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Despite the increased recognition and emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a topic and highly formalised CSR control systems, numerous well-publicised problems and scandals often involving multinational enterprises (MNEs) continue to emerge. These companies are mostly extrinsically motivated in CSR. They operate with highly formalised CSR systems that, in many cases, miss the prevention of anti-social and illegal behaviour. This might reflect the failure of extrinsic CSR to integrate the ethical dimension and/or the failure of intrinsic CSR to formalise and thus benefit from economies of scale. Currently, the conviction is growing that if CSR is to have a meaningful impact, it should be a matter of intrinsic motives, morale and ethical values rather than a formalised management tool. This research aims to focus on a sample of small and large companies in Switzerland, aiming at a comparison of key motives for CSR related to actual CSR implementation, performance and company size.

The study examined two groups: seven owner-managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and seven managers of MNEs. Each group met for two focus group discussions that were qualitatively and visually analysed using MAXQDA.

The results show that CSR implementation in the examined Swiss SMEs is more related to moral commitment than to profit maximisation. These companies are often driven by soft assets, such as networks, by the nexus of mission and value set; by a system of initiatives and integrated behaviour; by proximity and informal, flat organisational structures; by the aspiration and ambition of craftsmanship or excellent service (instead of profit); by community involvement; by recruiting from the local community; by the willingness to grow slowly and steadily; by the avoidance of atomic markets; and finally, by the mental set up and sociological tradition of the stewardship concept. This contrasts with the extrinsically motivated approach of the MNEs under research. While MNEs follow their approach of “ethics for the firm that must pay”, the findings here identified potential transition cases of “ethics in the firm” and “ethics of the firm” within Swiss SMEs. This is consistent with others, resembling the need of this dichotomy to be revised.

The cross-sectorial approach limits the degree to which motives can clearly be attributed to actual CSR performance or company size.

The results imply that policymakers, public institutions, scientific community, etc. should be careful when establishing systems that favour financial returns from CSR engagement, because, first, other research showed that a behaviour attributed to extrinsic motives is mostly perceived as dishonest and misleading, for instance, consumers. Second, extrinsic motivation might crowd out morale and paying lead actors for behaving altruistically or philanthropically might decline their intrinsic motivation. Notably, the crowding out of intrinsic motivation by extrinsic incentives is a phenomenon well-researched not only in regard to CSR but in various other areas linked to human behaviour. This has important implications for nearly every business operation, especially for mergers and acquisitions, as well as for the growth of businesses.

It seems unsuitable to support social goods in intrinsic CSR by the implementation of a system of financial incentives (or consequences). Thus, an economic cost-benefit is inappropriate where CSR needs an ethical stand. The difference between extrinsic and intrinsic CSR is very difficult to bridge – both have powerful incentives and drivers preventing a potential cross-over.

In sum, this study showed that CSR is meaningful and justifiable even if it is not profitable in the first place or implemented in and managed through formalised systems. This leads to two conclusions: first, care should be taken when emphasising the extrinsic approach in relation to social goods and second, the cost of a possible mismatch in a climate of ethical principles might be substantial for societies’ moral inclination.

This paper seeks to identify a requirement for a new sustainable development management system (SMS) model for global business organizations (GBOs) and proposes some essential features for such a model.

The concept is developed in four stages. First, a definition of a GBO is developed, after reviewing existing definitions and identifying their limitations. The characteristics of GBOs are reviewed, with emphasis on their implications for the management of sustainability programmes. A review of SMS literature and of existing SMS codes and standards has been made, and the limitations of existing SMSs are critically reviewed. Drawing on this three‐part analysis, a new model of an SMS suitable for use in GBOs is described.

Existing definitions of global business organizations are inadequate. Existing sustainability management systems standards and codes do not meet the requirements of global businesses (or indeed of other, regional businesses) in several respects.

The paper shows that there are special requirements for SMSs in GBOs, and that these are not met by any of the existing models or proposals in the literature. The paper proposes a new model, which combines best‐practice from existing literature with new features.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the effect of attitudes in promoting sustainable operations in hotels. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the interaction between the users' behaviour and the way energy is consumed in Greek hotels in a long‐term period.

