Responsible Corporate Behavior Research Articles

Free us so we can do some Corporate Responsibility

The conventional wisdom is that Corporate Social Responsibility is the "re-embedding global liberalism” in response to protests by civil society and new norms of responsible corporate behavior. In this article this view of Corporate Social Responsibility is contested and an alternative, political-economic interpretation is proposed.

From Implicit to Explicit Corporate Social Responsibility: Institutional Change as a Fight for Myths

ABSTRACTThe focus of this paper is institutional change and the changing role of business in Germany. Back in the 1980s, the German institutional framework was characterized by implicit mandatory and obligatory regulations that set a clear context for responsible corporate behavior. Today, this framework has eroded and given way to a situation in which corporations explicitly and voluntarily take responsibility for social issues. This shift from implicit to explicit corporate social responsibility is an indication of a major institutional change epitomized by the deconstruction of ‘old’ and the reconstruction of ‘new’ institutions. In the course of this change, corporations, state actors, and civil society organizations compete for their ideas and interests in what we call a fight for myths. The paper traces this fight for myths and the changing understanding of corporate responsibility in Germany.

What exactly is corporate responsibility towards nature?: Ecological responsibility or management of nature?: A pluri-disciplinary standpoint

The paper analyses the motives and consequences of including environmental protection in good managerial practices driven by a concern of responsible corporate behaviour. Corporate Social Responsibility is increasingly discussed in economics and management studies today. This idea is fairly recent and stems from a philosophical school of thought attributed to Hans Jonas, which says that nature must be preserved for anthropocentric as well as biocentric reasons. In this respect, the consequences that these two visions imply for men and companies will be developed. Corporate leaders often make use of this concept, which finds its origins in philosophy, in order to analyse the normative behaviour of their companies. In this respect we shall favour a jonasian interpretation. Hans Jonas will help us question the fundamental meaning of responsibility. We will attempt to investigate this meaning using CSR. More specifically, this article tries to answer the question: what exactly is corporate responsibility? Is it a mere concept currently in fashion, or is it a new structural approach which could indeed take responsibility into account in so far as long-term environmental preservation is concerned? In order to answer this question, we shall first propose a reading of “stakeholders”. This approach poses several problems when dealing with corporate responsibility regarding the preservation of nature. Secondly, we shall present a more detailed analysis of such corporate social responsibility and the problems it poses. The debate regarding action with the interest of its outcome and action in the interest of the action itself shall be the focal point of our discussion. This article will adopt a narrative and critical methodology. So as to achieve this goal, we propose to critically analyse theoretical paradigms and test them through case studies.

The role of corporate social responsibility in strong sustainability

The aim of this paper is to analyze to what extent corporate social responsibility (CSR) contributes to strong sustainability, i.e. to what extent the use of natural resources and the environment is possible, given the current level of economic activity. We therefore examine responsibilities that corporations should take in order to fulfil the requirements of strong sustainability. Based on current CSR practices and theory as well as on businesses motivations regarding environmental and social investments, we will introduce the role of corporations in influencing consumption patterns. Furthermore, we will attempt to answer to what extent responsible corporate behaviour is determined by the current economic system.

Stakeholder activism through nonviolence

PurposeThis paper seeks to analyze instances of nonviolent strategies adopted by a class of stakeholders – the women of the Niger Delta region.Design/methodology/approachIt analyzes their successes and failures in terms of a set of prerequisite conditions that must be met for such strategies to be effective. These prerequisite conditions must be present in the environment, the agent, and the methodology of nonviolent action, for assurance of efficacy.FindingsThe experience of the women of Niger Delta with nonviolent action indicates that it is possible to meet the prerequisite conditions for assurance of efficacy and for formulation of nonviolent strategies to conflict resolution. It is, therefore, determined that nonviolent action offers a viable alternative for persuasion of the multinational oil corporations in the Niger Delta region.Originality/valueThis paper would be of value to researchers and practitioners, in the fields of corporate communication, organizational communication, public relations, and strategic management, seeking to promote, practice or otherwise influence socially responsible corporate behavior.

