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The purpose of this paper is to open up new lines of research into the engagement of corporations during humanitarian crises. The paper provides an introduction to core concepts in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, as well as a comprehensive overview of when, why, how, and to what effect corporations engage in humanitarian action.

Building on extant literature and policy reports, the paper synthesizes concepts and insights to map the interdisciplinary field of research on corporate engagement in humanitarian action.

The paper systematically reviews and describes different dimensions of corporate engagement for delivering humanitarian action and explains key complications that inspire new research questions. In particular, the paper highlights challenges associated with getting corporations to engage in humanitarian action; challenges associated with ensuring effective corporate engagement; and challenges associated with ensuring ethical engagement.

By raising new questions about corporate engagement in humanitarian action, this paper develops an original and positive research agenda for international business, management research, and related fields.

This study aims to examine how governing bodies demonstrated stakeholder engagement during the time of the COVID-19 crisis in South Africa.

This study uses a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with 18 participants, comprising of preparers of financial statements, board members and management consultants/advisors. The study also relied on the analysis of articles on corporate webpages and publications produced by professional bodies on the economic, social and environmental impact of COVID-19.

The results of this study indicated that governing bodies demonstrated stakeholder engagement during times of crisis through transparent reporting, corporate social responsibility initiatives and active stakeholder inclusivity.

This study contributes to the body of research on stakeholder engagement during a crisis and provides evidence of the role stakeholder inclusivity can play in responding to a crisis. The findings will be useful in understanding the importance of stakeholder engagement during times of crisis. The study is one of the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to evaluate how stakeholder engagement principles can be followed by governing bodies during a crisis.

Established companies often engage with startups as a way to improve their innovation performance. While there has been extensive discussion on the reasons, modes, and expected outcomes of these initiatives, there is still a need to understand more about how corporate engagements with startups (CEwS) evolve and how they can enhance a company’s innovation capability. This study proposes a framework of engagement strategies, discussing their purposes and implications to understand the subject better.

This study involved managers from twelve large, established companies across various sectors. The authors used a multicase approach to analyze their experiences and offer a framework for corporate-startup engagement.

The framework for corporate-startup engagement consists of four main strategies: (1) innovative improvement, (2) R&D expansion, (3) more value to corporate venture capital and (4) ecosystem articulation. The authors found that ecosystem articulation, which combines the potentials of the other three strategies, is the most sophisticated approach.

This study offers a systematic view of the CEwS phenomenon, identifying the various modes of engagement, the reasons for adopting each one and potential ways to advance and improve them. For managers, the study reveals the CEwS as a lever to build innovation capabilities over time.

This study aims to analyze consumer motivations to share information about corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities through electronic word of mouth. It examines the roles of self-enhancement, identity signaling and social bonding as antecedents of consumers’ CSR engagement on social media.

A quantitative approach is used with a single-factor between-subjects experimental design in which the presence vs absence of CSR information on a company website is manipulated. The hypotheses are tested through structural equation modeling.

Results show that after viewing the company’s CSR message on its website, consumers who generated more CSR associations were more motivated to engage with the CSR information to satisfy fundamental personality traits (need for self-enhancement) and social relationship motivations (social bonding), which increased their intention to share the information.

This study is restricted to CSR information on websites. Further research should consider what happens if such information is shared on social media, as consumers are more likely to spread CSR messages when they are shared by other public social network sites.

The study highlights the relevance of including CSR information on websites and offers insights into the importance of considering consumers in disseminating CSR information. Consumers share information when they have personal motivation for doing so.

This study put the focus on the role of consumers in the diffusion of corporate information.

The results show the importance of personal motivations such as self-enhancement and social bonding in sharing CSR information on social media.

El estudio analiza las motivaciones que tiene el consumidor para compartir información sobre acciones de responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC) a través de boca oído electrónico (eWOM). En particular, las motivaciones de mejora del auto-concepto, necesidad de mostrar una identidad deseada y la vinculación social.

