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1 – 10 of 718The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how, and how well, stakeholders make decisions about rewarding firms for acts of social responsibility and punish…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how, and how well, stakeholders make decisions about rewarding firms for acts of social responsibility and punish firms for their lack thereof.
Design/methodology/approach
The author integrates factors at the individual, firm, and industry levels that cause variation in how stakeholders attend to corporate social (ir)responsibility.
Findings
The author explicates the multi-level cognitive process stakeholders undertake in attending to firm’s actions and identifies limits on their ability to fulfill their central role in conditioning firms to be more socially responsible.
Research limitations/implications
The author outlines areas for future research that can fill gaps in the understanding of how stakeholders notice, make sense of, and respond to corporate social practices.
Social implications
The author argues that, under many conditions, business case or self-regulatory solutions may be inadequate to increase corporate social responsibility (CSR), and instead, formal regulatory solutions may prove necessary.
Originality/value
This paper brings needed structure to the literature on CSR. By delving deeper into the minds of stakeholders and outlining a multi-level cognitive process, it enables scholars to better address the key managerial issue of when, not simply whether, it pays to be good.
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Michael S. Barnett, Rodney C. Bruce, Dale K. Carrison, Jeanne DeMars, Patricia Flaherty, Linda L. Richter, Joan Roca and Donna R. Webb
The Minnesota State University System's Project for Automated Library Systems (MSUS/PALS) is a fully integrated library system that serves over 150,000 patrons on a network of 53…
Abstract
The Minnesota State University System's Project for Automated Library Systems (MSUS/PALS) is a fully integrated library system that serves over 150,000 patrons on a network of 53 state university, community college, private college, and state agency libraries throughout Minnesota.
Stakeholders hold power because they hold resources essential to firm survival. Through their exercise of this power, they produce, or not, change in business practices. The…
Abstract
Stakeholders hold power because they hold resources essential to firm survival. Through their exercise of this power, they produce, or not, change in business practices. The social movements of united individuals, as well as the non-market strategies of firms and industries designed to forestall or counter these movements, succeed or fail based on their ability to influence stakeholders. Constraints on stakeholder cognition affect how stakeholders are influenced by social movements and non-market strategy to, in turn, exercise their influence over firms. Herein, the author overviews the nature of these constraints, highlights the need for further research on stakeholder attention allocation, and discusses how the three articles in this section fit into this framework.
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Michael L. Barnett, Irene Henriques and Bryan W. Husted
In this chapter, we explain why firms selectively responding to the most powerful, legitimate, and urgent demands of their stakeholders will not bring about sustainability and…
Abstract
In this chapter, we explain why firms selectively responding to the most powerful, legitimate, and urgent demands of their stakeholders will not bring about sustainability and offer suggestions on what we should do in light of this shortcoming. Sustainability issues tend to be wicked problems that require cooperation across parties and over time to define and resolve. Stakeholder pressures can bring sustainability to the fore, but government intervention is necessary to drive meaningful action to resolve such issues. Without government intervention, self-interested stakeholders can pressure firms to move away from the complex, long-term challenges of wicked problems. Yet, stakeholder pressure is also necessary, as without it, industries may self-regulate in self-serving ways. Our analysis thus suggests that collaboration between business, government, and other stakeholders is necessary to resolve the wicked problems of sustainability. We therefore urge the stakeholder literature to move beyond its libertarian underpinnings by (re)incorporating government into models of effective corporate governance.
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The term “medical” will be interpreted broadly to include both basic and clinical sciences, related health fields, and some “medical” elements of biology and chemistry. A…
Abstract
The term “medical” will be interpreted broadly to include both basic and clinical sciences, related health fields, and some “medical” elements of biology and chemistry. A reference book is here defined as any book that is likely to be consulted for factual information more frequently than it will be picked up and read through in sequential order. Medical reference books have a place in public, school, college, and other non‐medical libraries as well as in the wide variety of medical libraries. All of these libraries will be considered in this column. A basic starting collection of medical material for a public library is outlined and described in an article by William and Virginia Beatty that appeared in the May, 1974, issue of American Libraries.
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This paper investigates the substance of institutions in the context of business ethics. In particular, I test a theory of stakeholder attention to resource commitments by firms…
Abstract
This paper investigates the substance of institutions in the context of business ethics. In particular, I test a theory of stakeholder attention to resource commitments by firms that implement the Ethics and Compliance Officer (ECO) position, from 1990 to 2008. Results support the hypothesized curvilinear relationship between resource commitments and stakeholder attention – while both high and low levels of ECO implementation generate low levels of reported ethics transgressions (the former due to good firm behavior and the latter due to stakeholder disengagement), moderate ECO implementation produces elevated transgression reports (due to raised expectations and increased engagement). Contrary to extant theory, results are consistent across both internal and external firm stakeholder groups.
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