas related to the community's needs. Overall, the implementation of CSR based on the Corporate Social Performance model at PT PJB positively impacted society socially, economically, and environmentally. At the same time, it also positively impacted the company by increasing its business performance.

Corporate social responsibility perceptions and sustainable safety behaviors among frontline employees: The mediating roles of organization‐based self‐esteem and work engagement

AbstractThis study aimed to examine the relationship between perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable safety behaviors among frontline employees. Drawing on social identity and social exchange theories, this study hypothesized that frontline employees' organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) and work engagement mediate the relationship between CSR perceptions and sustainable safety behaviors. Using data collected from 222 flight attendants in South Korea, structural equation modeling was conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that CSR perceptions were positively related to extra‐role safety behaviors. Further, OBSE mediated the positive relationship between CSR perceptions and extra‐role safety behaviors, and work engagement mediated the positive relationship between CSR perceptions and in‐role safety behaviors. The theoretical and managerial implications as well as the study limitations are articulated. Additionally, future research directions for promoting sustainable safety practices in high‐contact service settings are suggested.

Corporate social responsibility as a strategic aspect of achieving financial stability of a business

In a modern turbulent economic environment, strengthening the principle of quasi-stability, globalization and competition, corporate social responsibility is becoming a driving force in establishing market proportions and business development prospects. This substantiates the importance of developing corporate social behavior as a strategic aspect of achieving financial stability in the practice of market participants. The study is aimed at developing a theoretical and methodological justification of the role of corporate social responsibility in optimizing the company’s costs and its impact on basic financial indicators, as well as identifying the relationship between the costs of corporate social behavior and the increase in company value. The research object is corporate social responsibility as one of the tools to achieve business financial performance. The theoretical basis was the analysis of works and publications of leading scientists, research data on CSR practices of successful Ukrainian and international companies, determination of the relationship between the current decline in company profits due to socially oriented costs and sustainable business development. The results obtained made it possible to demonstrate the CSR model of a financially stable company and to characterize the advantages and sources of reducing the company’s costs due to the effective CSR implementation by Ukrainian companies. The practical value of the results can be important not only for the company’s management system, but also for stakeholders such as consultants, shareholders, scientists, authorities, since the results show a positive relationship between CSR and financial performance, and stakeholders can exert some pressure on companies that do not have a CSR policy and thus encourage them to change.

Family Sibling Effect and Executives' Corporate Social Behavior.

Corporate social responsibility is an important business strategy for enterprises. Scholars have conducted much beneficial research on the relationship of executives’ recognitive traits and firms’ CSR behavior, but rarely focus on the impact of executives’ early recognitive traits derived from family sibling interaction. This paper takes Chinese A-shared private listed companies from 2014 to 2017 as the research samples to investigate the effect of the number of executives’ siblings on the early family sibling and corporate social responsibility behavior. We further study the moderating effect of birth order and gender composition in siblings on this relationship. The results show that there is an inversed U-shaped relationship between the number of executives’ siblings and corporate social responsibility behavior. Further research shows that the relationship between the number of executives’ siblings and CSR behavior is strengthened when an executive is first-born or has female sibling(s).

Corporate social behaviour: Is it good for efficiency in the Chinese banking industry?

We develop an output-oriented data envelopment analysis framework to examine the efficiency of Chinese banks over the period 2007–2017 and further test the relationship between efficiency and corporate social responsibility (CSR). We are the first piece of research considering the number of employees as one bank input and potential increase in the number of employees as one CSR indicator. Additionally, we innovatively propose another three specific CSR indicators: namely donation, balance of green credits and loans to small and medium sized enterprises. The results show that the gain from improving allocative output-efficiency by reallocating variable inputs is less than the gain attained by improving technical output-efficiency. Evidence from the second-stage regression analysis shows that the overall indirect technical efficiency is significantly and negatively affected by the volumes of green credits, while an increase in the volumes of donations will improve the indirect allocative efficiency.

Movements, Societal Crisis, and Organizational Theory

Abstract Public health crises test the robustness of institutions, and the current COVID-19 pandemic is no exception The spread of the virus and subsequent hospitalizations and deaths have laid bare the fragility of governments? capacities to protect their citizens, and it has strained otherwise normally functioning institutions like higher education The pandemic has exposed dramatic economic and racial inequalities, especially in countries without strong welfare infrastructure Grievances that were once contained by relatively prosperous times are now raging on the surface

Hotel employees' corporate social responsibility perception and organizational citizenship behavior: Perceived external prestige and pride in organization as serial mediators

AbstractResearchers' interest to examine key stakeholders' responses to hospitality companies' social responsibility practices is increasing. Current study is a micro‐level CSR research that aims to examine how hotel employees' perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) affect their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and its mediated link through perceived external prestige and pride in organization. This article sample consisted of 419 employees from seven different hotels in Turkey. Structural equation modeling is employed to test research hypotheses. The findings suggest that hotel employees' CSR perception does not have direct positive effect on OCB. Perceived external prestige and pride in organization mediated the relation between CSR perception and OCB, respectively. Finally, the relationship between employees' CSR perception and OCB is sequentially and fully mediated by perceived external prestige and pride in organization. The findings are discussed and theoretical and practical implications are provided.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Linkage: An Empirical Analysis of the Slovak Republic

