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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of gamification design elements of virtual corporate social responsibility (CSR) game on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation and the mediation effect of psychological benefit.

Three scenario simulation experiments of the between-subjects design were conducted to examine the influencing mechanism of reward mechanism of virtual CSR game on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation.

The findings indicated that: there are significant differences between the effect of behavior-based reward and result-based reward on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation; the psychological benefit plays a moderating role between game reward mechanism and customers’ intention to continuously participate in social value co-creation; the game narrative mode plays a moderating role in the influence of game reward mechanism on customers’ intention to continuously participate in social value co-creation; the background for game placement moderates the interactions of game narrative mode and game reward mechanism on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation, namely there is significant interaction of gamification design elements on psychological benefit and customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation.

This research has the following limitations. First, restricted by research conditions, the game scene, as the experiment material, can only be exposed to the participants in the form of text, thus customers’ psychological benefit (especially the entertainment experience) may be affected. Second, theoretical argument and literature support were not enough when the authors put forward the research hypotheses, due to the lack of research on the application of gamification in the CSR field. Third, considering the complexity, the authors took the psychological benefit as a unidimensional variable, in this research; it may be funnier to divide it into three variables. Finally, because the game design elements form into a virtual customer environment that jointly influences customers’ psychological benefit, the method of qualitative comparative analysis can be considered in future research.

It provides insights for marketers on the planning and design of a CSR strategy. The conclusions of this research have a certain guiding significance to the formulation of CSR strategy and the practice of social value co-creation. First, enterprises can apply gamification to the design of virtual CSR projects to promote customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation. Second, on the consideration of customers’ psychological benefit, enterprises should reasonably match such game design elements as game placement background, game narrative mode and game reward mechanism, when designing a virtual CSR game, so as to promote customers continuously participating in a virtual CSR project.

Virtual CSR projects are in fact the activities that enterprise co-create social value with their stakeholders. So, the research on customers’ continuous participation in virtual CSR projects is helpful for increasing social welfare.

This study confirms the effect of reward mechanism of a virtual CSR game on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation from the perspective of customer psychological benefit. It also provides insights for marketers on the planning and design of a CSR strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the proactive role elite organizations play within-network corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance by determining whether organizations can be identified that serve as aspirational CSR role models. The assumption is that elite CSR performance inspires and challenges other in-network actors to raise their standards in order to be legitimate, and resource rewardable.

Three cases are discussed to exemplify elite CSR: historical: recognizing the value of embracing a trend in improved standards of meatpacking, Armour Meatpacking campaigned for sanitary meatpacking and implemented strategic change; global energy: Chevron Corporation conducts “business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, respecting the law and universal human rights to benefit the communities where we work”; and non-profit: “Elite” universities’ CSR standards attract bright faculty and students and build beneficial relationships with industry, government and peers.

Elite institutions raise CSR standards by using issue trends to guide strategic change that can performatively demonstrate the societal value of proactive leadership that elevates standards and increases the reward value to communities and organizations that is achieved by adopting higher standards.

Through micro-politics that increase CSR social productivity, elite CSR standards earn rewards for exemplary organizations and subsequently raise standards for in-network organizations to, in turn, achieve the license to operate.

Discussions of CSR should consider the influences that establish CSR standards. To that end, this paper offers the explanatory power of a micro-political, societal productivity approach to CSR based on the pragmatic/moral resource dependency paradigm.

The paper reasons that higher CSR standards result when NGO stakeholder critics and/or government agencies exert micro-political pressure. In response to such pressure, elite organizations, those that are or can meet those higher CSR standards, proactively demonstrate how higher CSR standards can accrue resources that benefit them and society. Elite CSR performance challenges other in-network actors to raise standards in order to be legitimate, that is resource rewardable.

Because elite organizations understand the reward advantage of higher levels of CSR, they proactively elevate the discuss of standards and advantages for achieving them, and penalties for falling short.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) work values of millennial undergraduates and their priorities among key CSR dimensions as a basis for the design of CSR curricula that will enhance students’ social responsibility values and their job choice decisions.

