Search results

Companies with corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices care about customers, society, the environment and workers. This study aims to examine the impact of CSR practices (i.e. economic CSR, environmental CSR and societal CSR) on consumers’ purchase intention of apparel products, with the mediating role of consumer-retailer love on this relationship.

Data gathered using purposive sampling technique from 300 young online consumers using purposive sampling were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling via SmartPLS3.0.

The results reveal that CSR practices (i.e. environmental CSR and societal CSR) have a positive influence on purchase intention for apparel products. Moreover, consumer-retailer love mediates the relationship between CSR practices (i.e. economic CSR and environmental CSR) and consumers’ purchase intention for apparel products.

Apparel retail marketers should focus on key determinants when designing CSR campaigns and communicating these CSR initiatives in social media and annual reports. They should also focus on their service quality to create a good perception (images) that helps measure the emotional response (love) between the retailer and consumers.

By applying the triple bottom line framework and the stimulus-organism-response model in a single framework, this study is unique and highlights the role of consumer-retailer love as an important mediator on the impact between CSR practices (i.e. economic CSR, environmental CSR, societal CSR) and consumers’ purchase intention of apparel products. The findings represent a new contribution to the existing literature, as there has been very limited research on this relationship in a developing nation context.

This study aims to examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) adoption on differentiation and cost leadership strategies and how governance structure moderates this CSR–strategy relationship.

The study data were retrieved from Thomson Reuters for non-financial firms between 2013 and 2019, and a fixed-effects panel regression analysis was executed.

The results indicate that CSR fosters cost leadership strategy but weakens differentiation strategy. This result supports the value generation school for cost leaders but also confirms the agency theory perspective for differentiators. Moreover, the governance structure does not moderate the relationship between a firm's CSR engagement and its business strategy, which implies a lack of corporate policies that concurrently consider both its CSR investment and strategies.

The findings of this study imply that cost leaders can integrate CSR practices into their business strategy and use their CSR engagement to increase their competitive position by stimulating cost efficiency and creating greater turnover. On the contrary, for differentiators, there is a trade-off between environmental and social engagement and business strategies. Thus, they are advised to enrich their unique product development abilities through the integration of environmental and social practices and reinforce their competitive position by addressing stakeholders' interests. The practical implication of the moderation analysis is that there is no rooted corporate policy behind the connection between CSR and firm strategy for both cost leaders and differentiators, which constitutes a missing link.

The findings of this study are of critical importance for firms, offering justification for the integration of two vital perspectives: social and environmental sustainability and financial sustainability. The moderating effect of governance performance tests the upper echelon's role in maintaining both sustainability perspectives concurrently and strengthening the legitimacy of the firms in society. Although maintaining a business strategy is important for shareholders' interests, pursuing a social and environmental sustainability strategy is crucial for meeting the expectations of all stakeholders.

The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the essential role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on SMEs' performance by exploring the mediating role of corporate image (CI), corporate reputation (CR) and customer loyalty (CL) between CSR and firm performance (FP) in the context of an emerging country.

Based on an extended literature review on CSR, CI, CR and CL studies, the authors evaluate the impact of these four constructs on SMEs' performance in an emerging market. The paper follows a quantitative approach. The study sample was composed of 482 responses covering top executives, managers and experts. The Smart PLS SEM version 3.3.2 was used to analyse the data of the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Vietnam in the year 2020–2021.

The authors' findings reveal significant and positive relationships amongst CSR, FP, CSR and CI, CSR and CR, CSR and CL, and most importantly, the findings add value to the current knowledge by exploring the mediating effect of CI, CR and CL between CSR and FP.

The study was conducted in Vietnam. As a result, the findings of the study might not be applicable for other countries, if the economic and environmental settings are different from that of Vietnam. Therefore, future research should consider for other countries, other regions. Second, due to the purpose and priority of the study, CI, CR, and CL was employed as mediators amongst the relationship between CSR and FP. Thus, future research should consider other mediators or moderators in such a relationship to see how CSR generates outcomes in the new associations.

The study regarding the role of CSR in enhancing the performance of SMEs can motivate firm's chief executive officers (CEOs) to be proactive in getting involved and practising CSR in a consistent manner. Second, the above discussion draws a very important implication for the executive level, the management level of the enterprise, which enterprises should balance the interests of business, customers, other stakeholders, the environment and society in order to optimise CSR outcomes for improving competitiveness and developing sustainably. This implication is particularly important to the survival and development of SMEs in a challenging emerging economy.