Sustainability describes a means to satisfy the needs of today’s generation without causing suffering to the needs and standards of living of future generations. The concept of sustainability consists of three pillars: economic, environmental, and social. The purpose of this study is to find a link between Corporate Social Responsibility and the Environmental Management System and its impact on the economic results of the researched companies. Many companies expect to increase their profits through Corporate Social Responsibility behavior and Environmental Management System certification. Based on an analysis of data collected from 200 of the largest firms operating in various industries in the Slovak Republic, we observed the implications of these two management tools and their impacts on the economic results of these companies. To verify individual hypotheses, we use well-established methods, specifically the Pearson Chi-square test, the Mann-Whitney U test, and the Kruskal-Wallis test, along with the Statistica software. The results suggest a relationship between the incorporation of these two management tools and that incorporation of the Corporate Social Responsibility has an impact on company profit. This work contributes to the literature on sustainability, corporate social behavior, and environmental certification in firms operating in various sectors of the national economy.

The corporate social responsibility perception and sustainable consumption behavior of the employees in forest products industry enterprises: the case of Western Black Sea section

The corporate social responsibility perception and sustainable consumption behavior of the employees in forest products industry enterprises: the case of Western Black Sea section

Unions and corporate social responsibility in a liberal market context: The case of Ford’s shutdown in Australia

Within many coordinated market economies, labour unions have demonstrated to be key actors in shaping corporate social responsibility. Researchers have, however, paid surprisingly little attention to the role of unions in shaping corporate social responsibility strategies and responses in liberal market contexts. This article extends the emerging research on unions and corporate social responsibility through a case study which investigates union influences over corporate social responsibility within the liberal market context of Australia. We conceptualise the role of unions in corporate social responsibility in this context through an industrial relations lens with particular reference to collective bargaining. Drawing on qualitative data, the case study examines the Ford Motor Company’s recent closure of its Australian assembly operations which was hailed by a wide range of stakeholders as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ in their assistance of displaced workers. We conclude that, while highly socially responsible, Ford’s actions were far from voluntary but influenced by a combination of union influence and a ‘subsidised’ corporate social responsibility, where the state, unable and/or powerless to legislate good corporate social behaviour, chose to financially underwrite its cost to the firm. The study represents one of the first studies to demonstrate how unions shape corporate social responsibility strategies of firms in liberal market contexts and how ‘subsidised’ corporate social responsibility becomes an alternative political solution within such a context.

The Dark side of Independent Boards, the Case of Corporate Social Responsibility

Independent boards have been documented to have a positive effect on corporate governance, however, I show that independent boards improve shareholder value at the cost of sacrificing corporate social responsibility (CSR). Specifically, I find that stakeholders such as employees and consumers' interest have been compromised as a result of board myopia. This result is even stronger among firms in industries with intense product market competition, and among firms with more analysts followed. My result also suggests that negative corporate social behavior may not be fully priced by investors.

Employees' corporate social responsibility perceptions and organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment: The mediating roles of organizational identification and environmental orientation fit

AbstractThe importance of organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment (OCBEs) has been clearly established in the environmental literature. The purpose of this study is to examine the mediation of organizational identification and environmental orientation fit on the relationship between employees' corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions and their engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment. On the basis of 374 survey responses from employees, our structural equation modeling results indicated that CSR perceptions had a positive effect on employees' OCBEs. Moreover, both organizational identification and environmental orientation fit mediated the effect of CSR perceptions on employees' OCBEs. This study contributed to three literature streams (i.e., CSR, pro‐environmental behaviors and environmental management, and person–environment fit). Managerial implications and recommendations for future research are given at the end.

Heralds of Corporate Irresponsible Behavior: Using Partial Least Square Approach of Structural Equation Modeling

This study consolidates internal and external viewpoints to look at the heralds of corporate social irresponsible behavior. As far as internal elements are concerned, we concentrate on the degree to which a firm joins corporate social responsibility (CSR) into its corporate strategy and the level to which companies commit resources into R&D for consumer oriented product development. As for external determinants, we concentrate on market sector costs forces and government agencies responsible for local governance on corrupt practices. The hypothesis we developed for the study are tested, utilizing unique survey data of 120 companies spanning a period of five years. The outcome demonstrates that consolidating corporate social responsibility into business strategy and putting resources into R&D both foresee less socially irresponsible behaviors by companies. Conversely, pressures from costs and corrupt practices within governmental setting associates directly with incremental probability of irresponsible social and behaviors of companies in Ghana.

Does stakeholder engagement through corporate social and environmental behaviors affect innovation?

Firms often engage with their internal and external stakeholders to enrich their knowledge base and augment innovation. An important yet under-examined mechanism to tap into knowledge stakeholders can provide is corporate social and environmental behaviors (CSEB) that firms undertake. This study examines the impact of stakeholder engagement through CSEB on firm investment in innovation. Drawing arguments from the knowledge-based view (KBV), stakeholder theory, and the upper echelons perspective, we argue that undertaking higher levels of corporate social and environmental behaviors lead to better innovation outcomes through different pathways. We test our proposed model on a sample of Fortune 500 firms and find that while corporate social behaviors (CSB) have a direct positive effect on firms' subsequent R&D investments, the impact of corporate environmental behaviors (CEB) on innovation is conditioned by executive tenure. We contribute to innovation, CSB, and CEB literatures by clarifying different mechanisms through which CSB and CEB impact innovation.