Webs of Influence: Secondary Stakeholder Actions and Cross-National Corporate Social Performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Odziemkowska ◽  
Witold J. Henisz
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Stakeholder Groups ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross National

We analyze the relationship between the actions and interactions of secondary stakeholders with an interest in corporate social performance (CSP) and variation in firm-level CSP across countries. Our work represents a significant theoretical shift in research exploring comparative CSP, which, to date, has focused on cross-national variation in institutions. We propose that stakeholders can also drive cross-country heterogeneity in CSP by influencing the salience of the issues for which they advocate. Stakeholders raise salience of CSP issues through their interactions with important sociopolitical actors within a country, signaling their collective ability to change expectations on CSP. CSP issue salience is also heightened where heterogeneous stakeholder groups advocate for CSP issues, signaling that issues have garnered widespread acceptance or legitimacy. Managers are also more attuned to the urgency of issues through the direct actions that stakeholders take against firms in the country. We also argue and find that these effects are moderated by interstakeholder interactions, which signal the degree of consensus among stakeholders on issues and their ability to mobilize repeatedly against firms. We draw on a novel data set of 250 million media-reported events to identify secondary stakeholders with interests in the environmental and social issues that constitute CSP, their direct actions against firms, and their interactions with important sociopolitical actors and each other. We show empirically that variation in secondary stakeholder actions and interactions between countries, and within countries over time, is associated with differences in firm-level CSP among a sample of 2,852 firms spanning 36 countries from 2004 to 2013.

A Special-Purpose Taxonomy of Corporate Social Performance Concepts

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett A. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Fund ◽  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Fund Managers ◽  
Responsible Investing ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Socially Responsible Mutual Funds ◽  
Corporate Social

The first iteration of a nonstatic special-purpose taxonomy of corporate social performance concepts is developed from a mailed, self-administered survey completed by managers of U.S. socially responsible mutual funds. The study combines the traditionally disparate research areas of Corporate Social Performance and Socially Responsible Investing. As a partial update of Rockness and Williams (1988), a descriptive account is presented of what mutual fund managers regard as the social issues that constitute corporate social performance. The resulting taxonomy represents an empirically derived framework useful in considering social accounting in general and accounting standard setting in particular.

scholarly journals CSR Strategic Approach, Financial Resources and Corporate Social Performance: The Mediating Effect of Innovation

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pasquale Ruggiero ◽  
Sebastiano Cupertino
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Innovation Activities ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Social And Environmental Performance ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship

Given the current undefined relational effect between corporate financial performance (CFP) and corporate social performance (CSP) and the potentially myopic behavior of managers, this paper answers the call from some scholars to contribute towards a better understanding of the relationship between CFP and CSR. Different from other papers, it does so by analyzing the role of innovation activities as a mediator between CFP and CSR, applying a regression and mediation analysis between firms’ financial resources, innovation initiatives, and social and environmental performance. The results demonstrate that innovation is a critical factor in the relationship between CFP and corporate social performance (CSP) as it enables organizations to respond to new economic, social and environmental challenges faster and better than organizations that are not able to innovate. Therefore, the investment of financial resources in innovation initiatives is one of the most important levers to pursue and to increase CSP.

scholarly journals The Effect of Corporate Visibility on Corporate Social Responsibility

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 3698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Li ◽  
Taylor Morris ◽  
Brian Young
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Firm Size ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
The Public ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship

Outside of direct ownership, the general public may feel it is an implicit stakeholder of a firm. As the public becomes more vested in a firm’s actions, the firm may be more likely to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. We proxy for the public’s stake in a firm with public visibility. Based on 3400 unique newspaper publications from 1994–2008, we measure visibility for the S&P 500 firms with the frequency of print articles per year concerning the firm. We find that visibility has a signficant, positive relationship with the CSR rating. Evidence also suggests this relationship may be causal and working in one direction, from visibility to CSR. While the existing literature provides other factors that influence CSR, visibility proves to have the most significant impact when tested alongside those other factors. Visibility also has a mediating effect on the relationship between CSR rating and firm size. CSR rating and firm size relate negatively for the lowest visibility firms and positively for the highest. This paper provides strong evidence that visibility is an important factor to consider for studies on corporate social performance.

The relationship between poor CSR performance and hard, negative CSR information disclosures

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maher Jeriji ◽  
Waël Louhichi
Keyword(s):  
Information Disclosure ◽  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Csr Reporting ◽  
Opportunistic Behaviour ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between hard, negative corporate social responsibility (CSR) information disclosure and corporate social performance. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a generalised least squares panel data analysis based on a sample of firms ranked in the Fortune Global 500 for the period 2013–2016. Robustness check tests were conducted to limit endogeneity concerns. Findings The results show that in line with strategic legitimacy theory, agency theory and organisational stigma theory, poor sustainability performers disclose a low quality of hard, negative CSR information. Practical implications This paper provides guidance for stakeholders to identify good and poor CSR performers by better understanding whether corporate CSR reports are more likely to be symbolic or substantive when considering the amount of hard, negative content in their CSR stand-alone reports. Social implications The research highlights the opportunistic behaviour of CSR reporting, which is used more as a legitimation device than as an accountability mechanism. Thi Originality/value Although numerous studies have investigated the association between the level of corporate social disclosure (CSD) and corporate social performance, no research has focussed on hard, negative CSD. Also, an index that captures the disclosure quality rather than the quantity of negative CSR information was constructed.

scholarly journals Perceptions and expectations of corporate social responsibility: Theoretical issues and empirical findings

2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A.L. Coldwell
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Student Expectations ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
Perceptions And Expectations ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This paper focuses on the issue of differences in individual perceptions and expectations of corporate social performance (CSP). Business research has indicated, somewhat equivocally, that there is evidence to support possible causal relationships between CSP, corporate reputation (CR) and financial performance (CFP). The paper analyses these relationships with regard to various causal explanatory models delineated by Carroll and Buchholtz (2000). Specifically, the paper considers the theoretical possibility of CR being a moderating variable in the relationship between CSP and CFP.The paper reports the findings of an empirical study of University students’ perceptions regarding CSP in South Africa, which show that significant differences between black and white student expectations of CSP exist. The findings are discussed with regard to building a tentative theoretical model of CR.

scholarly journals Who Is the Beneficiary of Slack on Corporate Financial Performance and Corporate Philanthropy? Evidence from South Korea

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungwha (Andy) Chung ◽  
Hyunsang Pyo ◽  
Andres Guiral
Keyword(s):  
Financial Performance ◽  
Corporate Philanthropy ◽  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Corporate Financial Performance ◽  
Stakeholder Relations ◽  
Stakeholder Groups ◽  
Corporate Giving ◽  
Corporate Social

As stakeholder relations vary depending on firm characteristics, the associations among corporate financial performance (CFP), corporate giving, and corporate social performance (CSP) are complex. In this paper, we contribute to the literature by exploring CFP as a predictor of CSP by differentiating the stakeholder groups that firms interact with; that is, primary versus secondary stakeholder relations. Our study also extends the existing literature by examining who the beneficiaries of corporate philanthropy are, and the role played on the CFP/CSP association. By extracting a sample of 52 firms and 312 firm-year observations from the Korea Economic Justice Institute database, we find that while CFP has a positive effect only on primary stakeholder relations, corporate philanthropy has a positive impact on both primary and secondary stakeholder relations. Furthermore, we observe an overall influence of CFP on stakeholder relations when corporate philanthropy is high. Our findings suggest that differentiating multiple stakeholder groups together with the role played by corporate philanthropy provides a more valuable and meaningful analysis of the antecedents of CSP.

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