Se utiliza un diseño experimental entre sujetos donde se manipuló la presencia vs ausencia de información sobre la RSC de la empresa. Las hipótesis se contrastaron mediante un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados muestran que los consumidores con más asociaciones de RSC comparten más la información de RSC motivados por satisfacer la mejora del auto-concepto y vinculación social.

El estudio destaca la importancia de generar contenido de RSC en el sitio web de la empresa, y la importancia de los consumidores en la difusión de información de dicha información.

El estudio está restringido a la presencia de información de RSC en el sitio web de la empresa. Sería interesante evaluar lo que sucede si dicha información se comparte en redes sociales, en la medida en que los consumidores tienen mayor tendencia a compartir la información procedente de redes sociales.

Los resultados muestran la importancia de las motivaciones personales como la mejora del auto-concepto y la vinculación social a la hora compartir información de RSC en las redes sociales.

本研究分析了消费者通过电子口碑分享企业社会责任（CSR）活动信息的动机。它研究了自我提升、身份信号和社会联系作为消费者在社交媒体上参与企业社会责任的前因的作用。

采用单因素主体间实验设计的定量方法, 对公司网站上企业社会责任信息的存在与否进行操纵。假设通过使用R软件包lavaan的结构方程模型进行检验。

结果显示, 在观看公司网站上的企业社会责任信息后, 产生更多企业社会责任联想的消费者更有动力参与到企业社会责任信息中, 以满足基本的人格特征（自我提升的需要）和社会关系动机（社会纽带）, 这增加了他们分享信息的意向。

该研究强调了将企业社会责任信息纳入网站的相关性, 并对在传播企业社会责任信息时考虑消费者的重要性提出了见解。消费者在有个人动机的情况下会分享信息。

本研究仅限于网站上的企业社会责任信息。进一步的研究应该考虑到社交媒体, 因为当消费者在其他公共社交网站上分享企业社会责任信息时, 他们更有可能进行传播。

研究结果表明, 在社交媒体上分享企业社会责任信息时, 自我提升和社会联系等个人动机的重要性。

The current study aims to propose and empirically investigate a conceptual model of the most relevant antecedents and consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) attribution, thus providing a practical and concise model as well as examining brand attachment as a mediator explaining the relationship between CSR attribution and its consequences.

A between-subjects experimental design was employed. The study included two experimental conditions; intrinsic and extrinsic CSR attribution and a control condition. An online self-administered survey was utilised for data collection. The sample was a convenience sample of 336 university students. Both one-way between-groups ANOVA and Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) were utilised for hypotheses testing.

The most significant antecedents of CSR attribution in order of importance are the firm's approach to CSR communication, past corporate social performance, CSR type and the firm's call for customers' participation in its CSR. CSR attribution exerted a significant direct positive impact on brand attachment and trust. Three significant indirect consequences of CSR attribution were PWOM intention, purchase intention and brand loyalty intention. Whereas trust played a significant mediating role between CSR attribution and its three indirect consequences, brand attachment exerted significant mediation only between CSR attribution and brand loyalty intention. Brand attachment might mediate the relationship between CSR attribution and purchase intention. However, brand attachment failed to play a mediating role between CSR attribution and PWOM intention.

Several studies marginally investigated CSR attribution. Despite the vital role of CSR attribution in how consumers receive firms' CSR engagement, the availability of CSR attribution-centric studies is limited. By introducing a model of the most relevant antecedents and consequences of CSR attribution, this study aids in understanding the psychological mechanism underlying consumers' CSR attribution and provides valuable implications.

Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the communication of corporate social responsibility (CSR) contributes towards a favourable corporate reputation. It explores the communication strategies and channels organisations deemed reputable by stakeholders use to achieve an effective CSR communication.

To achieve this, a qualitative content analysis using the directed approach was conducted on the textual CSR communication materials of ten reputable organisations in South Africa based on the 2018 South Africa Reptrak survey.

