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Corporate foundations – entities established to regularize corporate giving at an arm’s length removed from the firm – command substantial resources, root companies in the nonprofit sectors of their host communities, indirectly augment perceptions of corporate responsibility, and help firms to deflect controversies in an attentive global media environment. Despite these important roles, relatively little research has examined the institutional and strategic factors that influence such proximate charitable giving by firms. Using systematic data on foundations linked to S&P 3000 firms in the health sector – a growing domain in which public trust in high-stakes products and services is critical – fixed-effects models illustrate the primary role of network influences on giving: corporate foundations give substantially more in years following higher contributions by other (noncorporate) foundations in the health sector in a firm’s headquarters locality and also following increased contributions by industry peers through their corporate foundations. Giving also appears to reflect strategic reputational concerns, in that foundation contributions increase significantly following controversies associated with the corporate parent’s products and/or services. By contrast, giving tends to decline as the presence of outside directors on a firm’s board increases, as well as when firms carry heavier debt loads. Combined, these findings suggest that corporate foundations serve as a strategic proxy for the firm, reflecting both a company's position in community and interfirm networks while also mitigating the threat of reputational challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between the globalization/adaptation debate and corporate foundation activity within a small subset of such foundations. In the light of this debate, the study analyzes the corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches of this sample of corporate-owned foundations using the tri-dimensional CSR research model of Arthaud-Day (2005) to articulate the perspective, content and strategic orientations of the companies.

The study selects three different corporate foundations based on internationalization scale and field of activities. A content analysis methodology is applied to the data collected from the official web sites of 24 corporate foundations.

The analysis results show a general compatibility between the subsidiaries and the main branches of the corporate foundations, at least on the conceptual level. However, the practices of CSR activities, targeted stakeholders or content domains differ at the operational level. Nevertheless, local governance is still not totally independent, especially in terms of received funds. Therefore, this study concludes that the internationalization strategies of these corporate foundations are still at a formative stage of transnationalization.

The study explores the three selected international companies and their corporate foundations. Future studies may extend the number of selected industries and companies. Together with increased coverage, future survey studies may help explain the global or local orientations of corporate foundations’ CSR in different domains.

Corporate foundations may extend their transnational strategies to further stages by differentiating between those units that should be managed on a global scale and those that should be managed by local authorities. They may balance the amount of investment in different regions while adopting collaborative governance models to respond to regions where grant applications are not an easy tool for stakeholders to use.

Given the relatively paucity of CSR studies with an international focus, this study contributes to the standardization or localization debate in the international business literature. The study’s originality lies in its attempt to operationalize the theoretical research model and through its use of corporate foundations as the unit of analysis.

This chapter investigates the impact of coordination and control mechanisms on the orientation to performances, looking at the relation between Corporate Foundations and their Founder Firms. The research starts from the consideration that the relationship between CFs and Founder Firms can be considered similar to the relationship between headquarter and subsidiaries in large corporations, as the ties are very strong and significant.

In order to address the impact of control and coordination mechanisms on CFs’ orientation to performance, we managed a survey addressed to 188 CFs from six European countries, representing the most significant context for corporate philanthropy in Europe.

The results of a linear regression show that only selected mechanisms are effective for boosting CFs’ orientation to performance, and that these tools must be adapted to the specific nature of the CFs.

The study can help Founder Firms to identify the more effective mechanisms to improve the performance of the CFs they support, in order to ensure the possibility for both the parties to pursue the shared value creation.

The research has put in evidence that CFs must be explored taking into consideration their close tie to Founder Firm, which differentiates them from other interdependent foundations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the governance structures of corporate foundations in the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

After discussing the heretofore-underutilized research advantages of corporate foundations, the authors survey theoretical perspectives to explain the corporate foundation phenomenon. The authors build on this theory to construct a typology of corporate foundation structures based on their interactions with internal and external stakeholders.

The findings suggest that many of the largest corporations do not embed their corporate foundation into their strategic plan as they define it (i.e. specific alignment with corporate competency).

Research limitations include an examination solely of the 50 largest corporate foundations among a field of nearly 3,000 corporate foundations. The authors advance a research agenda that addresses the potential role of corporate foundations in fulfilling CSR.

The foundation field may see a movement toward corporate foundations being strategically aligned with the parent company’s core competence as external stakeholders continue to pressure companies.

Studying corporate foundations is important as they serve as intermediaries between corporations and civil society. Thus, they will continue to play an important role in the CSR agenda.

This paper is one of the first to examine the corporate foundation phenomenon, with a specific focus on their governance. Thus, the authors go beyond the motivations that lead corporations to be involved in “socially responsible activities,” the types of activities that corporations select, and how these choices produce benefits for a diverse set of stakeholders.