The study widens the literature regarding relationship between CSR and SMEs' performance. Besides, the study supports stakeholder theory that explains why CSR positively affects firm's performance. The significant mediating roles of CI, CR and CL were positively confirmed in the study. Although previous studies determined that such roles are strategic source of competitive advantages of enterprises, however, how CSR involved in enhancing the roles has not been deeply explored and integrated. Third, the findings of the study support the resource-based view (RBV) and resource-based perspective that explains why firm should engage in CSR activities, and CI, CR and CL can enhance firm's performance by providing strategic source of competitive advantages that facilitate business to improve its performance in sustainable direction.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the current literature on CSR and FP shows that, to date, there has been little empirical research on the mediating mechanism of CI, CR and CL in the link between CSR and FP for SMEs. The findings of the study may have great implications for entrepreneurs and top management with respect to the strategic perspectives to drive the businesses and to improve firm's performance in a sustainable direction in the context of emerging markets. In addition, the finding might be of great interest to – and motivate – SMEs' managers to engage with CSR actions where such businesses were or are situated during and after the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. By that understanding, the Government might allow for innovative and groundbreaking policies or the reformation of old policies to leverage businesses to promote their strengths towards sustainable development in the new economic settings. The findings of the study may be a significant contribution to SMEs in Vietnam and in other emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social responsibility performance’s current situation, influencing factors and mechanisms of multinational companies (MNCs) in China. The paper is based on the MNC’s social responsibility performance factors to find some relevant reasons for unsatisfied performance and on the multiple perspectives such as institutional distance and stakeholders, to provide feasible solutions for MNCs to assume civic responsibility and the high-quality development of the host country.

The study uses general literature review and empirical analysis to analyze the way and degree of various factors which are affecting the social responsibility of MNC in China, and supplements the deficiencies of previous studies.

The paper reveals the influencing factors and mechanisms of MNCs’ social responsibility in China through the regression results. In addition, based on Research Report on Corporate Social Responsibility of China (Huang et al., 2013/2019), the paper also summarizes the performance and dynamic changes of MNCs social responsibility in the Chinese market in the past decade.

The paper enriches research on the social responsibility of MNCs in the background of non-western countries, dynamically describes the performance of MNCs’ responsibilities in a 10-year span and solves the problem of inconsistent research conclusions caused by too long time span. The paper also creates the “local enterprise responsibility level” to quantify the development of the host country’s responsibility, and identifies the “responsibility demonstration effect” of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises.

This study aims to test whether over-investment is associated with environmental, social and governance (ESG) variation (i.e. inequality) across its dimensions, which, if so, would imply the prioritization of the interests of some stakeholders over those of others.

Drawing on a global sample of 29,428 observations across nine sectors and 41 countries between 2003 and 2019, the authors executed a country-industry-year fixed-effects regression analysis. In the robustness tests, this study also used the entropy balancing and propensity score matching approaches.

The authors found that while firm over-investment increases social pillar inequality, it reduces environmental pillar inequality. Further analysis revealed that the over-investment strategy decreases (increases) ESG inequality in low (high) environmental and social performers. This outcome could be of relevance to internal governance mechanisms and policymaking as ESG inequality might raise legitimacy concerns and hamper the long-term sustainability of firms.

The outcome of the study could be of relevance to internal governance mechanisms as well as policymaking. Considering financial constraints, firms should maintain a balanced strategy between firm investment and addressing stakeholder interests. Otherwise, over-investment might reduce environmental and social engagement in some dimensions, which could prompt criticisms and legitimacy concerns about firms and some stakeholders.

Past research has intensively focused on whether ESG – rather than ESG inequality – is associated with investment (in)efficiency. In addition, it has mostly formulated the causality running from ESG to firm investment, and hence, the literature lacks heterogeneity in this respect. Nevertheless, the authors believe that the potential effect of firm investment on ESG is of critical importance and has implications for determining whether over-investment causes variations across ESG engagement. Thus, the authors addressed this gap in the literature by investigating the relationship between over-investment and ESG inequality.

This study aims to examine the influence of corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm value while accounting for the impact of information asymmetry.

This empirical analysis is based on 1,079 observations from 83 listed Indonesian firms for the period 2007–2019. The authors applied simultaneous equation models with ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares.

The authors present empirical evidence of CG mechanisms that significantly contribute to low levels of CSR. Moreover, the authors identify a significant impact of information asymmetry on the relationship between CG, CSR and firm value.

The results show that information asymmetry, CG and CSR do not necessarily result in improved firm value across boards. Moreover, the employment of a nonlinear Cobb–Douglas-type function indicated diminishing marginal returns.

The findings can help policymakers in developing countries in improving the monitoring and supervisory roles of CG mechanisms to provide more support to CSR, increasing regulatory pressures for improved CSR performance and reducing information asymmetry by adopting a standardized CSR reporting scheme.

