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The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychological strategies as well as the rhetorical and discursive arguments developed in organizations and by individuals when they have to cope with the paradoxes and changes related to CSR.

This study uses the perspective of the paradox as an analytical framework to parse strategies developed in organizations as they cope with tensions and changes related to CSR. The authors conducted 50 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and the authors performed a qualitative analysis with the information compiled.

The main strategies for dealing with CSR paradoxes and changes consist of developing perceptual and motivational biases as well as explicative heuristic ones through which, from a discursive perspective, a coherent and conciliatory framework is presented with rhetoric that play a fundamental role in justifying CSR as a present hope over a future illusion regardless of the past reality.

The lesson to be drawn from the exploration is the following: managers and CSR officers need to leave behind fear, anxiety and defensive attitudes and accept the paradox by re-contextualizing the tension as a stimulus for conscious and reflexive confrontation with emotional equilibrium, this being defiantly motivating as a sensemaker. In this way, the approach to the present inconsistencies in CSR should not involve a dismissal of conflictive situations but rather the development of the capacity to transcend the tension emanating from them and to learn to manage organizations from this paradoxical reality.

The purpose of this article is to identify the impact of differing teaching contexts on the approaches to learning of accounting undergraduates in different European countries by the use of a study process questionnaire.

The questionnaire used was Biggs’ R‐SPQ‐2F (Biggs et al.). This is a 20‐item questionnaire that identifies the learning styles of individual students in terms of deep and surface approaches.

Significant differences were found in the approaches to learning of the students in the countries concerned. The differences were rooted in two subcomponents: motive and strategy. Gender differences were also identified.

A major factor in the development process of future accountants is the education process that they undertake. This study identifies a methodology that is capable of comparing accounting students in different countries and potentially identifying the underlying reasons why the quality of the learning outcomes achieved may differ under differing educational systems.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, prioritise, and contrast the needs in terms of the development of vocational skills in final year undergraduate accounting students from two distinct countries. The study aims to survey and analyse the views of Malaysian and UK students.

A questionnaire was used to gather the data. Quantitative analysis was then used as the basis of a comparative study. The data for this study were collected via questionnaires completed by Malaysian exchange students on their arrival at UK university and the students of that UK university.

The results indicate that both sets of students accept the need to develop vocational skills in order to perform competently as an accountant. There is however clear differences in the views of the Malaysian and UK students concerning the specific skills that they perceive as being priorities to be developed. The students also hold differing views of the major barriers to the development of vocational skills in higher education.

Previous studies have established the need to prioritise vocational skills development. Studies have also established the views of employers and students. This study contrasts the views of students from two contrasting contexts. The study establishes that students from differing countries perceive differing priorities in terms of vocational skills not only between students but also between students and the currently stated views of employers and professional bodies internationally.

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has become an international instrument for carbon reporting of companies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of some factors of the institutional environment of organizations (regulatory pressure, sustainability normative demands and interconnectedness) on the evaluation obtained by Spanish companies in this project.

This paper has proceeded to make a multiple regression analysis in order to analyze the relationship between the dependent variable (“Carbon Disclosure” qualification) and independent variables (regulatory pressure, sustainability normative demands and interconnectedness) supported on the computer program Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

The results show that the interconnectedness of companies through their participation in associations that fight against climate change is the analyzed factor with a higher predictive power and statistical significance. Also, the regulatory pressure and normative demands from sustainability indexes, such as Dow Jones Sustainability Index, influence the carbon reporting of organizations participating in the CDP.

The main limitation of this paper is the reduced number of Spanish companies participating in the CDP.

This paper highlights the importance of the role developed by the associations fighting against climate change, since they allow the members to belong to a network through which they share resources, norms and values that positively and significantly influence their behaviour related to carbon reporting.

There is a traditional discrepancy in the specialized literature on how the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should be understood. Additionally, there is a further situation, which in our opinion is also contradictory; many organisations are developing CSR projects; on the other hand, there is a proliferation of news on these organizations that lead us to question what the true extent of their commitment to CSR is. To that purpose, we have developed a case study that has allowed us to verify that one of the most active organisations in Spain in terms of the CSR adopted is using it basically as a marketing instrument, since it is using its at least formal compliance with institutional rules in order to increase its legitimacy in front of its main stakeholders.

This paper aims to analyse how the components of the institutional context and the adoption patterns of business practices determine the approach to carbon reporting used by organisations.

Drawing on the New Institutional Sociology theory, this paper analyses, compares and interprets the results of the cases of four large Spanish companies which operate in different organisational fields and therefore they are subject to different institutional pressures. The results of these case studies illustrate the different approaches to carbon reporting used by organisations.