This paper aims to investigate the political involvement of a corporate foundation (CF) though CSR under two perspectives: CF managers and the sponsor firm managers.

A single case with a Brazilian CF was conducted. Interviews with sponsor firms and foundations managers were combined with firms’ sustainability reports data and CF’s website information.

It was found that CF acts as an ambassador and can be a source of political legitimacy for their sponsor firm. They intermediate in governance challenges as the goals and working style of the CF, firms and municipalities can be sometimes antagonistic.

The authors could not reach the municipalities officials and their perception of the Public Management Program (PMP).

The PMP creates personal and organizational relationships with public officials, a resource that can be employed to impact the political strategies of the sponsor firm.

The authors also show how CF’s may help managers to deal with the typical Brazilian peculiarity of policy discontinuity in local governments.

This case study sheds light a new phenomenon: CF’s support on public management. It adds to the CSR and corporate political activities literature, the role of foundations as ambassadors of the relationship between the firm, government and society. They are not only filling gaps left by the State but are also dealing with local governments administrative deficiencies.

This chapter highlights the roots of corporate philanthropy from Frishkoff and Kostecka's (1991) concern for community, Young and Burlingame's (1996) Paradigm Lost, Saiia's (2001) strategic philanthropy, and Bruch and Walter's (2005) Four Types of Corporate Philanthropy.

This article aims at investigating knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) between founder firms and corporate foundations (CFs), looking at mechanisms able to enhance CFs’ orientation of effectiveness.

We analyze 50 questionnaires collected through a survey of CFs based in Italy (redemption of 42.7% of the total). We use a number of regressions to verify the change of explained variance moving from a basic model with control variables (enter method) and a model including KTE mechanisms with an impact on orientation to effectiveness (stepwise method).

The analysis produced a model which underlines the influence of knowledge transfer mechanisms in stimulating orientation to effectiveness. The adoption of specific knowledge transfer mechanisms by founder firms can have a significant influence on how CFs manage their effectiveness. Three mechanisms emerge from the study as elements with a positive impact.

The results apply to nonprofit or public bodies, especially if we consider partnerships or organizational networks. The individuated criteria for selecting a positive KTE could drive similar choices of other nonprofit bodies.

The study individuates a set of practices that are potentially able to influence positively the orientation to effectiveness of CFs, and the capacity to perform their activities and respond to social needs more successfully.

This research considers CFs as founder firms’ subsidiaries, with a growing strategic importance. This research reveals how KTE mechanisms can foster the development of orientation to effectiveness if implying interaction, firms’ commitment, autonomy, and alignment with the firms’ strategy and CFs’ purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors affecting the relationship between annual changes in the amount of corporate foundation giving and changes in corporate reputation. The factors investigated included the existing corporate reputation and the economic conditions.

Published data were obtained for 77 US corporations during both an upward and downward economic trend. Data for corporate foundation giving were obtained from IRS tax records while data on corporate reputation were obtained from the Reputation Institute’s RepTrak scores.

Linear mixed model analyses demonstrated that a firm’s prior reputation moderates the relationship between corporate philanthropy and changes in corporate reputation during a downward trend. That is, changes in corporate charitable giving and corporate reputation covaried positively for firms with an existing favorable reputation. However, for firms with an unfavorable reputation, there was an inverse relationship between changes in corporate giving and corporate reputation. The interaction between the variables was prevalent only during an economic downturn.

The findings provide firms with relevant information on conditions that affect how changes in charitable giving are likely to impact corporate reputation.

This study is the first to look at the effects of annual changes in corporate charitable giving on corporate reputation and adds to the research literature by demonstrating the complexity of the relationship by identifying two key factors that should be taken into considerations when developing annual budgets for charitable giving.

Corporate involvement in higher education remains highly visible and controversial. While best practices can be found, many gray areas exist in the actions motivating both parties. This organizational analysis examines corporate citizenship through the inter-organizational relationships of a public US doctoral university and six US corporate partners as framed through Cone’s (2010) corporate citizenship spectrum between 2006 and 2010. The literature has shown that little research exists regarding the behavior aspects of these inter-organizational relationships. Triangulation of data is provided by 36 interviews, 12,609 pages of documents and audio-visual materials, and a campus observation of 407 photographs. The research indicates three themes as to why higher education desires involvement with companies: viable resources, student enrichment, and real-world connectivity. Further, there are four themes explaining what motives and ROI expectations companies have to be involved with higher education and include: workforce development, community enrichment, brand development, and research. Finally, three themes emerged regarding ethical considerations between these inter-organizational relationships with higher education and companies. First, generally no ethical dilemmas were found. Second, several general ethics discussion topics created five clusters of interest: public relations, solicitation, policies and stewardship, accountability and transparency, and leadership behavior. Third, five ethical concerns were shared.