Corporate communication through nonviolent rhetoric

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine some of the problems associated with the prevailing rhetoric in corporate communication. It proposes the consideration of nonviolent rhetorical approaches.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explains corporate communication's affinity for aggressive, militaristic language in terms of constraint of time, and expediency and efficiency of standardized communication strategies designed for large‐scale effectiveness. However, such communication strategies run the risk of dehumanizing the intended targets, distancing the individuals, and compromising socially responsible corporate behavior. The recent corporate scandals of unprecedented scale, occurring in spite of vast improvements in communication theory and technology, have highlighted the need for alternative approaches to corporate communication. Further, it examines the prerequisites that must exist for corporate communication based on nonviolent rhetoric to be effective. The conditions that must be present in the environment, in the corporation or its agent, and in the method of communication, for nonviolent rhetoric to prove effective are discussed.FindingsCorporations seek to establish and modify relationships by influencing stakeholder beliefs, values, expectations and needs. Corporate rhetorical success is reflected in enhanced reputation and respectability, which in turn has significant economic consequences. To achieve these ends, corporations expend considerable effort on communication to educate, entertain and inform their stakeholders. Yet, scholars have generally neglected to study role of rhetoric and language in public relations.Originality/valueThis paper would be of value to researchers and practitioners, in the fields of corporate communication, organizational communication, public relations, and strategic management, seeking to promote, practice or otherwise influence socially responsible corporate behavior.

Corporate responsibility: The communication challenge

An ever‐increasing number of companies are recognising the reputational risks and opportunities that corporate responsibility brings, and for these companies aligning corporate behaviour with stakeholder expectations is an ongoing business priority. Communication, however, often remains the missing link in the practice of corporate responsibility. The information requirements of a range of opinion leader and mass stakeholder audiences are not currently being satisfied by many companies, so they are not getting full credit for their responsible corporate behaviour. Of course, there are specific challenges in communicating corporate responsibility – including scepticism towards company messages and potentially hostile reactions from the media, campaign groups and others. The diverse information requirements of different stakeholder groups also present special communication challenges, and these requirements are examined in turn. Using MORI’s British opinion research to illustrate the case, this paper first examines communication to opinion leader audiences (such as legislators, business press, investors and non‐governmental organisations), and in particular the opportunities and limitations of the social report. It then goes on to address communication of corporate responsibility to the general public and the need to trigger wider consumer engagement in this topic. Lastly, it covers the communication opportunity presented by companies’ own employees and the internal communication challenges surrounding corporate responsibility. The paper suggests, in conclusion, that effective communication of corporate responsibility depends on a clear strategy which evaluates both the opportunities and the risks to the brand, and which tailors messages to different stakeholder groups. It calls for a coordinated approach, which ideally embeds corporate responsibility messages into mainstream communications. The paper also identifies internal communication as an under‐utilised and potentially powerful channel for enhancing a company’s reputation for responsibility among its key stakeholders.

Is CSR Rewriting Development?

