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The purpose of this paper includes two interconnected objectives. The first is to provide a reconceptualisation of social value creation as social constraint alleviation. The second is to respond to the call put forward by Giuliani and Macchi (2014) to produce synergies between bodies of literature exploring the development impact of businesses. The paper focuses on ideas from the global value chain/global production networks (GVC/GPN), business and human rights, corporate social responsibility (CSR), international business (IB) and (social) entrepreneurship literatures.

The paper offers a reconceptualisation of social value creation by building on the synergies, complementarities and limitations of existing concepts identified through the literature review.

The reconceptualisation of social value creation put forward in this paper contributes to the literature in the following way. It offers a useful and clear definition of the term “social” (Devinney, 2009), and it attends to the limitations of the constraint concept as put forward by Ted London and his collaborators (London, 2011). Furthermore, it sketches out the basic ideas of a two-system approach to allow for the differentiation between symptom treatment and root cause alleviation. Finally, it offers a refinement of Wettstein’s (2012) proposed capability-based remedial action concept. The paper furthermore proposes that there are three distinct ways in which businesses generally respond to social constraints.

The paper illustrates how the redefined concept of social value creation can connect different bodies of literature and help make sense of existing empirical results, without engaging in definitional debates.

This study aims to investigate how organizational culture (OC) and transformational leadership (TL) affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance (environmental performance and social performance) and financial performance (FP) in the context of the Italian manufacturing sector. Grounded in resource-based view theory, this study explores how these factors influence sustainable firm performance.

Data gathered from 260 employees were analyzed to examine the multidimensional aspects of CSR, encompassing social and environmental sustainability.

The findings highlight the pressing need for sustainable firm performance in the existing environment, supporting the hypothesis that firms achieve sustainable and FP through the recognition of TL and OC. Moreover, a positive and significant relationship between CSR performance and FP was established, underscoring the strategic importance of integrating CSR initiatives into core business practices. This study offers valuable insights for both academia and firms, providing theoretical and practical implications that underscore the importance of cultivating a robust OC to drive performance enhancements.

This study is novel because it is one of the first, to the best of the author’s knowledge, to analyze the relationships between TL, OC and performance components associated with CSR.

This paper provides a comprehensive view about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Austrian family firms. In detail, the conceptual understanding, motives for, institutionalisation, planning and the outcomes of CSR are investigated. The authors refer to socioemotional wealth and stewardship aspects as explanation approaches for CSR in family firms.

This study offers new insights into CSR in Austrian family firms based on qualitative data from 30 companies.

The findings demonstrate that despite numerous social, environmental and economic activities, referral to CSR is just in the beginning, indicating a lack of dissemination of the concept of CSR. The main motives for CSR engagement are image and reputation concerns, a strengthened regional embeddedness and employee-related improvements. Social CSR activities concerning employees and the close company surroundings dominate, whilst environmental CSR measures are often determined by the need for fulfilling the requirements of eco-certifications.

This paper contributes to the existing CSR literature by offering deeper insights into CSR in Austrian family firms (e.g. motives and outcomes of CSR), which are discussed under socioemotional wealth and stewardship aspects. Moreover, a broad range of implications for future research and corporate practice (e.g. family firms, owning family, policy) are discussed.

This paper aims to determine what the brand performance consequences of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities would be during times of recession for well-known brands.

Based on signaling theory, this paper investigates if CSR activities serve to signal higher brand value for consumers via perceptions of better quality and greater differentiation, specifically during recessions. This study incorporates a representative longitudinal sample of known US firms for the analyses, which is accomplished through generalized method of moments estimations.

The findings empirically demonstrate that CSR initiatives during recessions are actually associated with increased perceptions of brand value. More specifically, during recessions, CSR initiatives such as charitable contributions provide a signal to customers of higher brand quality.

This study did not control for the costs of doing specific CSR activities that may be less visible to consumers.

While individual firms or managers may not be able to prevent recessions from happening, they can limit the negative impact of recessions on their performance by engaging in CSR activities (or refrain from cutting back) during these times.

Because CSR initiatives during recessions result in more favorable consumer perceptions of the brand, engaging in CSR aligns both social and managerial interests, owing to the economic gains from CSR investments.

During times of recession, some critics indicate that CSR may be an unaffordable luxury. On the contrary, this research shows that managers may want to consider CSR activities as a means of increasing the value of their brands, especially during economic recessions.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards are amongst the most widely adopted instruments for supporting firms in becoming more accountable, firms who adopt them frequently fail to comply. In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore to what extent CSR standards are designed for accountability. In the analysis, this paper investigates design characteristics related to accountability across different standard types, namely, principle-based, reporting, certification and process standards.

