Degree Of Social Concern Research Articles

Bargaining power in bilateral monopoly and cooperative choice of corporate social responsibility

ABSTRACT We analyse the cooperative choice of corporate social responsibility when a manufacturer and a retailer in a bilateral monopoly may hold different bargaining powers. We find that an increase in the bargaining power of one of the firms leads to an increase in the degree of social concern of the other firm in the bilateral monopoly and a reduction in its own degree of social concern. It also leads to an increase in the firm´s own profits and a reduction in the other firm’s profits, but it has no effect on the quantity sold, its price, total profits, consumer surplus or social surplus. Just as in the symmetric case, both the manufacturer and the retailer cooperatively choose higher degrees of social concern than under a non-cooperative framework and these choices completely solve the double-marginalization problem.

Do Markets Erode Social Responsibility? *

AbstractThis article studies socially responsible behavior in markets. We develop a laboratory product market in which low-cost production creates a negative externality for third parties, but where alternative production with higher costs mitigates the externality. Our first study, conducted in Switzerland, reveals a persistent preference among many consumers and firms for avoiding negative social impact in the market, reflected both in the composition of product types and in a price premium for socially responsible products. Socially responsible behavior is generally robust to varying market characteristics, such as increased seller competition and limited consumer information, and it responds to prices in a manner consistent with a model in which positive social impact is a utility-enhancing feature of a consumer product. In a second study, we investigate whether market social responsibility varies across societies by comparing market behavior in Switzerland and China. While subjects in Switzerland and China do not differ in their degree of social concern in nonmarket contexts, we find that low-cost production that creates negative externalities is significantly more prevalent in markets in China. Across both studies, consumers in markets exhibit less social concern than subjects in a comparable individual choice context.

Playing with violence: Gamers’ social construction of violent video game play as tolerable deviance

Relatively little research has focused on leisure pastimes that include violence. The current study explores one increasingly popular leisure activity: violent video games. Regardless of the simulated violence and socially anomic behaviour in games, they have become a socially accepted leisure activity. That is, whereas there is a degree of social concern, unease, and sometimes disdain about violent game play, it remains tolerated within society. Little is known about the cultural implications of this leisure practice, especially from a “gamer's” perspective. The purpose of this study was to explore players’ social constructions of “gaming” and the socio‐cultural implications of “playing with violence” as a form of tolerable deviance. Players’ viewed the games as harmless leisure entertainment, while simultaneously indicating unease and social concern. The opposing nature of these experiences resulted in players’ dissonance about their involvement. Players’ rationalizations helped them to dissipate the dissonance between the two internally opposing positions. Supportive rationalizations such as these perpetuate the view of such activities as socially “harmless.”

"SOCIAL" AND "PRIVATE" DETERMINANTS OF OPPOSITION TO LANDFILL SITING IN ITALY

A significant body of evidence now exists that examines the motivations behind public opposition to the siting of waste or hazardous facilities. Some of these contributions have made a distinction between private and social determinants of opposition to a facility. The contribution of the current paper is to examine the statistical importance of variables that characterise this debate in the context of a proposal to build a landfill facility around Val Vibrata in Italy. While some roles are found for social motives such as ideas about fairness in explaining opposition, in this case, it is also found that the degree of social concern "decays" with distance lived from the site. One interpretation could be that respondents' stated public motives could be a way to articulate private concerns. At the very least, these findings suggest that it can be far from straightforward to unbundle explanations of opposition.

Environmentalists' and business executives' attitudes and information about the nuclear power controversy

To validate a baseline for an exercise dealing with the controversy over nuclear power, 38 environmentalists and 64 business executives completed a 24‐item questionnaire of 12 attitudinal and 12 information items. Reliabilities were .87 and .56 respectively. Environmentalists were strongly unfavourable to further nuclear plant development but business executives were neutral to favourable revealing some degree of social concern. Environmentalists were better informed and executives more uncertain but attitude and information were independent if group effects were held constant. An additional sample of 49 college seniors in business administration responded like business executives. Their attitudes and information could be predicted (R = .60) from their tendency to keep up with current news and their personal assertiveness.