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The purpose of this paper is to illuminate light on the assessment of operating efficiency of specialty coffee retailers from the perspective of socially responsible global sourcing. This paper evaluates the impact of socially responsible sourcing on the operating efficiencies of specialty coffee retailers before and after implementing fair‐trade practices and compares the operating efficiencies of fair‐trade coffee retailers to those of non‐fair‐trade coffee retailers.

The paper proposes data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure the comparative efficiency of seven specialty coffee retailers, relative to prior periods and their key competitors. It develops the Charnes‐Cooper‐Rhodes (CCR) model that is designed to derive weights without their being fixed in advance. The CCR version of DEA is adopted to assess the impact of the coffee retailers' policy initiatives (i.e. fair‐trade practices) on their efficiency and measure the change over time (i.e. before and after fair‐trade practices) efficiency of the coffee retailers. As a post hoc DEA analysis, it also performs non‐parametric rank sum statistical tests for any discernable group differences between fair‐trade coffee retailers and non‐fair‐trade coffee retailers.

The study found that a group of coffee retailers committed to socially responsible sourcing (i.e. fair‐trade) practices tended to perform significantly better than the group which has yet to commit socially responsible sourcing practices with a concern over increased purchasing price. Also, it was found that a premium purchasing price paid to fair‐trade coffee beans did not undermine the coffee retailer's comparative operating efficiency despite its adverse impact on purchasing cost. In other words, a cost increase resulting from socially responsible business conducts might have been offset by the revenue increase resulting from favorable brand recognition attached to social responsibility.

This study is the first attempt to assess the impact of socially responsible sourcing practices on the multinational firms (MNFs) such as specialty coffee retailers' competitiveness and then investigate whether the MNF's commitment to socially responsible sourcing practices can be developed into its long‐term strategic weapon. In addition, it helps specialty coffee retailers formulate future global sourcing strategies by providing the detailed picture of how socially responsible sourcing can impact their competitiveness.

Drawing on the “ISO 26000: 2010 – Guidance on social responsibility” handbook, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which Bangladeshi small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) are incorporating social responsibility (SR)/sustainability into their regular business activities. It is also aimed at providing insights into how Bangladeshi SME owner-managers perceive the concept of SR, and exploring the key drivers of and barriers to socially responsible and sustainable business practices.

A mixed-method research was carried out in two sequential phases. During the first phase, 110 printed questionnaires (59 of which were eventually used) were distributed among the owner-managers of the selected SMEs. The second phase involved seven in-depth semi-structured interviews.

The findings reconfirm the existence of the so called “attitude-behaviour” gap. The barriers that hinder the sustainable engagement of SMEs include corruption, a weak regulatory environment, inefficient or ill-suited government and external support and a lack of awareness of the environmental aspects of SR. In addition, this research reveals that Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs do, to a certain degree, implement SR; only those few issues that suit the owner-managers’ personal motives are addressed, while many others (e.g. environmental issues) are neglected. Finally, it has been found that the business type and size, and the owner-managers’ educational attainments have no significant influence on the degree of adoption of socially responsible business practices by Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs.

This paper develops a tool suited to meaningfully assess the socially responsible and sustainable business activities of SMEs. By using the four key elements identified in ISO 26000, namely, labour practices, the environment, consumer issues and community involvement and development, and by using an innovative and effective technique, a sustainability score and implementation level were calculated quantitatively for the selected SMEs. The tool developed here can be used to study the sustainability related issues faced by SMEs based in other low-income developing countries.

