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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate political activity (CPA) are two important components of firms’ nonmarket strategies, oriented toward shaping the firm’s political and social conditions. Although this is acknowledged in the literature, there are contradictory arguments and evidence, concerning, first, whether and under which conditions firms align their CPA and CSR activities, and second, what the impacts might be if they do align these activities. In light of this, this chapter draws from earlier reviews of nonmarket strategies, to explore the factors at multiple levels, macro and micro, that may drive a firm’s alignment of CPA and CSR. In doing so, we draw from management research to identify the macro- and micro-level factors that shape CPA and CSR alignment as CSR and CPA alignment research mostly focuses on outcomes rather than identifying the drivers of alignment. We develop a general model that integrates the macro- and micro-level discussions to make suggestions about where future research needs to go to increase understanding of when corporations will combine their CPA and CSR efforts and the merits of these efforts.

Against the background of actively promoting the reform of mixed ownership in China, this study regards government ownership in private sector enterprises (PSEs) as an important political connection mechanism and examines private holding listed companies in high-polluting industries that sold China A-shares from 2012 to 2019.

Using regression models such as Tobit and negative binomial estimation, the research empirically examines the impact of government ownership in PSEs on the corporate fulfillment of their environmental responsibilities.

Government ownership can effectively promote PSEs to fulfill their environmental responsibilities. Government ownership, as a corporate-level political connection mechanism, enables the government to provide firms with more environmental protection subsidies and environmental tax incentives, encouraging firms to fulfill their environmental responsibilities. When considering the policy risks faced by PSEs, government ownership effectively reduces the impact of policy uncertainty on firms’ fulfillment of environmental responsibilities. Additionally, verifying the economic development level of the city in which the firm is located makes the positive impact of government ownership on fulfillment of environmental responsibilities of PSEs in regions with lower economic development levels more significant.

Unlike existing studies that generally use the personal political identity of entrepreneurs to measure the political connections of PSEs, this study regards government ownership in PSEs as an important political connection mechanism. It provides a useful reference for China to formulate environmental protection policies for PSEs.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the authors elaborate on why American businesses are often willing to advocate and deploy corporate political resources for or against specific governmental policies, but largely reluctant to engage in more general political process reform. Second, the authors introduce a set of ideas encouraging a business-driven political process reform in the USA, which the authors refer to as Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR).

This paper reviews existing literature on why firms generally avoid advocating for political process reform to identify several firm-level impediments to such action. As an outcome of that review, a CPR governance concept – a derivative from the corporate responsibility literature – is proposed and unpacked as a proposition that if adopted by firms would encourage and support business-driven process reform advocacy.

The primary findings are that American firms lack a rationale justifying business political activity into the political process arena; a willingness to assume a high level of political risk associated with political process intervention; and an executable corporate mechanism for doing so.

A second stage build out of the paper would involve at a minimum multiple research interviews with corporate executives and trade association officials to test the viability of the CPR proposal as to whether or not the proposed governance statement would liberate firms to advocate political process reform. This paper sets the predicate for additional research.

This paper may well be the first to identify the concept of CPR as a key corporate governance proposition. It is also likely the first to conceptualize CPR as more than a theoretical rendering – it is executable. Corporations can put CPR into practice through a firm’s Board of Directors endorsing a governance statement – Corporate Political Responsibility Protocol (CPR/P) – that transforms the CPR concept into a sanctioned firm activity, giving executives significant latitude to spend corporate resources advocating political process change. This paper suggests a variety of reform possibilities – electoral, campaign finance and legislative – that could benefit from business reform advocacy.

Although various studies have investigated the corporate political activity (CPA), however, there is no definite report which shows its effect on the public policy outcome or the organization’s performance. Hence, the political effects of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) have garnered a lot of recent interest since the CSR included activities which have an intended or an unintended effect on the CPA–corporate financial performance (CFP) link. We use data made available by the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, while the CSR indices were gathered from the Fortune Magazine’s most admired companies from 2007 to 2016. We analyzed the relationship between the organization’s CPA and CFP, with the help of the dynamic panel data system generalized method of moment (GMM) estimation. Their results showed that the CPA did not improve the firm’s performance. Moreover, CPA and CSR are substitute in affecting financial performance, because they are essentially exclusive investments that require resources but do not have synergies.

Drawing on Fairclough (1989, 2005), the purpose of this paper is to explore how respect for human rights is emerging and being operationalized in the discourse of 30 Fortune 500 companies in the mining, pharmaceutical and chemical industries at two key points in the recent evolution of the UN’s business and human rights agenda. Specifically the paper explores the scope of rights for which corporations are accountable and, more specifically, the degree of responsibility a company assumes for enacting these rights.