This issue of Development tackles the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) fully aware of the polarization the topic brings to readers of the journal. For some, the engagement of the state and the UNwith corporations is the logical outcome of three decades of restructuring of international and national laws to facilitate international trade and investment flows. The stream of conferences, guidelines, frameworks, agreements being made since 1999 are pouring time, resources and money into CSR that secure the rights of corporations and investors to the detriment of people and the environment. To others, the negotiations and compacts made with business by the State and the UN signal a realistic adjustment to newly emerging forms of global governance that nowmust relyon private actors (business, NGOs) rather than states. CSR policyand programmes are therefore reasonable, indeed necessary, steps to secure responsible corporate behaviour in support of development (seeAmalric, this issue). Inwhatever camp the reader falls, CSR is an issue that needs to be taken seriously.We need to acknowledge and understand why there is this surge of interest in development practice in fostering business ethics and responsibility. Why and how has business moved into the development arena so effectively? How have states and NGOs responded to the management practices of business and in the partnerships around CSR? How does the vision of CSR feed into notions of sustainable development and the longing for a fair and stable world order for justice and security? In short, how is CSR rewriting development? The journal explores some of these issues inarticles describing the relatively short but very successful history of CSR with a number of high-profile cases in which corporations are engaged in partnerships that mark new forms of global governance aimed to secure social justice and sustainability. The issue brings together researchers and practitioners of CSR, as well as other actors looking critically at the role that large corporations are playing in Latin America, North America, Africa, Europe and South Asia. They ask questions about how CSR is operating to strengthen solidarity and social justice, while at the same time outlining the negotiations to bring business on board to protect the environment, workers’ rights and conditions, and while, it is fully conceded, going about their job of making profits. Development, 2004, 47(3), (1–2) r 2004 Society for International Development 1011-6370/04 www.sidint.org/development

A Look at Corporate Code of Conduct Legislation

Over recent years, there has been a growing perception among civil society in the developed world that multinational corporations are engaged in socially and environmentally exploitative practices that they would never get away with, or even attempt, in their home countries. Whether right or wrong, that perception and its political and economic ramifications have driven a global movement for more responsible corporate behaviour. As part of that global movement, three common law jurisdictions—the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom—have seen legislation introduced to enforce standards of practice for multinational corporations based in those countries in respect of their overseas activities. None of those Bills has yet passed into law, but they are worthy of analysis as attempts to transform hitherto amorphous concepts like ‘corporate social responsibility’ into concrete legislation. This article compares and critically analyses the three Bills, making recommendations as to how they could be improved, with particular emphasis on the need to forge stronger links between the legislative provisions and international human rights law.

A Look at Corporate Code of Conduct Legislation

Over recent years, there has been a growing perception among civil society in the developed world that multinational corporations are engaged in socially and environmentally exploitative practices that they would never get away with, or even attempt, in their home countries. Whether right or wrong, that perception and its political and economic ramifications have driven a global movement for more responsible corporate behavior. As part of that global movement, three common law jurisdictions—the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom—have seen legislation introduced to enforce standards of practice for multinational corporations based in those countries in respect of their overseas activities. None of those Bills has yet passed into law, but they are worthy of analysis as attempts to transform hitherto amorphous concepts like 'corporate social responsibility' into concrete legislation. This article compares and critically analyses the three Bills, making recommendations as to how they could be improved, with particular emphasis on the need to forge stronger links between the legislative provisions and international human rights law.

Universities and the Promotion of Corporate Responsibility: Reinterpreting the Liberal Arts Tradition

The issue of corporate responsibility has long been discussed in relationship to universities, but generally only in an ad hoc fashion. While the role of universities in teaching business ethics is one theme that has received significant and rather constant attention, other issues tend to be raised only sporadically. Moreover, when issues of corporate responsibility are raised, it is often done on the presumption of some understanding of a liberal arts mandate of the university, a position that has come under much attack in recent years. The purpose of this article is to investigate more systematically the nature of the obligations that the university has to promote more responsible corporate behaviour. It does so on the basis of a reinterpretation of the liberal arts tradition from a critical theory perspective. This entails: (1) an initial conceptualization of the roles and functions of the university; (2) an examination of these functions at two formative periods of the liberal arts tradition, the medieval university and the rise of the modern university in Germany in the early 19th century; (3) an investigation of ruptures in the understanding and practices of the liberal arts tradition, resulting in large part from the rise of the bureaucratic state and the industrial capitalist economy; (4) a reinterpretation of the liberal arts tradition from a critical theory perspective; and (5) a systematic elaboration of the obligations of the university vis-a-vis corporations based upon the university's key functions of teaching, research, formation and professional development.