This article examines the role of business leadership in the coming decade with respect to social responsibility. It is argued, herein, that the successful leadership agenda in the coming decade will, to a greater degree than today, be shaped by the leader’s ability to take an active and constructive part in the society in which the business operates. The premises for putting forward this hypothesis are that the excesses of the 1990s are over, and the geopolitical, the economic, and the ecological environments offer challenges not seen for a long time in business. Socially responsible leadership in the coming decade will not only be about doing business, but also about questioning how this business is done and how value is created. In an increasingly complex environment, the integrity of the single business leader will matter, as will his or her ability to see the overall role of his or her company in the society in which it operates. Leaders are, to some degree, reflections of what their societies want from them. This paper points to a number of trends where public expectations today call for more social responsibility from commercial players. There are companies showing the way and taking the lead in meeting those expectations, and thereby setting new requirements for business leadership in the coming decade. Even though it is a debated issue, this article concludes that socially responsible leadership will be the answer in meeting those growing expectations. It is also concluded herein that most business leaders will be able to rise to the challenges in the coming decade, as they have before.

This paper examines the role of government procurement as a social policy mechanism within a multilateral open trading system. Government regulations globally are being transformed to foster more responsible business conduct in multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, concern that sustainability may present a discriminatory barrier to trade has stalled the progress of sustainable public procurement (SPP) at the international level, raising questions regarding the role and scope of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) to align taxpayer-funded contracts with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

With a focus on social sustainability, this paper reviews the grey and academic literature to assess the changing landscape of public procurement policy and supply chain legislation in high-income countries.

Frontrunner nations are adopting a mandatory approach to sustainable public procurement and due diligence legislation is elevating supply chain risk from reputational damage to legal liability. While technological innovation and the clean, green production of manufactured goods dominates the sustainable public procurement literature, the social aspects of sustainability poverty, inequality and human rights remain underrepresented.

The scope of this paper is limited to the examination of government procurement covered by the WTO-GPA (2012). Smaller value contracts, under the WTO-GPA thresholds and the category of defence are beyond the scope of the paper.

The paper focusses on the underserved topic of social sustainability in business-to-government (B2G) – business to government – supply chains arguing that for responsible business conduct to become a competitive advantage, it must be more meaningfully rewarded on the demand-side of all taxpayer-funded contracts in organisation for economic co-operation and development countries. The paper introduces the idea of priceless procurement as a mechanism to build system capacity in the evaluation of non-financial sustainability objectives.

To build the capacity to stimulate competition based on social and environmental policy objectives, the paper introduces the concept of priceless procurement in B2G contracts.

The purpose of this study is to show how socially responsible investment (SRI) could represent a powerful tool (trust recovering in political and economic institutions) in the case of failure or stagnation of economic and financial growth. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the current status of SRI in the context of the recent financial and economic crises. The main objective of this analysis is to consider the different benefits and challenges that this type of investment transactions bring into the international economy, and how SRI entrance could represent a major benefit not only for investors a different approach to corporate sustainability but as an important possibility in times of global economic and political crisis.

By analysing the literature about SRI, it has been developed a discussion regarding its benefits and obstacles in today’s financial scenario. By evaluating the performance of SRI in the context of the global financial crisis and the important opportunities regarding development, we would like to present the SRI as an important tool in today’s Post 2015 development agenda.

After revising the existent literature, it has been found that there are two important discussions in the field of SRI. The first one is related with the financial performance of SRI in contrast with the conventional investment funds while the second one is related with important considerations about the SRI in the context of the global financial crisis. After considering the arguments from the different authors, we address some conclusions regarding the importance of SRI in nowadays sustainable development discussion.

Due to failure in the traditional modus operandi of financial institutions and the recent global crises, investors, corporate executives and governments are increasingly paying more attention on the social, environmental and ethical behaviour of individual managers, shareholders and institutional investors. Therefore, it is being observed a shift and maturing process in SRI from an exclusive practice of few and specialised niche investment funds with minor financial implications and limited economic importance, to mainstream adopted by a growing number of institutional investors at the international level. This shift may influence companies and managers to adopt universal values and to assume a committed and strategic CSR agenda to respond to markets and societal expectations, in order to have guilt-free and sustainable investment and sustainable financial markets.