This study reviews the design characteristics of 50 CSR standards in a systematic and comparative fashion. This paper combines qualitative deductive coding with exploratory quantitative analyses methods to elucidate structural variance and patterns of accountability-related design characteristics across the sample.

This study finds that the prevalence of design characteristics aimed at fostering accountability varies significantly between different types of standards. This paper identifies three factors related to the specific purpose of any given standard that explain this structural variation in design characteristics, namely, implementability, comparability and measurability.

Non-compliance limits the effectiveness and legitimacy of CSR standards. The systematic exploration of patterns and structural variation in design characteristics that promote accountability may provide valuable clues for the design of more effective CSR standards in the future.

Better understanding the role of design characteristics of CSR standards is critical to ensure they contribute to greater corporate accountability.

This study strives to expand the current understanding of the design characteristics of CSR standards beyond individual cases through a systematic exploration of accountability-related design characteristics across a larger sample.

The main purposes of this research are: first of all, to re-classify the types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) into primary stakeholder-oriented CSR and secondary stakeholder-oriented CSR from the perspective of stakeholders and, second, to investigate empirically how and which types of CSR can better impact employees' job satisfaction and happiness management.

An online self-administered questionnaire was adopted to test the conceptual model. Questionnaires were sent to Chinese employees and restrict the data to those whose companies had experience implementing CSR. The study employed the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique for data analysis using SmartPLS 4.0 software.

For factors of happiness management, both primary stakeholder-oriented CSR and secondary stakeholder-oriented CSR had significant and positive effects on happiness management. In addition, both primary and secondary stakeholder-oriented CSR positively and significantly affected job satisfaction, with primary stakeholder-oriented CSR way larger than secondary stakeholder-oriented CSR. Job satisfaction, in turn, was positively and significantly associated with happiness management. The results showed that the control variables of gender and education background had significant effects on happiness management.

First, the results provide useful empirical evidence in support of the feasibility that firms could develop competitive and sustainable development strategies by paying more attention to CSR practices. In terms of the primary stakeholder-oriented CSR, managers are recommended to put employees' benefits as a priority and invest in the to offer a healthy and safe working environment or employee support programs. In terms of the secondary stakeholder-oriented CSR, managers are suggested to denote parts of earnings to charity and to people in need. Second, in order to create job satisfaction, firms should put a stronger emphasis on CSR practices. When considering job satisfaction, managers should treat their employees in a socially responsible way and fulfill their demands and rights and place this at the core of their CSR activities.

First, this study makes a contribution to the existing literature by classifying the four important CSR practices into two types from the perspective of stakeholder theory. By incorporating a series of CSR practices and the stakeholder theory, this study provides a comprehensive and reasonable CSR classification, which has not been considered by prior research. Second, this study adds to the literature by defining the construct of happiness management explicitly along with identifying the dimensions of happiness management. Third, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first studies exploring the relationship between CSR and happiness management. Finally, this study is among the first to investigate the correlation between job satisfaction and happiness management.

With the context of changing global and local populations and, for example, their composition and distribution, this paper offers insight to food shopping in later life with a focus on Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands. The work is relevant and important due to the specific population makeup of this area and the challenges in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a result of population changes/challenges.

The work takes an interdisciplinary view and draws on literature from both social policy and social care and business and marketing. Using this work as a grounding, and insights to primary research from a wider study in this area, the paper offers discussion and comment on:

• the importance of food and food shopping in later life;

• issues of, and concerns for, health, well-being, identity and community maintenance and resilience (as a direct result of the challenge to SDG achievement); and

• the role(s) and responsibility of business from a core business and wider business/corporate responsibility perspective as a reflection of the above and findings of the work.

the importance of food and food shopping in later life;

issues of, and concerns for, health, well-being, identity and community maintenance and resilience (as a direct result of the challenge to SDG achievement); and

the role(s) and responsibility of business from a core business and wider business/corporate responsibility perspective as a reflection of the above and findings of the work.

Using primary research undertaken by the authors, the paper supports findings from existing work from across social policy and care and business and management – related to the practicalities, challenges and the role of and approaches to food shopping in later life. It specifically offers insight to the efforts made by older food shoppers to maintain their independence and support their choices in a context of interdependence (e.g. within a family, community and environment). The importance social aspects of food shopping (as a counter to isolation and loneliness for example) are also identified and how, for example, the actions of business(es) may undermine the efforts (and resilience) of individuals and communities. “Better” understanding of food shoppers by business and other stakeholders is promoted.