In total, two scenarios are developed, using the Long Range Energy Alternative Planning software (LEAP). Each scenario exhibits different findings proposing significant, but easy to apply alterations to hotels. The first one is the Business as Usual (BaU) scenario, and it is developed based on the current trends in energy use in hotels. The second is the Policy scenario, which is developed based on the existing legislative framework, Greek and EU. Through interviews with open‐ended questions, hoteliers' responses reveal their views and attitudes in energy initiatives, along with the level of information they have on the existing energy legislation – Greek and European – to reduce energy consumption in buildings.

This research project, aims at identifying the hoteliers' views in applying energy efficiency measures in their facilities. The BaU scenario displays the current energy consumption in hotels, without policy interventions. The Policy scenario displays the effectiveness of each proposed measure in all services offered in hotels. This analysis provides recommendations in order to improve the current energy framework.

This methodology provides the development of a model that combines the existing energy measures considering also the end‐users' behaviour. It shows the areas that need to change in order to reduce energy consumption in the whole population of Greek hotels. It is a process that could be applied easily in other countries, not only in Greece.

This paper is a generic research analysis. The data collection has been selected for the first time from the sample of hotels. This type of research has not been developed previously in Greek hotels, since attitudes, energy consumption and measures have not been combined previously, in order to promote sustainable operations in hotels.

This paper aims to review how current policy instruments drive (or not) environmental innovation and, by doing so, to reinvestigate the relationship between innovation and regulation.

A comprehensive literature review on innovation and environmental regulation created a theoretical foundation of the paper. Using the grounded theory, a model was developed and evaluated using interviews. This is a timely topic as the new shape of recent environmental regulation appears to be fairly strict. A new model is presented to encapsulate highly dynamic interaction of environmental innovation and regulation to provide results that reflect on the present innovation behaviour and its implications.

The model highlights various diffusion pathways that are triggered by the main three drivers of innovation namely government (regulation), market (competition and cost) and technology which has the possibility of an autonomous diffusion.

The empirical data are limited to 13 qualitative experts' interviews within industry, consultancies and governmental departments.

The suggested model is particularly useful for policy makers to better understand the innovation dynamics and its diffusion pathways to design smarter regulations that incentivise rather than force organisations to comply with regulation.

The paper shows how regulation drives (or not) innovation and how various diffusion pathways can be used by external stakeholders to direct and promote innovation.

To investigate the effectiveness of one‐off short continuing adult education courses for expanding the penetration of sustainable development education beyond current tertiary students.

Pre‐ and post‐course questionnaires are used to evaluate the effectiveness of a series of short training courses on environment and sustainability issues conducted by the Centre for Environmental Strategy for a UK government department.

These short continuing education courses were effective at meeting their specific aims of increasing awareness and understanding of sustainability issues, with longer courses being more beneficial and providing qualitatively different experiences. Learning on sustainable development was maximised by overtly drawing on the collective past learning experiences and knowledge of participants though carefully facilitated discussion that encourages the sharing of and building upon this knowledge base.

If the training effectiveness of short continuing education courses in sustainable development is to be effective then such courses need to exploit existing knowledge bases so that limited time resources are used for maximum benefit through teaching methodologies that promote a constructivist learning environment.

This paper examines a significant means for maximising the effectiveness short continuing education courses in sustainability. Ensuring the effectiveness of such courses is critical to increasing the penetration of sustainable development education in higher education.

This paper aims to investigate, using stakeholder map methodology, showing power, urgency, legitimacy and concerns of different actors, the current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Switzerland. Previous research on CSR in Europe has made few attempts to identify stakeholders and their contribution to this topic.

To derive this map, publicly available documents were explored, augmented by 27 interviews with key stakeholders (consumers, media, government, trade unions, non-profit organisations [NPOs], banks, certifiers and consultants) and management of different companies (multinational enterprises [MNEs], small- and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] and large national companies). Using MAXQDA, the quantified codes given for power, legitimacy and urgency were triangulated between self-reporting, external assessments and statements from publicly available documents and subsequently transferred into stakeholder priorities or, in other words, into positions in the map. Further, the codes given in the interviews for different CSR interests and the results from the document analysis were linked between stakeholders. The identified concerns and priorities were quantitatively analysed in regard to centrality and salience using VennMaker.