Within the context of the Post 2015 development agenda, the role of business and the private sector has become crucial for funding the new sustainable development goals (SDGs). This chapter not only discussed the relationship between SRI as an alternative to overcome financial crises and lack of sustainability in investment, but it does also conceptually demonstrates the potential of SRI to achieve the funding of the SDGs.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that in times of economic constraints particularly in countries such as Greece that have long been stereotyped as corrupt, business practices amongst small- and medium-sized organisations that make up the majority of these nations’ tourism operators may become less than ethical or legal. The purpose of this paper is to explore these issues empirically in order to understand the impact of both cultural values and economic constraints on tourism businesses’ practices.

An exploratory case study using mixed methods has been adopted. Quantitative data were gathered from tourism business owners, managers and employees via questionnaires to establish the nature and scope of various unethical, illegal or immoral practices. Qualitative data were gathered to explore the ways these issues are considered and enacted.

Results show that there are many unethical and illegal practices that have been witnessed first-hand. Businesses’ attempts at acting in an ethical and socially responsible manner tend to be affected by not only cultural issues, but also economic constraints, yet there remains a desire to act in a way that does not impact negatively on tourists or on the local society and environment.

This research fills a gap in the literature relating to the ethical stance and practices of tourism entrepreneurs. It also presents an original conceptualisation of these issues in light of their location within the extant literature on ethics, corporate social responsibility and both sustainable and responsible tourism.

The prime objective of this study is to investigate the moderating influence of executive and independent female directors on the relationship between remuneration packages (CEO and executive director) and socially responsible practices (marketplace, environment, community, workplace and money spent on CSR) of 483 Malaysian listed firms during 2006–2017.

The dynamic estimator, namely, system generalized method of moments (GMM) given by Blundell and Bond (1998) has been employed on the dataset to control dynamic endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity and simultaneity problems.

Findings indicate that there is a significant relationship between remuneration patterns of CEOs and executive directors and socially responsible activities. In the same way, executive board gender diversity significantly, whereas independent board gender diversity insignificantly moderates the remuneration and CSR nexus.

This study is particularly significant for regulatory bodies of Malaysia, e.g. Securities Commission Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia, policy makers, investors and managers. For academia, this study fetches support from agency theory, stakeholder theory and upper echelons theory and presents integrated theoretical approach to be considered for future research.

This paper is unique in providing empirical evidence on the moderating effect of both executive and independent women directors on the relationship between remuneration patterns of CEOs and executive directors and independent CSR activities for the first time. Moreover, this study has sourced several theoretical and practical implications. And, the study employs dynamic estimator for precise and concrete results.

In the past hundred years, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has seen a remarkable development with various notions of “what is the right thing to do” for the corporations in that era. This paper aims to highlight the journey of CSR staring from an “abstract concept” in the early twentieth century to a well-recognised and “expected business practice” in the present.

This paper presents a meta-analysis of the relevant CSR literature and finds 12 common themes emerging in different periods. This is presented in a chronological order starting from early 1920 to the present day for ease of understanding. The literature chosen is intentionally broad as not to miss a clear view of the times and the themes in CSR discourse.

The concept of CSR was viewed as a “social obligation” in the earlier literature (1920s-1960s), as the businesses were thought to operate for the well-being of a community and not for the prosperity of the sole owner(s). A little later, in the 1960s and 1970s, only adoption of socially responsible activities and practices, which were voluntary and beyond legal obligation, were deemed CSR. The 1980s saw businesses trying to find a rational and financially quantifiable justification for adopting activities that were socially responsible, thus the emphasis of “corporate social performance”. The 1990s shifted the impetus on “reporting, transparency and accountability” with numerous reporting requirements. The 2000s sought a win-win situation through the development of “creating shared value” as a result of adopting CSR initiatives. The concept of CSR became an “accepted and expected business practice” in the decade of 2000, with various governments, global entities and organisations issuing their own understanding and definitions of CSR.

This research paper provides an account of the evolution in the concept of CSR in the past century which has seen numerous changes in the manner businesses conduct their operations. The identified themes are reflective of the journey of CSR. This is an informative paper which is very topical in today’s climate of stakeholder scrutiny of business’ working.