The suggested implications can contribute to more sustainable practices among Indonesian-listed firms as well as improving relationships with consumers and stakeholders toward the practice of CSR.

The adoption of a comprehensive CSR measurement tool to examine the value of CSR contributes to the extant literature, along with examining the impact of information asymmetry on the relationship between CG, CSR and firm value in a developing country context.

The manufacturing sector plays an important role in any economy. The sector opts for diversification techniques and CSR initiatives in a competitive business environment for growth, survival and reputation. This study examined the impact of corporate diversification and CSR on the financial performance of South Asian manufacturing firms.

Data is obtained from the financial statements of 350 listed South Asian manufacturing firms as well as the respective stock exchanges of these countries. The data for research analysis ranges from 2010 to 2020. Diversification is measured using product diversification and geographic diversification. CSR is quantified in terms of social contribution value. Accounting measurements (ROA and ROE) are also used to capture corporate performance. For hypothesis testing, the study also uses fixed effect panel regression, and for assessing the robustness of the findings, the two-step dynamic panel system-GMM regression approach is used.

Findings of study indicate a positive impact of product and geographic diversification on financial performance measured with ROA. However, geographic diversification is insignificantly linked with ROA and ROE. Further, CSR positively impacts the performance of firms in South Asia with both performance measures.

The study has several policy implications based on the findings, including the need for the manufacturing sector to practice and implement appropriate diversification approaches and CSR initiatives to improve its financial performance and reputation.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the evolutionary influences on corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature at a global level and propose the future studies required to enhance the CSR literature.

This paper combines the methodologies of narrative review and historical analysis. Drawing on the archival information, this paper synthesises data from multiple sources to bring out an enhanced understanding of the external influences on the development of CSR literature.

The findings suggest that the CSR literature in the previous decades has been influenced by several management domains like strategic management, marketing management and organisational behaviour. The future research is likely to be more influenced by the perspectives of national business system, politico-legal context and practical considerations related to implementation.

This review paper presents a case for studying the practical aspects of CSR implementation and the changing nature of the external context of CSR.

The paper offers unique value by combining different review methodologies and abstraction at a global level. This paper is a significant addition to better understand the impact of business events on the progress of CSR and the external influence on CSR literature.

This study aims to examine the link between corporate social responsibility orientation (CSRO) and competitive advantage (CA) in the context of emerging economies. More specifically, the mediating role of intangible resources, namely, trust and corporate reputation (CR), is investigated to explain the above linkage.

This study considered a sample of 326 Saudi Arabian businesses that have extensive business-to-business operations across international markets. The analysis uses the partial least-squares-based structural equation model, involving first- and second-order constructs and mediation tests using the Hayes PROCESS macro.

The results confirm that the relationship between CSRO and CA is partially mediated. Moreover, CSRO does have a direct as well as an indirect positive impact on CA via the two intangible resources, e.g. trust and CR. In addition, results support the serial mediation model where CSRO was found to exercise its influence on CA via trust and CR in a sequential manner.

This study enriches the limited literature on CSRO in the context of emerging economies. However, further studies should explore the opposite relationship, i.e. the impact of CA on CSRO. In addition, the authors believe that it would also be useful to study the moderating role of the industry sectors.

From a practical point of view, this study suggests new applications with respect to the link between CSRO and CA. To enhance their company’s CA, managers need to ensure that intangible resources are managed efficiently.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining how a firm’s intangible resources mediate between CSRO and CA. Second, originality is related to studying the link between CSRO and the trust and reputation of business organizations in emerging economies. Third, the findings suggest that the scope of a business is more than being responsible to its stakeholders, and stakeholder-driven CSRO leads to sustainable CA.

Over the past two decades, the topics of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have attracted an increasing amount of interest, reflecting a growing sensitivity of investors and corporations towards environmental, social and governance issues.

This survey offers an overview of the academic literature on ESG/CSR through the lens of investors, institutions and firms. We first discuss the definitions of ESG and CSR and their relationship to each other.

We next describe how ESG is measured and note problems with the measurement of and quality of ESG data and discrepancies between different measures of ESG. We then turn our attention to investors, examining what types of investors invest in ESG and the role of institutional investors in ESG. From the firm's perspective, we discuss why firms themselves conduct ESG. We also summarize the literature on the impact of ESG on firms: how ESG affects firms' financing, disclosure and reporting activities and firm performance. Finally, we describe other consequences of the focus of ESG and CSR on firms and investors.

This survey offers an overview of the academic literature on ESG/CSR through the lens of investors, institutions and firms.