Search results

COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the lives of people and businesses around the world in different ways. France, Spain, Italy and the UK are among the worst affected countries by this pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to identify and compare different corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities taken by the clubs and player of the major football leagues of these four countries to develop a more comprehensive model of intervention.

This paper has analyzed the initiatives taken by these football clubs and players to address financial vulnerabilities, mental health problems and domestic violence among the stakeholders and compared them with the existing CSR and humanitarian models. A case study approach has been used to collect and analyze data related to the CSR activities taken by the players and club management. Official websites of the clubs, newspaper and journal articles were among the major sources used to collect data for the paper.

Football clubs and players of the four major leagues have raised funds through different campaigns and delivered foods and essential medical supplies to the communities and hospitals to address financial vulnerabilities, mental health issues and domestic violence within their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have provided guidance to their followers using social and television media to improve their physical and mental health during the pandemic. Online competitions, quizzes or virtual hangouts have also been used by the players to engage the stakeholders on a frequent basis. Football clubs have also initiated campaigns to raise awareness within the community on available medical services for the victims of domestic violence and also provided them with shelter, food, medical, legal and online counseling services.

Football clubs and players of the major leagues were always at the forefront to help the communities and hospitals to address issues related to mental health problems, financial vulnerabilities and domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this paper could help and guide other entities in designing a more comprehensive model of CSR interventions during pandemics or crisis situations to address financial vulnerabilities, mental health problems and domestic violence within their communities.

This paper aims to understand how companies addressed and revisited their sustainable development goals (SDGs) engagement during COVID-19.

The study conducts semi-structured interviews with the sustainability managers of 16 Italian listed companies acting for the accomplishment of the SDGs. Then, the interviews’ transcripts and the companies’ sustainability reports were thematically analysed to tease out relevant findings.

The findings show that companies have intensified their SDGs efforts during COVID-19, implementing an approach closer to the “Sustainability for Braving Crisis”. The findings unveil the transformational mechanisms which determined and facilitated this improvement at three levels of the business SDGs engagement: “WHY” (general awareness and motivations), “HOW” (governance mechanisms, organizational structure and stakeholder dialogue) and “WHAT” (SDGs identification and prioritization and actions for the SDGs). These findings uncover the mechanisms through which a global crisis may prompt and catalyse sustainable business practices, acting as i) an inspirational and empowering event, ii) an organisational lever and iii) a reference point.

This research has important implications for practice and policy, as it offers managers and stakeholders guidance to understand how companies have reshaped their sustainability practices during the pandemic and drives future corporate responses in times of crisis.

This study shows that a crisis may be a powerful lever to intensify business sustainability practices towards a better contribution to the SDGs.

This study focuses on how companies have revised their SDGs practices when faced with a global crisis such as COVID-19.

This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the sustainability of sports business models by means of a specific case analysis, conducted on M-I Stadio S.r.l., the service management firm that provides all types of backstage activities related to football matches performed at San Siro Stadium in Italy.

Building on interviews on its management team's direct experience and on archival data, the authors depict the consequences of the pandemic in terms of corporate governance, accounting choices and overall strategic business development through information triangulation from a forward-looking perspective.

Complying with restrictions, M-I Stadio S.r.l. preserved its financial position by embracing digitalization, increasing information flows with partners and adopting a risk aversion behaviour. Overall, results indicate that the pandemic played a catalyst role in the transformation process of the football industry. Moreover, apart from the physical and virtual merge acceleration, well-being for athletes, society and the planet, transcending the gaming part of sports activities has also been taking place. The study also illustrates the foreseeable developments of sustainable sport management practices from a critical perspective.

Since the San Siro Stadium management company might represent one of the forefront companies, within the sports industry, this study results should be conveniently taken into consideration by sporting authorities and international bodies, emphasizing the relevance of sustainability (i.e. environmental and social practices within the sports industry) and digitalization so as to better prepare sports organizations and to provide the overall industry with the tools deemed necessary to navigate this important transition in a smoother way.