Managing for performance: corporate responsibility and internal stakeholders

Businesses today face more than just commercial and competitive pressures. Recent decades have seen an increasing emphasis on corporate responsibility and ethical, socially responsible corporate behaviour. Research suggests a positive link between responsible corporate behaviour and financial performance. Concurrently, the emergence of stakeholder theory has focused attention on businesses and their relationships with important groups and institutions. Arguably, maintaining good stakeholder relationships is fundamentally sound management and can result in enhanced corporate reputation. Much of the extant literature on these issues, however, has centred on conceptual issues, large corporations, external stakeholders and/or North American case studies. Where internal stakeholders have been considered, the discussion has often been limited to working conditions, pay and benefits, and related matters. This paper broadens the research to date by focusing on internal stakeholders in small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK. It reports the findings of a study designed to assess the perceived impact of selected attributes of responsible corporate practice, as they pertain to internal stakeholders, beyond the basic issues of working conditions and rewards.

In Defense of the Shareholder Wealth Maximization Norm

This essay, Defense of the Shareholder Wealth Maximization Norm, appeared in the Symposium on New Directions in Corporate Law published in volume 50 of the Washington & Lee Law Review. This essay was written as a reply to an article in the same symposium by Professor Ronald M. Green - Shareholders as Stakeholders: Changing Metaphors of Corporate Governance, 50 Wash. & Lee. L. Rev. 1409 (1993) - in which Professor Green criticized the dominant view of corporate governance, according to which directors have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder wealth. In sharp contrast, this essay argues that the principle of shareholder wealth maximization is both a valid positive account of corporate law and also a legitimate normative proposition. The essay is grounded in a contractarian approach to corporate governance. The essay begins by observing that in the nexus of contracts theory the concept of ownership goes out the window, along with its associated economic and ethical baggage. Consequently, the traditional justification for shareholder wealth maximization - i.e., that shareholders own the corporation - is unavailing. There is a considerable difference between showing that the traditional private property model is inadequate, however, and showing that we should adopt a new decisionmaking norm to which corporate officers and directors must conform their behavior. The essay then identifies and critiques the two principal normative arguments running through Professor Green's article. First, Green treats the limited liability rule as a privilege conferred by society, in return for which society can demand socially responsible corporate behavior. My essay points out that this is little more than a revival of the long-dead concession theory of corporate governance. Second, Green contends that limited liability is a mechanism through which shareholders harm nonshareholders by externalizing certain costs onto them. Although this is a more substantial argument, my essay contends that it is not persuasive. Although limited liability does permit such externalities, Green's proposed solution - i.e., allowing/requiring directors to consider the effects of their decisions on nonshareholder constituencies of the corporation - is highly flawed. Such a multi-constituency fiduciary duty would be unworkable, at best, and would significantly increase the agency costs inherent in the separation of ownership and control.

The VanCity Difference — A Case for the Triple Bottom Line Approach to Business

The “triple bottom line” approach to business — taking environmental, social and financial results into consideration in the development and implementation of a corporate business strategy — is a movement gaining momentum around the world. More and more companies are evaluating and reporting on their social and environmental performance, in response to demands from consumers, employees and communities. Companies are recognizing the long-term financial benefits that accompany socially and environmentally responsible corporate behaviour. This article relates the experience of a profitable Canadian company — Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (VanCity) — that has welded social and environmental performance to its business strategy, and reaped the benefits of that strategy in all three of its “bottom lines”. The article outlines the “VanCity difference” and the business case for the triple bottom line approach.

