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Business ethics provide a potent source of competitive advantage, placing increasing pressure on organizations to create and maintain an ethical workforce. Nonetheless, ethical breaches continue to permeate corporate life, suggesting that there is something missing from how we conceptualize and institutionalize organizational ethics. The current effort seeks to fill this void in two ways. First, we introduce an extended ethical framework premised on sensemaking in organizations. Within this framework, we suggest that multiple individual, organizational, and societal factors may differentially influence the ethical sensemaking process. Second, we contend that human resource management plays a central role in sustaining workplace ethics and explore the strategies through which human resource personnel can work to foster an ethical culture and spearhead ethics initiatives. Future research directions applicable to scholars in both the ethics and human resources domains are provided.

The argument that applications of social network research tools and theories to stakeholder research will advance our understanding of how organizations should and do interact with their stakeholders and how stakeholders influence organizations has been well known for over 15 years. However, the integration of social network analysis and stakeholder research has been limited to date. To motivate stakeholder network research, I illustrate the similarities and complementarities between these research streams, arguing that the social network perspective tackles weaknesses in stakeholder models supporting the creation of more fruitful models of organization–stakeholder environments. I illustrate how stakeholder power and legitimacy, and focal organization obligations can be better modeled theoretically and measured empirically using social network concepts and techniques.

Based on stakeholder theory, human resource management literature, and the main research streams on engagement, this study aims to develop and validate a scale of stakeholder engagement specifically suitable for the social enterprise domain. Despite the evidence that stakeholder management is crucial and specific for the social enterprise domain, there is not yet an established measure of stakeholder engagement that can be used to foster the design of the effective organizational practices to manage the specific stakeholder relationship in the social enterprise context.

A survey among 328 social enterprise stakeholders working in a variety of enterprises, roles, jobs (i.e., employees, social entrepreneurs, and volunteers) enables us to validate a comprehensive and multidimensional scale of stakeholder engagement.

The new measure includes dimensions of job, enterprise, organizational formula, professional, and social engagement. Results advance some practical and theoretical considerations both for the social enterprise research and for the engagement literature.

Drawing on theories of organisational identity, social exchange and stakeholder engagement, this study aims to investigate the processes and practices involved in the formation and shaping of identities of social enterprises (SEs) that operate in the Malawian hospitality and tourism industry.

Drawing on an interpretive research paradigm, data collected from 22 semi-structured interviews with four founders of case SEs and stakeholders, and SEs’ reports and other publicly available documents were generated and analysed following a grounded theory approach.

The authors show that the trajectory SEs followed and the exchanges that occurred with the external stakeholders allowed three out of four case SEs to swiftly re-evaluate their pre-existing identities and work towards the formation of their new identities.

This study provides an opportunity for policymakers and other actors in developing countries to frame and place SEs in line with the wider societal realities in such contexts. This may in turn call for policymakers to increase actors’ engagement with SEs and provide the necessary support that can allow SEs to be an effective force for the public good.

This paper highlights the role of exchanges with external stakeholders in identity formation and shaping within SEs in the hospitality and tourism sector in the context of institutional voids. By adopting the social exchange theory, this paper introduces a dynamic lens to identity formation and shaping and helps to explain how, across different tourism ventures, stakeholder engagement and different modes of exchange unfold in the inter-organisational and community domains. It further shows how the ventures’ value orientations on the one hand, and stakeholder engagement practices and the ensuing exchanges, on the other hand, are closely interwoven.

The purpose of this paper is to reviews some of the learnings, challenges and solutions suggested by the article author regarding the role of implementing emotional intelligence by corporate social responsible (CSR) leaders and offers ideas for future research. The aim is to offer a positive conclusion to the problems and their solutions.

The study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence and effective CSR leadership. The author evaluates the body of research on the issue and provides a reassuring assessment of the problems and recommendations.

Having emotional intelligence is essential for executives who wish to implement successful CSR initiatives. It allows CEOs to create a culture of social responsibility inside their organizations, highlight the importance of CSR initiatives and strengthen relationships with stakeholders. Key emotional intelligence traits, including self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills, are necessary for effective CSR leadership.

The study focuses on the role of emotional intelligence in corporate social responsibility leadership, offering a unique perspective on the subject. It also explores practical solutions and ideas for future research, adding originality and value to the existing body of literature on emotional intelligence and CSR leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to model the role that stakeholders, and especially social responsible consumers play in the process of finding a win–win solution to control production related negative externalities. In this regard, when information asymmetries are present and consumers become knowledgeable about them, consumers with d-preferences for corporate social responsibility (CSR) type of products becomes the driver of the firm strategy.

To accomplish the goals of this paper, the authors proceed to develop a series of theoretical models wherein the social gains and costs of alternative modes of intervention are illustrated. The authors begin with a standard Pigouvian tax model and construct a stakeholder equivalent tax model and finalize the analysis with consumers acting in a shared social responsible behavior with firms as the optimal solution model.