This study aims to examine how perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities (i.e. environment, society and stakeholders) enhance perceived value, social media engagement to win customer loyalty in the hotel industry. In addition, it investigates the mediating effects of customer perceived value and social media engagement between CSR activities and customer loyalty.

A self-administered survey was conducted on customers in Malaysia. Based on the data collected from 389 customers, the analysis used the structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The validity and reliability of the measurements were confirmed before the hypotheses of the study have been tested.

The results revealed that CSR related to the environment has significant direct and indirect impacts on customer loyalty. In addition, the effect of perceived value and social media engagement on customer loyalty has been supported. The results also demonstrated the mediating role of perceived value and social media engagement between CSR activities and customer loyalty.

This study advances the understanding of the impact of CSR activities, perceived value and social media engagement on customer loyalty in the hotel industry. Hoteliers can gain benefits by understanding how specific CSR activities can enhance customer perceived value and social media engagement value, thus leads to customer loyalty.

This study investigates the association between CSR activities, perceived value, social media engagement and customer loyalty, which has been lacking a full investigation in the hospitality literature.

El objetivo de este estudio es examinar cómo las percepciones de las distintas actividades de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa (RSC) (i.e., medio ambiente, sociedad y skateholders) mejoran el valor percibido por los clientes, su compromiso en medios sociales y su lealtad en la industria hotelera. También se investigan los efectos mediadores del valor percibido por el cliente y su compromiso en medios sociales sobre las relaciones entre las actividades de RSC y la lealtad.

Se realizó una encuesta autoadministrada a los clientes en Malasia. Tomando como referencia los datos recogidos de 389 clientes, se utilizó la metodología SEM. La validez y fiabilidad de las escalas de medida fueron confirmadas antes de contrastar las hipótesis del estudio.

Los resultados revelaron que sólo la RSC relacionada con el medio ambiente tiene un impacto, tanto directo como indirecto, sobre la lealtad de los clientes. Además, se han confirmado los efectos del valor percibido y el compromiso en medios sociales sobre la lealtad de los clientes. Los resultados también demostraron el papel mediador del valor percibido y el compromiso en medios sociales sobre la relación entre las actividades de RSC y la lealtad de los clientes.

Este estudio permite comprender mejor el impacto de las actividades de RSC, el valor percibido y el compromiso en medios sociales en la lealtad de los clientes en la industria hotelera. Los hoteleros pueden obtener beneficios al comprender cómo las actividades específicas de RSC pueden mejorar el valor percibido por los clientes y su compromiso en medios sociales y, por lo tanto, aumentar la lealtad de los clientes.

Este trabajo analiza la asociación entre las actividades de RSC, el valor percibido, el compromiso en medios sociales y la lealtad de los clientes, lo cual ha sido escasamente estudiado en la literatura sobre hospitalidad.

RSC, Medios sociales, Valor percibido, Compromiso, Lealtad de clientes, Industria hotelera

Trabajo de investigación

As a Quality Management (QM) framework, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model has stakeholder management at its core. In EFQM (2012), based on which assessments were made until 2021, “creating a sustainable future” was a fundamental principle, but how it translated to a Sustainability Orientation and delivered to stakeholders remains questionable. This study aims to investigates the Sustainability Orientation within EFQM (2012) and its associations with Results for stakeholders.

Longitudinal assessments of recognized-for-excellence organizations by a partner of EFQM are considered. Using factor analysis, scores on the sub-criteria that defined “creating a sustainable future” are investigated, and a Sustainability Orientation is inferred. Panel regressions and structural equation modeling assess the correlations between Sustainability Orientation and Results. A qualitative analysis follows, where sustainability reports from role-models within this population are text mined to examine whether and how they reflected the guidance in EFQM (2012) concerning “creating a sustainable future”.

Direct and indirect positive associations between the Sustainability Orientation implied by EFQM (2012) and stakeholder-performance are confirmed. Yet, inferences from text mining of reported priorities of role-models of excellence illustrate that EFQM (2012) might have driven different strategies towards sustainability.

Despite conceptualizations that the EFQM model embeds a Sustainability Orientation, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, its existence and likely impact remain to be examined. By combining longitudinal statistical analysis, structural equation models and text mining, consistent insights on the link between Sustainability Orientation and organizational performance are obtained.