Respondents were 238 senior undergraduates studying in three discipline areas at an Australian metropolitan university. Their CSR values were explored in the context of a hypothetical job choice scenario.

While the majority of students rated CSR values highly in the job choice scenario, a larger majority were willing to trade this off for greater extrinsic benefits. Among millennial job-seeking students, workplace practices were rated the most important CSR dimension with environmental issues ranking last. Significant differences were found between gender and discipline.

Quantitative analysis only; use of cross-sectional, single-source data.

In the context of greater extrinsic rewards, CSR values (particularly environmental concerns) are not front-of-mind in millennial students’ job choice decisions. This, coupled with high levels of indecision among business students may provide an important theoretical and practical basis for the development of CSR curricula in business courses in Australia.

The study offers a unique insight into the CSR values of millennial business students vis-à-vis humanities and science students in a job choice context. These findings are important for designing effective business programs to shape the social responsibility behaviours of the next generation of managers and leaders.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) award and sustainability assurance levels for the French CAC 40 companies.

A sample of 57 French companies in the CAC 40 index corresponding to 448 observations was analyzed between 2008 and 2020 using an ordinal regression.

The main results conclude that the inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index World, the CSR award and the introduction of the Grenelle 2 law have a significant influence on sustainability assurance levels. However, incentive compensation does not appear to be relevant to explain sustainability assurance levels.

The present study focuses on a sample, limited to companies belonging to the CAC 40 index. To enhance the understanding of sustainability assurance levels, this research may include other global sustainability indices, such as the MSCI World and the FTSE4Good World, in the CSR awards.

This study could be useful for audit practitioners, leading them to reconsider their evaluation methods and take into account CSR incentives for a more objective analysis. Regulators should investigate the current CSR issues to improve CSR disclosure standards. Finally, these findings could motivate other researchers to expand the scope of the research to diverse contexts.

This study helps fill the gap existing in sustainability assurance literature by highlighting the relationship between CSR rewards and sustainability assurance levels.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) are rewarded or punished in the corporate director labor market for engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

The authors empirically examine the relation between CEOs' CSR engagement and their corporate board appointments in retirement using logit, ordinary least squares (OLS) and Poisson regression models.

Results indicate that CSR engagement has significant director labor market consequences for retiring CEOs. Specifically, CSR engagement has a favorable impact on the ability of retired CEOs to obtain board seats and board seats at larger firms generally associated with higher pay, even after controlling for firm performance and other determinants previously documented to explain director selection. The authors also find evidence that CEOs of firms with high CSR engagement build up their firms' CSR scores over time as they approach retirement, which is consistent with the labor market for directors providing incentives to attract CEOs to board service in retirement.

By examining the relationship between a CEO's CSR engagement and their external corporate board directorships, this paper advances the understanding of the determinants of corporate board appointments. Further, while most prior research assesses the value of CSR engagement by looking at the relation between CSR engagement and that firm's performance, this is the first study to our knowledge to look outside the firm to determine if CSR engagement has value to the CEO.

This paper aims to clarify that corporate social responsibility (CSR) has come a long way by the prevailing business case approach, but increasingly hits a glass ceiling. The glass ceiling metaphor refers to the inherent limitations created by a business case approach towards CSR.

The main findings are based on an analysis of existing literature on strategies for CSR. The findings are illustrated with a case from the Dutch National Research Program on CSR.

The very term corporate social responsibility suggests that the debate about CSR is all about responsibilities of corporations. Maybe it once was, but nowadays it is much more about new market opportunities and a business‐wise approach to ecological and social problems. CSR has evolved into a marketable asset of companies, in which profit‐oriented managers and entrepreneurs are willing to invest. This “commodification” of CSR has helped to make it acceptable in the business world, but this comes at a considerable price from the perspective of the social responsibility of business. It is especially argued in the paper that a business case approach results in opportunism, leaves institutional blockades intact and drives out the intrinsic motivation for engaging in CSR.