The authors draw on Fairclough (1992) and Mashaw (2007) in a critical discourse analysis of corporate human rights disclosures of ten companies in each of the chemical, mining and pharmaceutical industries at two points in time coinciding with: first, the publication in 2008 of the Protect, Respect, Remedy policy framework; and second, the endorsement by the UN in 2011, of a set of Guiding Principles designed to implement this framework.

The study finds four grammars of respect and three different scopes of rights within specific corporate accountably disclosures on their responsibility to respect rights. Corporate constructions of human rights are broad: from labour rights, through social and political rights, to the right to health and a clean environment. The corporate discourse is one of promoting, realizing and upholding rights that construct the corporation as an autonomous source of power beyond the state.

The paper contends that the structuring of this emerging discourse is important, not only because the meaning and scope of corporate respect for rights affects the lived experience of some of the most vulnerable in society, but also because it reflects a shifting the relationship between the state, business and society (Muchlinski 2012).

The authors develop a way of conceptualizing business human rights responsibilities and contend that the corporate human rights discourse of respect reflects a significant reconfiguration of political power.

This chapter seeks to examine the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Kenya and evaluate whether the practices of CSR evidenced in Kenya resonates with the needs and aspirations of the people or has been caricatured from the West. The chapter epistemologically examines CSR and tilts this approach to Kenya and how Kenyan indigenous organisations are practising it. There is no denying that the West has been significant in shaping the frameworks of the contemporary CSR agenda thus making its definition not African. It is important to realise that there is no homogeneity in terms of the needs and realities between developed and developing countries. In this regard, any attempts to homogenise the conceptualisation of CSR cannot hold water due to disparities in the cultural underpinnings. A common understanding in the scholarship on CSR is that it is culturally determined. Most multinational organisations operating in Africa have always practised the kind of CSR that mostly resonates with the West rather than Africa. The organisation’s mandate is not only to make profits but also to increase and strike a balance of the needs and interests of the stakeholders. Through desktop research, published scholarly articles were analysed and it was established that there is no African CSR. The one practised in Kenya and the other parts of the African continent is a caricature of the Global North which does not conform to the needs, realities, and expectations of Africans.

Considering the ongoing debate regarding the roles of business in society, this paper aims to examine the managerial understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Nepal.

This study uses explanatory sequential design under mixed methods of research. First, the questionnaire survey method was used to collect data from 168 managers of listed companies in Nepal. Second, semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 senior-level managers of listed companies to verify the results obtained from the survey and to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena.

The survey results show that managerial understanding of CSR is mainly guided by the notions of corporate philanthropy, stakeholder approach and political CSR, respectively. However, the managerial understanding vis-à-vis political CSR and corporate philanthropy were found to be remarkably positively influenced by the firm’s size, whereas the stakeholder perspective was widely held by the managers regardless of their firm’s size. The interview results largely substantiated questionnaire survey findings and further revealed vivid dimensions within the philanthropic approach, stakeholder approach and political CSR.

Given the recent legal provisions vis-à-vis mandatory CSR spending in Nepal, the policymakers may devise and update common core and firm-size-specific informational, fiscal-economic, legal and partnering instruments based on the findings of this study. Besides, companies may go for appropriate institutional arrangements for CSR as needed.

The reaffirmation of conventionally accepted roles and the approval of relatively nascent political roles of business in a distinct socio–political–legal–economic context of Nepal can be an important contribution to the literature.

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.

There are no management decisions deprived of ethical or political consequences. Political corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been highlighting this assertion but research at the microlevel on this topic is scarce. This study aims to contribute to the microlevel research by proposing a behavioral framework where leaders’ political skills are determinants of engagement in strategic CSR and perceived CSR leverages their ascribed legitimacy to perform a political role outside the boundaries of the organizations.

Building upon political CSR and critical realism theories, this study offers a general review on key political CSR microlevel concepts and examines multiple dimensions of CSR to explain the indirect effect between boards' political skills and political legitimacy.

This research suggests that high politically skilled leaders are associated to more CSR adoption which fosters higher legitimacy to act as political influencers. Among these, CSR activities directed toward community members and employees are seemingly the most successful from a political standpoint.

This study proposes a contemporary form of political influence to business leaders that, in contrast with other strategies such as lobbying or financing political campaigns, does not end up damaging corporate image and reputation. Also, this study proposes that not all CSR activities leverage corporate political legitimacy per se, therefore they do need to be differentiated. This study then offers a comprehensive future research agenda, including detailed suggestions for research designs and measurements.