The theoretical proposal of this paper establishes that the components of the institutional context (regulative, normative and cognitive), along with the adoption pattern used by organisations to control their carbon emissions (substantive or symbolic), contribute to determining their approach to carbon reporting (outside-in, inside-out, twin-track and isolated).

The approaches to reporting and the adoption patterns have been considered independently in the previous literature, paying also scarce attention to the components of the institutional context that can have an influence on the approach to reporting used by organisations to share their environmental information. This paper contributes to bridge this gap, and its results can be of interest for supporting the decisions of policymakers, managers of organisations and society in general.

This paper aims to improve the knowledge about the strategic actions of institutional entrepreneurs in the configuration of the institutional pillars of an emerging field such as the Spanish renewable energy sector, as well as to illustrate the role of these actors in the fight against climate change.

The paper presents a single case study conducted in a company that entered the renewable energy sector in the ‘90s, and currently is a national and international reference in the generation of thermosolar power. The results of this case study are analysed and interpreted according to the New Institutional Sociology.

The paper identifies and analyses the strategic actions developed by the company to configure the regulative, normative and cognitive pillars of its institutional context, such as the establishment of inter-actors relationships, the mobilisation of constituent actors, the use of sanctions and rewards, the employment of consultants and the public dissemination of knowledge and social awareness.

The paper contributes to the development of the specialised literature about the institutional entrepreneurship which is very scarce in relation to the actions of institutional entrepreneurs in emerging fields. Likewise, this study allows managers to know the role of those entrepreneurs to configure the behaviour patterns that could be accepted and assumed by those entering the sector later on.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge about the strategies and actions that organisations are implementing to control and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to identify and know the influence of the factors that can contribute to the consolidation of an organisational behaviour that is effective in the fight against climate change.

The paper presents a case study conducted in Heineken Spain, which is primarily engaged in manufacturing and distributing beer, and some of its facilities are covered by the European Union – Emissions Trading System regulation. The results of this case study are analysed and interpreted according to institutional theory.

The paper illustrates the strategies developed by Heineken Spain in order to control and reduce their emissions and identifies these factors that are influencing on the consolidation of an effective practice in the fight against climate change: top management support, communication, training, formalization, technical/rational, internal supervision and consistency.

The paper reveals in‐depth the strategies and actions that have been implemented by an organization to fight against climate change. Also, this study allows managers to know the influence of the different factors affecting the stages of the consolidation process within the organization of an effective policy for the control and reduction of emissions, which is very useful for planning and evaluating during the process.

This paper aims to achieve a better understanding about the competitive and institutional pressures that can determine socially responsible corporate behaviours of organisations that operate in an organisational field.

The paper draws on New Institutional Sociology to analyse pressures on Spanish electricity companies to behave in socially responsible ways. Data collection covers the period 1997‐2008 and the data sources were the following: semi‐structured interviews, industrial regulation, documents, websites of organisations and associations, and informal discussions.

Socially responsible corporate behaviours of Spanish electricity companies were due not only to internal decisions based on economic rationality, but also to various institutional (coercive, normative and mimetic) pressures.

The study covers a specific organisational field, the Spanish electricity sector. Further research would be necessary in order to analyse other organisational fields and to compare the results.

Conditions under which organisations behave in socially responsible ways are contrasted in the case of Spanish electricity companies, for instance, the healthy economic environment, the monitoring of their behaviour and their participation in associations that promote Corporate Social Responsibility.

Generally, pressures of the environment on organisations to behave in socially responsible ways have received little attention and the specialised literature has focused on the individual organisation level of analysis. So, a contribution of the paper is to analyse the pressures of the competitive and institutional environment on a specific organisational field so that organisations adopt socially responsible corporate behaviours.

This paper aims to identify and analyze the factors contributing to the decision of organizations to disclose carbon information, as well as its transparency level.

The Tobit regression is used to analyze the results of the Spanish companies that were invited in 2012 to respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire. The results of this study are interpreted according to the legitimacy and stakeholder theories.

The results show that the probability of carbon disclosure and its transparency level are explained by the influence of pressures from society, markets, shareholders and international interactions. In the Spanish case, the factors that have shown a stronger influence are the size of the company, financial risk, their listing in the IBEX35 and FT500 indexes and the ownership concentration.

One of the main contributions of this study to the previous literature lies in the used research method. Thus, while previous studies analyze the factors that can determine whether companies disclose carbon information, this paper has also considered the quantification and differentiation of the effect of these factors on the probability of supplying this information, as well as obtaining a higher score in the CDP questionnaire, representing a higher transparency level in the information provided. For this objective, the usefulness of the Tobit regression is to be highlighted.