Result showed that seven out of ten organisations use both self-serving and society-serving motive in their CSR communication, while the other 3 use only the society serving motive. The informing strategy was also more evident in the CSR communication materials than the interactive strategy. In terms of the communication channels, the study found that organisations mainly utilise controlled channels for CSR communication.

The literature reviewed and the findings of this study reveal a gap between the theory and practice of CSR communication. This drives the need for organisations to research and tailor CSR communication based on stakeholders' unique characteristics and preferences. The paper also contributes to improving the knowledge on the role different CSR communication strategies and channels play in CSR communication.

Sustainable development has become a strategic priority for companies. The purpose of this study is to explain what paths a company can take to reconfigure its business model and corporate reporting tools in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The research used a qualitative approach and drew on stakeholder and legitimacy theories to collect primary and secondary data through in-depth interviews, semi-structured questionnaires and observation of corporate documents.

Sustainability and climate change issues’ relevance in the business model and reporting requires improvement so that stakeholders can participate and become aware of the actions put in place to limit the climate challenge.

The results of the case study cannot be subjected to statistical generalisation, as they focus on the Italian context and do not capture the regulatory divergence of different countries.

The results can help managers experiment with, orient, test and implement business model transformations to increase the level of sustainability within an organisation. In addition, disclosure of climate change risks and opportunities for the company and the resulting impacts, including financial impacts, is now recognised as a key urgency to support the achievement of the SDGs and the stakeholder decision-making process.

This study contributes to the literature by focusing on necessary developments for governance and strategy and on climate change disclosure to support investors’ and other stakeholders’ decision-making processes for corporate social responsibility.

The paper aims to explore the effect of stakeholder pressure on the disclosure of key performance indicators (KPIs) and the patterns of this disclosure in large public interest entities (PIEs).

The study is based on the content analysis of the disclosures provided by 169 large (PIEs) operating in Poland in 2019. The data was hand-collected from the companies’ non-financial statements. The research hypotheses were empirically tested with the use of linear regression.

The explanation for the disclosure of KPIs can be found in stakeholder theory, operationalized by stakeholder pressure linked to industry. In line with the expectations, business-related KPIs are disclosed by companies operating in industries with high pressure from investors, environment-related KPIs are presented by companies operating in environmentally sensitive industries and companies operating in industries with high pressure from employees disclose society-related KPIs. According to the results of the study, reporting on employee-related KPIs is accompanied by environmental and social KPI disclosures.

The study contributes to the literature on corporate non-financial disclosures as it provides new insights into non-financial KPI disclosures in a new and relatively unexplored institutional setting established by the Directive 2014/95/EU. While researchers recognize the stakeholders’ environmental and social concerns, there is nevertheless a lack of understanding of their implications for KPIs in measuring social practice. The research fills that gap by addressing the specific impact of different stakeholder groups on the disclosure of KPIs.

The purpose of this study is to extend existing knowledge on the determinants of sustainability report (SR) assurance practices. Four different theories – stakeholder theory, institutional theory, signaling theory and legitimacy theory – are used to formulate several hypotheses regarding the main factors that can influence a company’s decision to assure its SRs.

Using a sample of 417 listed organizations based in different European countries over five years, the effects of stakeholder commitment, country orientation toward sustainability, firm environmental performance and business ethics controversies on the decision to assure SRs are assessed.

The results show that a company’s decision to assure its SRs is motivated by the need to maintain good relations with its stakeholders (which is in line with stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory), as well as by the willingness to signal their sustainability performance (which is in line with signaling theory) and to gain legitimacy. On the contrary, business ethics controversies do not seem to be relevant to a company’s assurance practices.

This paper provides new insights into the influence that social, environmental and institutional factors have on assurance strategies. New factors that previous research does not investigate – environmental performance, business ethics controversies and corporate governance – are tested. Factors that are already investigated in the literature are considered from an original perspective of introducing alternative measures (e.g. for the scope of national sustainability policies).