This study aims to explore the mediating effect of the top-performing environmental, sustainability and governance (ESG) company’s corporate reputation and sustainability practices in translating corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices into competitive performance in an emerging economy like India.

The hypotheses proposed for this study were validated using partial least squares-based structural equation modeling on data obtained from the chief financial officers of the 122 top-performing ESG companies in India using a self-administered questionnaire.

According to the findings of this research, the relationship between CSR practices and the competitive performance of the top-performing ESG companies in India is partially mediated by corporate reputation and sustainability practices.

The findings of this study indicate that the corporate reputation of a company and sustainability measures accepted by an organization can improve an organization’s competitive position. Because there has been so little research done on India, this study has the potential to be regarded as a pioneering effort. It can provide a foundation for businesses operating in India to improve their competitive advantage by emphasizing their corporate reputation and sustainable business practices in addition to the CSR activities undertaken.

The purpose of this study is threefold. The first is to conduct a comprehensive examination of the various board attributes to corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the Chinese technology industry. The second is to investigate the impact of ownership and board attributes on CSR. The third is to examine the moderating effect of media reporting on the relationship between CSR and company financial performance.

All A-share listed Chinese companies during the years 2011–2019 with 1,573 firm-year observations have been investigated for this study. The data are analysed by CSR metrics in the form of environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores using an ordinary least squares regression analysis and fixed effect regression models.

The results of this longitudinal study reveal that; no matter whether the companies are state-own or non-state-own, there is a significant positive effect of board independence, monetary incentives, director’s age and board size on the CSR disclosure of the Chinese technology industry. Also, the results support the importance of CSR performance in promoting the corporate financial performance (CFP) of the technology sector. Specifically, media reporting has a positive impact on the CSR reporting of both state-own and non-state-own technological companies in China.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study based on the ESG metrics for analysing the CSR and firm performance relationship conducted in the unique setting of the state-own and non-state-own technological companies in China. The study is an attempt to fill the gap in the extant literature, which has a scarce number of studies focused on the influence of media reporting on the relationship between CSR performance and CFP. This paper not only updates the existing understanding of CSR performance by board attributes and company ownership but also explains the significance of media reporting in enhancing the CSR performance of the Chinese technology industry.

This paper aims to analyze unexplored connections between economic, environmental and social dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and knowledge management (KM) strategies (exploration, exploitation), also considering environmental dynamism as an influencing variable on these connections. The predicted CSR-KM interplay suggests, from stakeholder and knowledge-based views of the firm, the existence of ideal configurations between CSR and KM strategies that generate differentiated impacts on companies’ innovation capabilities, especially in dynamic environments.

Structural equation modeling by means of the partial least squares technique was used to test the study’s hypotheses after collecting survey data from Spanish companies of the renewable energy sector.

The study findings show that in highly dynamic environments, companies will tend to commit prominently in CSR, although their orientation (economic, environmental, social) and effects on innovation capabilities will depend mainly on the selected KM strategies. Social and environmental CSR are found to be highly related to KM exploration, whereas economic CSR is highly related to KM exploitation. Nevertheless, while a significant indirect effect of economic CSR by means of the KM exploitation strategy on innovation capabilities is found, the proposed indirect effect of both environmental and social CSR through the KM exploration strategy on innovation capabilities is not significant.

The results suggest that company managers should be aware of the advantages of following specific paths of investment in KM and CSR initiatives in highly dynamic environments, as there is a potential payoff in terms of innovation capability improvement. The results also suggest that “good” relationships with stakeholders, built from specific CSR investments, make firms able to get valuable knowledge that it is useful to develop KM strategies for innovation capability development.

Previous studies do not consider the interplay between KM strategies and CSR as a catalyzer for developing a firm’s innovation capabilities. This paper contributes to the KM and innovation literatures by introducing CSR into the conversation about how to improve innovation capabilities in dynamic and sustainable industries by using configurations of KM strategies and specific CSR investments in economic, social and environmental areas.

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.