Governança e cidadania empresarial

O artigo procura traçar a evolução recente do conceito de cidadania empresarial e de sua principal manifestação: a evolução de padrões de comportamento empresarial socialmente responsável. Busca diferenciar a empresa oportunista e a empresa cidadã. Procura, ainda, inserir o conceito de comportamento socialmente responsável no contexto mais amplo da governança social, econômica e política. Além disso, sugere o possível caminho para uma investigação empírica capaz de determinar se a sustentabilidade das empresas ocorre em virtude de padrões de comportamento antes responsável do que oportunista. Retrata também a evolução recente de códigos de conduta empresarial em nível nacional e internacional. Termina com uma análise das possíveis implicações sociais e políticas da universalização da governança em geral e da cidadania empresarial em particular, tanto para os países avançados quanto para os emergentes.

Corporate/indigenous partnerships in economic development: The first nations in Canada

The approach to economic development that is emerging among the First Nations in Canada emphasizes the creation of profitable businesses competing in the global economy. These businesses are usually collectively owned, and often partnerships with non-First Nation corporations. At the same time, my research shows that a growing number of non-Aboriginal corporations are adopting business alliances with aboriginal people as a part of their strategy for long-term corporate survival. Four factors motivate this corporate behavior: 1. (a) society's changing expectations about what constitutes socially responsible corporate behavior, 2. (b) legal and regulatory requirements and restrictions, 3. (c) the growing aboriginal population, and its increasing affluence and level of education, and 4. (d) the rapidly growing pool of natural and financial resources under the control of aboriginal people. This augurs well for First Nations' economic development in the future. It also has implications for economic development among Indigenous Peoples elsewhere.

Development-environment interactions in the export of hazardous technologies: A comparative study of three multinational affiliates in developing countries

We reconstruct case histories of siting hazardous manufacturing facilities in India and Thailand by three multinational corporations: Du Pont, Occidental Chemical, and Xerox. The analysis focuses on the interactions of the host country development agenda, corporate culture, and the nature of business arrangements between parent and joint venture partner to explain decisions and tradeoffs during the siting process. The cases provide the foundation for a four-stage model of key determinants of management and regulatory actions in four phases of the facility life cycle. Six themes emerge: parent company preservation of environmental and occupational health management responsibilities; forces leading to responsible corporate behavior; downstream consequences of upstream decisions; key determinants of corporate performance; “functional equivalency” in practice; and hidden tradeoffs over the life cycle of the facility. Our findings are interpreted in the context of emerging concepts of corporate environmentalism and sustainable development.

Social Issues and Socially Responsible Investment Behavior: A Preliminary Empirical Investigation

An important dimension of the ongoing trend toward greater corporate social responsibility is the emergence of individual and institutional investors who invest in companies that support social objectives. While a small number of studies have examined the criteria used by institutions, no studies have looked at individual investors. Using a mail survey of 4,000 investors in two mutual funds that incorporate social screens in their investment decisions, this study finds that compared with other investors, socially responsible investors are younger and better educated. Respondents most frequently identify environmental and labor relations issues when asked what defines socially responsible corporate behavior. Although the respondents value socially responsible behavior in companies they invest in, they are unwilling to sacrifice financial returns to achieve it.

Ethics, education, and corporate leadership

The purpose of this study is to determine the relative frequency of course offerings on social issues and business ethics in American business schools. Specifically, a random sample of the curricula of 119 American business schools were analyzed in order to gauge the importance given to coursework on ethics and social issues. The findings indicated that the incidence of such courses was generally low in American business curricula, particularly at the graduate level. These findings are discussed in light of the current concern for more responsible corporate behavior.

Book Review: Corporate Social and Political Action: Research in Corporate and Social Performance and Policy

Research in Corporate and Social Performance and Policy, Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 Volume 4 Lee E. Preston Corporate social and political activities have sharply increased during the past decade, and research and scholarly interests have correspondingly intensified. Original articles by new and leading figures in the field are now assembled in an annual series edited by Lee E. Preston, and the four volumes to date have given structure to the study of social responsibility and performance by the nation's leading firms. Responsible corporate behavior may not improve profitability, the volumes suggest, but it does make for a better business climate, and companies are increasingly incorporating social and political objectives into their strategic planning.