The authors show that proactive disclosure of information asymmetries regarding negative externalities develops a shared social responsibility between consumers and firms. Market-based solutions to the externality problem are achieved under this setting. This solution is preferred to a Pigouvian tax and to a stakeholder equivalent tax. It is concluded that shared social responsibility is the result of the interaction of consumers with d-preferences and the reaction of a socially responsible “firm” willing, and the authors are able to incorporate these preferences as drivers for its strategy.

The main limitation of this paper is in its theoretical nature and specific applications to one case, that of negative externalities in production processes. The implication of this is that the model herein developed needs to be put to the empirical test.

The overall social implications indicate that active reduction of information asymmetries is welfare improving and preferred to government intervention.

This paper is original as it makes use of economic principles to develop a parsimonious model to demonstrate that proactive actions of a firm in response to consumers and stakeholders demands leads to an overall social welfare improvement when negative externalities deriving from production are incorporated into the decision making process of both consumers and firms. These decisions prove superior to government regulations.

Examining a three‐year disclosure experience of a sample of Fortune 100 global companies, the paper aims to propose and test a model that relates the structure of CSR disclosure to corporate social performance. Based on the results obtained, it proposes to draw implications for emerging economies.

Combining content analysis of CSR reports and corporate social performance data, the paper built a longitudinal dataset starting from the population of worldwide companies included in the AccountAbility Rating between 2004 and 2007. Longitudinal regression analysis is performed on a final sample size of 114 firm‐year observations involving 38 firms over a three‐year period.

The paper finds evidence that the level of disclosure does not improve firm ability to manage stakeholders. However, a finer‐grained analysis of the structure of disclosure shows that better social performers are those who increased the breadth of their disclosure to stakeholders and uniformly distributed disclosure across stakeholders.

Results provide an empirical test for the theories describing true responsible economic actors as those who are able to combine high engagement with the social context of reference and balanced coverage of diversified interests. However, the study suffers the usual limitations of content analysis‐based research, as well as exclusively relying on CSR disclosure by large corporations.

Findings suggest not only the importance of structuring the report in a comprehensive way, and extending coverage to multiple stakeholders and related issues, but also the need for balance between informative needs, thus avoiding concentrated structures. Accordingly, companies that report on more themes, presenting a balanced and comprehensive product, develop a better ability to manage their stakeholder network, thus gaining higher corporate social performance.

The study seeks to revisit the relation between CSR disclosure and corporate social performance, answering the request for more rigorous measures. It goes beyond the level of disclosure as a comprehensive proxy of firm‐stakeholder dialogue and demonstrates how a finer‐grained analysis of the structure of disclosure can be a better predictor of superior performance.

This paper uses a stakeholder framework to review the empirical literature on corporate social performance (CSP), focusing particularly on studies attempting to correlate social with financial performance. Results show first that most studies correlate measures of business performance that as yet have no theoretical relationship (for example, the level of corporate charitable giving with return on investment). To make sense of this body of research, CSP studies must be integrated with stakeholder theory. Multiple stakeholders (a) set expectations for corporate performance, (b) experience the effects of corporate behavior, and (c) evaluate the outcomes of corporate behavior. However, we find that the empirical CSP literature mismatches variables in terms of which stakeholders are relevant to which kind of measure. Second, only the studies using market‐based variables and theory show a consistent relationship between social and financial performance, particularly those showing a negative abnormal return to the stock price of companies experiencing product recalls. Although this paper shows that the CSP construct is not yet well‐specified enough to produce stronger results, recent research suggests that much progress is being made both empirically and theoretically in developing valid and reliable measures of corporate social performance.

The paper aims to explore and analyze how multinational companies (MNCs) in Bangladesh define corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how CSR is used by these companies as a strategic tool to improve business and social performances.

The authors choose a qualitative case study approach for this study, using multiple semi-structured interviews with 15 CSR managers and secondary data from websites and annual reports. Both primary and secondary data were collected from ten leading MNCs that operate in Bangladesh.

The findings indicate that most of the MNCs in Bangladesh are moving toward strategic CSR and away from the conventional altruistic (philanthropic) CSR. It also appears that stakeholder prioritization and one-way communication are key for managing stakeholders.

The most unavoidable limitation of this research lies in sample selection. A total of ten companies were selected because of lack of accessibility to additional MNCs. To overcome this limitation and increase the credibility of findings, the authors triangulate interview and secondary data from annual reports and websites.

The findings indicate that MNCs are increasingly recognizing the importance of using their core competencies to generate social benefits. The idea of adopting strategic CSR is predominantly steered by business benefits, which also provide the necessary resources for social and environmental activities

The findings suggest that the shift from philanthropy to strategic postures leads to creating and fostering social benefits such as developing an entrepreneurial spirit and empowering women.

MNCs operating in Bangladesh are gradually departing from philanthropy and moving toward strategic CSR by aligning business strategies with CSR. Transition from philanthropy to strategic CSR also reflects on MNCs’ CSR definitions, which include various dimensions such as social, stakeholders and sustainability, except philanthropy. In Bangladesh, where CSR was previously viewed as philanthropic activity, the findings make important contributions to the extant literature, particularly international CSR strategic literature, and can be useful for future research in other developing countries.