Businesses embark on corporate social responsibility initiatives such as cause-related marketing (CRM) as a strategy to enhance behavioural intentions. This study was undertaken due to the limited ability of the existing CRM literature to directly examine whether and how consumers’ trust affects the donation intention, specifically in the private-label grocery retailing context. This study employs social identity theory as a unified theory to explain the variables adopted and contributes to the body of knowledge on CRM-linked private-label consumption.

This study used SPSS 25 and AMOS to analyse the quantitative data. The structural equation modelling was adopted to test moderation and mediation effect and the sample consisted of 456 private-label grocery shoppers.

The findings of this study established that general trust in CRM alone would not translate into triggering donation intentions for CRM private-label brands and further validates the mediating role of trust in retailers’ CRM campaigns (TRCC) in shaping monetary donation intentions. Moreover, religious values confirmed a significant moderating role while translating TRCC to donation intention.

The limitation of this study was the restricted focus on private labels. This research may be limited to only one private-label packaged product but may focus on other private-label products in future research.

This study has practical significance for advertising managers in designing and implementing campaigns. More specifically, it establishes that consumers who trust the CRM phenomenon and seek private-label products associated with CRM campaigns are likely to provide monetary donations towards non-profit organization (NPOs).

This information will help practitioners, including grocery retailers, NPO managers and advertising professionals, design effective CRM campaigns for private-label products by understanding the fundamental relationship between trust in CRM campaigns and monetary donation intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of government support and technology usage on family business entrepreneurial intention. The paper also investigates the moderating impacts of gender on the family business entrepreneurial intention with its two predictors.

This paper has used both resource-based view and dynamic capability view theory as well as literature on family business entrepreneurship to develop the theoretical model. Later, the theoretical model has been validated using structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) with respondents from Indian family business enterprises. This study has used a purposeful and convenience sampling approach.

This study has shown the significance of technology usage as well as government support to improve the family business enterprise. The study highlights that there is a moderating impact of gender on the relationship between government support and technology usage with entrepreneurial intention in family business.

This study adds value towards body of literature in entrepreneurship, gender, and business, as well as family business literature. The study shows how gender acts as a moderator in case of family business entrepreneurship. The study is cross sectional in nature and has limited number of respondents from India. Thus, the findings cannot be generalizable.

This study is a unique study as it investigates the influence of both government support as well as technology usage by the family business firms for entrepreneurial intention. The proposed theoretical model has a high predictive power which makes the model effective. Moreover, this study also examines the moderating impacts of gender on entrepreneurial intention in the family business which adds value to the existing body of knowledge.

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of innovativeness (INN), proactiveness, (PRC) and risk-taking (RIT) on the export performance of apparel small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the role of differentiation and low-cost leadership (LCL) strategies as mediating effects between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) dimensions and the performance of exporting firms. INN, RIT and PRC are considered EO dimensions.

A cross-sectional survey was carried out by providing a questionnaire to the owners, directors and senior managers of the apparel SMEs – the primary data of 550 treated by structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for final data analysis.

The study has revealed the positive dimensional effect of EO on export performance. For the mediation effects of differentiation and LCL, differentiation strategy (DS) positively mediates between INN, PRC and export performance. However, no mediation has been found between RIT and export performance. On the other hand, LCL has found positive effects between INN, RIT and export performance. However, the mediation effect was absent between PRC and export performance.

Limitations/implications- This study has been conducted on only Muslim owners, senior export managers and directors of apparel SMEs in Bangladesh. It has examined the two main competitive strategies as a mediator between EO dimensions and export performance. The findings of this study are based on one country data analysis.

EO, differentiation and low-cost leadership (LCL) strategy are resources and capabilities of an organization to create a competitive advantage to enhance performance. The factors of this research are helpful for SME practitioners.

The direct and indirect effects (differentiation and LCL strategy) of EO dimensions on export performance in an emerging country, i.e. the South-Asia region, is a pioneer study. Therefore, current research has theoretical and managerial implications for the international business and strategic management literature.