Because of the chosen conceptual research approach, the propositions put forward in the paper need further grounding in empirical research.

In order to shatter this glass ceiling, managers have to deal with a paradoxical situation. They should maintain their appreciation of economic constraints and at the same time combine this with a sincere recognition of moral values. This at least requires that managers should show commitment to certain social values, be able to defend it in good and bad times and prepare all employees to deal with the inherent dilemmas of bearing different responsibilities.

Although the paper builds on earlier articles on limitations of a business case approach, it is the first paper to argue for a glass ceiling of CSR created by the inherent limitations of such an approach.

This paper aims to review and synthesize the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure literature in order to (1) develop a comprehensive definition of disclosure quality; (2) review the evolution of disclosure quality proxies used by accounting researchers; (3) describe the antecedents to disclosure quality; (4) describe the outcomes of disclosure quality; and (5) identify gaps in the current literature and offer suggestions for future research.

This study conducted a systematic review capturing articles examining CSR disclosure quality. The researchers first searched EBSCO, identifying all relevant articles by searching for “corporate social responsibility,” “CSR,” “ESG” and “sustainability reporting” anywhere in the article. Then, the results were filtered to focus on 23 of the most prominent accounting journals. The search resulted in 592 articles which were individually reviewed for relevance to the authors’ review. This study includes all articles that examine disclosure and provide insight into elements that influence disclosure quality or provide evidence of the effects of disclosure quality on user decision-making.

It is found that a comprehensive definition of CSR disclosure quality has yet to be developed and that proxies for CSR disclosure quality have evolved over time. This study synthesizes the literature on the antecedents of CSR disclosure quality, and how CSR disclosure quality affects users' decision-making and related outcomes. Overall, the review of this study suggests that assurance and a number of corporate features have important effects on disclosure quality. Also, high-quality disclosures are positively associated with many benefits to market participants.

This study complements Huang and Watson's (2015) CSR literature review by comprehensively reviewing and synthesizing the CSR disclosure quality literature that was only emerging when their review was published. Importantly, this study contributes to the CSR disclosure literature by developing a comprehensive definition of CSR disclosure quality that is grounded in the accounting literature and aligned with current frameworks.

The purpose of this study is to provide an explication of micro foundations of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR). CSR, as a study domain, has been accommodating individual centric aspects. Extant literature delved into firm aspects like regulation, the role of individuals such as leaders and managers in shaping the agenda and practice on CSR.

Based upon the responses of 396 managers, the authors explored how young managers assessed firm CSR actions and develop their role as potential customers, investors and potential employees toward a firm. For this study, a mediated moderator analysis has been applied to test the model.

The authors found that between an individuals’ customer-centric role toward firm products, positively relate to being a potential employee. However, there was also the presence of the mediation role of the individuals’ inclination for becoming an investor in firm shares. Further, there was a moderation role of an individual’s firm CSR product assessment. The developed model had four factors, namely, customer CSR firm assessment (CCFA), customer CSR product assessment (CCPA), investor CSR evaluation (ICE) and employee CSR aspiration (ECA).

In this research, based upon systems justification theory and expectancy theory an individual-centric micro foundation based theoretical model on CSR were developed consisting of CCFA as an antecedent variable, ICE as mediating variable, CCPA as moderating variable and ECA as the dependent variable.

This study was one of the contributions toward a micro foundations based CSR approach model with role-plays as a customer, investor and potential employee.

This paper aims to investigate the association between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the cost of equity (COE) and cost of debt (COD).

The authors use the multivariate regression analysis approach to address the developed hypotheses.

Using a sample of 230 Australian listed firms from 2004 to 2016, the authors document that firms complying with higher CSR affect both COE and COD negatively, which means that CSR disclosure reduces financing cost.

These results support the risk mitigation perspective of CSR compliance, showing that both the investors and creditors may lower their expected returns because they find that CSR can mitigate potential business risk.

The authors extend the CSR research with both COE and COD.