The paper identified SMEs, MNEs and cooperating NPOs as being the most significant stakeholders, in that order. CSR is, therefore, not driven primarily by regulators, market pressure or customers. Further network parameters substantiated the importance of SMEs while following an unconventionally informal and idiosyncratic CSR approach. Hence, insights into these ethics-driven, unformalised business models that pursue broader responsibility based on trust, traditional values, regional anchors and the willingness to “give something back” were formed. Examples of this strong CSR habit include democratic decisions and abolished hierarchies, handshake instead of formal contracts and transparency in all respects (e.g. performance indicators, salaries and bonuses).

In total, 27 interviews as primary data that supplements publicly available documents are clearly only indicative.

The research found an innovative, vibrant and practical CSR model that is emerging for reasons other than conventional CSR agendas that are supposed to evolve. In fact, the stakeholder map and the CSR practices may point at a very different role businesses have adopted in Switzerland. Such models offer a useful, heuristic evaluation of the contribution of formal management systems (e.g. as could be found in MNEs) in comparison to the unformalised SME business conduct.

A rarely reported and astonishing feature of many of the very radical SME practices found in this study is that their link to commercial strategies was, in most cases, not seen. However, SMEs are neither the “poor relative” nor the abridged version of CSR, but are manifesting CSR as a Swiss set of values that fits the societal culture and the visionary goals of SME owners/managers and governs how a sustainably responsible company should behave. Hence, as a new stance and argument within CSR-related research, this paper concludes that “informal” does not mean “weak”. This paper covers a myriad of management fields, e.g. CSR as strategic tool in business ethics; stakeholder and network management; decision-making; and further theoretical frameworks, such as transaction cost and social capital theory. In other words, this research closes scientific gaps by at once applying quantitative as well as qualitative methods and by merging, for the first time, network methodology with CSR and stakeholder research.

This study aims to explore the effects of long-term orientation (LTO) and strategy formation mode on corporate social responsibility. While many researchers have investigated how large businesses address corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is little empirical evidence on how small- and medium-sized businesses implement CSR or what individual drivers shape this process.

The paper surveyed 282 small and medium-sized managers from the United Kingdom. The respondents were recruited using platform Prolific Academic.

The findings reveal that LTO is a prerequisite for developing CSR and shapes strategy formation mode. The findings also suggested that deliberate strategies are positively related to CSR. The results are consistent across different components of LTO (futurity, continuity and perseverance) and CSR types (internal and external).

The results show that all aspects of LTO are relevant for CSR in SMEs. Besides LTO, deliberate strategy formation model is an important factor contributing to CSR. The paper presents as first an empirical contribution to the strategy literature by examining positive relationship between LTO and deliberate strategy formation mode.

Carbon management accounting (CMA) is one part of sustainability accounting designed to provide information for the management of carbon dioxide (CO₂) releases. Adopting the contingency framework, this paper aims to examine the contextual antecedents that influence CMA adoption in Ghanaian firms.

The paper tests seven contextual dimensions, namely, strategy, structure, size, environmental management system (EMS), decentralization, technology and perceived environmental uncertainty, on CMA adoption from a survey of 125 accountants.

Consistent with prior literature, organizational strategy, structure, environmental management accounting (EMA), firm size, technology and perceived environmental uncertainty were found to be positively associated with CMA adoption and hence support contingency theory. However, a relationship between decentralization and EMA adoption was not supported by the sample data. Also, the existence of CMA systems was found to be low in the sample firms, although more than half of the respondents have EMS.

The study is limited to Ghana hence possible generalization of the results is limited. Further exploration of contingency-based research in other emerging economies would provide valuable insights on CMA adoption and practices to contribute to the CMA literature.

The findings suggest that although CMA adoption and practices is low in the sampled firms, both contextual and environmental factors play a vital role in the adoption of CMA in developing economies, as it pertains to the generic management accounting systems. Policies governing CMA practice should incorporate organizational contextual factors.

The paper presents preliminary empirical evidence on the state of adoption and practice of CMA from an emerging economy perspective, an area which lacks empirical investigation both in the EMA and the carbon accounting domain. It draws considerable novelty on the basis that despite the growing interest in climate change-based research empirical works on CO₂ emissions conducted exclusively from management accounting perspective, and in developing economies in particular, have been scant. The paper extends the contingency theory framework from conventional practices to the EMA field.