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This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives positively impact customers’ selection of retail banks in Hong Kong (HK) and identifies which CSR domains affect customers’ selection of banks.

This study adopted a quantitative approach. Primary data were collected from 416 customers of 22 retail banks in HK. The theoretical framework of this study was developed from a literature review, prior studies by Oberseder et al. (2013 and 2014), and CSR initiatives implemented by leading retail banks in HK. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests were used to analyze the data.

The study found that CSR initiatives positively affect customers’ bank selection. CSR initiatives related to the customer and environment domains are likely to have a greater impact on customers than those related to the society domain and are not likely to significantly impact customers’ bank selection.

This study contributes to the CSR literature by offering enhanced insight into the dynamics of CSR and its effects on customer bank selection. Furthermore, this study tests consumers’ perceptions of CSR initiatives in each CSR domain in the banking sector in Hong Kong – a novel approach that has not been previously explored in existing studies. These findings can help banks review the effectiveness of their CSR initiatives and make informed decisions on which initiatives should pursue improved CSR performance and efficient resource allocation.

This study theorizes about the development of dominant tactics within social movements, as certain tactics within a tactical repertoire are used frequently and imbued with ideological significance. Little research has been done on hierarchies within tactical repertoires, assuming that all tactics within a repertoire are equal. Between 1974 and 2008, the US Religious Right attempted over 200 anti-gay referendums and initiatives to retract or prevent gay rights laws. This research examines how the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement developed campaign tactics to fight these direct democracy measures. This research expands the existing literature on tactical repertoires by theorizing about the mechanisms by which tactics become dominant, namely, their affirmation by victories, responsiveness to countermovement escalation, and involvement of institutionalized social movement organizations to disseminate tactics. This research contradicts existing movement–countermovement literature that suggests that movements do not develop dominant tactics when mobilizing in opposition to a countermovement.

Temporary and permanent organisations have contrasting yet co-dependent perspectives regarding time; temporary organisations are made to ‘die’, yet most of them exist to enable permanent organisations to ‘survive’. The authors studied the temporal tensions of strategic initiatives – that is, temporary organisations that aim to implement strategic change in permanent organisations. Our empirical data identified three temporal tensions emerging when senior managers timed their strategic initiatives: ambition versus realism when enacting the time horizon, patience versus urgency when enacting the pace, and clock time versus event time when enacting the temporal perspective. By evoking the literature on paradox and temporal work, the authors extend the view of temporality at the temporary and permanent interface and indicate how temporal work played an important role in creating, reinforcing, or transforming temporal tensions. The authors conclude by providing implications for theory and practice.

In business environments characterized by intense competition, globalization, rapid technological diffusion, accelerated product life cycles, and evolving industry boundaries, the ability of firms to adapt effectively to their changing environments is a strategic imperative (Hitt, Keats, & DeMarie, 1998; Nadler & Tushman, 1999). The exhibition of strategic adaptability – the ability of a firm to alter its alignment with the environment through reactive and proactive behaviors (Evans, 1991) – is a function of the goodness-of-fit that exists between the capabilities of a firm and the demands imposed by its relevant industry context (Burgelman & Grove, 1996). When firm capabilities are well aligned with industry success factors, those capabilities constitute strategic assets for the firm, or resources that lead to the achievement of competitive success in that context (Amit & Schoemaker, 1993). The possession of strategic assets thus contributes to a state of adaptation, defined by Chakravarthy (1982) as a state in which an organization exhibits the capacity to survive the conditions of its changing environment. Because of the constantly shifting nature of the environment, a state of adaptation is not a permanent settling point for the organization, but rather a moving target for the organization as it attempts to remain “mapped on” to the exigencies of the environment.

As part of discussing future research in the era of change for Globalization 4.0, this chapter examines the traditional academic CSR literature to determine a gap in current research. An academic literature search revealed limited literature on actual CSR activities, and more specifically, Social Initiatives (SIs). It is important to expand on this area of research as it relates to an evolution of the original CSR definition by Carroll (1979, 1999). The literature review also revealed limited use of Social Identity Theory in CSR studies: a theory which provides an excellent context to give ‘purpose’ and meaning to a more socially oriented form of CSR. It also provides a base to understand human ‘identification’ and ‘identity’ with CSR activities, in a new era of change. Recent research reveals the importance of understanding what employees and global citizens as stakeholders want, need, identify, and engage with. Following a literature review, this chapter introduces a new ‘Social Initiatives Framework,’ designed to incorporate the many terms and alternative themes associated with CSR. The chapter concludes with extracts from an example paper for this area of research, and provides a model to examine changing stakeholder perspectives in global settings. The findings behind the development of the model is discussed, revealing substantial opportunities for future research. The chapter highlights the development of CSR SIs to study the sustainable development goals, while also supporting social enterprises to solve wicked challenges and create shared value (CSV) for both the host community and the company within the setting where the organization resides.

This chapter aims to enrich knowledge about cluster initiatives acting as intermediaries primarily between members in a cluster or in regional context. This is a practically oriented manuscript written to contribute to refinement of existing policies by proposing recommendations based on recent empirical studies regarding funding, actors’ and activities’ content, as well as cluster initiatives’ assessment. It is proposed that public support should be balanced, targeting new as well as established, well-functioning cluster initiatives. Furthermore, regional authorities should encourage multifaceted collaboration (e.g., Triple Helix), stimulate variation in activities to maximize the benefit of cluster initiatives as well as define and communicate success factors that make it possible to evaluate cluster initiatives from a holistic perspective. These recommendations are primary aimed for regional authorities and reflect a bottom-up perspective where both logic of initiatives’ actions and their development are captured. Yet, even national authorities can make use of the recommendations in this chapter to improve governance of cluster initiatives and to determine further directions of regional policies.

This paper examines how firms respond to local government’s environment initiatives through textual analysis of government work reports (GWRs). This study aims to provide insights into how firms strategically respond to government’s environmental initiatives through their disclosure and investment practices.

This study uses a textual analysis of GWRs from China’s provinces. The frequency and change rate of environmental keywords in these reports are used as a measure of the government’s environmental initiatives.

This study finds that environmental disclosure scores in environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports increase with the frequency or change rate of environmental keywords in provincial GWRs. This effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, firms in highly marketized provinces or those listed in a single capital market. However, there is no significant relationship between firms’ environmental investments and government initiatives, except for cross-listed firms in provinces with consistently high frequency of environmental keywords in their GWRs.

The findings indicate that government environmental initiatives can shape firms’ disclosure behaviors, yet have limited influence on investment decisions, suggesting that environmental disclosure could potentially be opportunistic. This underscores the need for more effective strategies to stimulate firms’ environmental investments.

This study provides valuable insights into the differential impacts of government environmental initiatives on firms’ disclosure and investment behaviors, contributing to the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility in the context of government initiatives.

Prior research into multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) entrepreneurial initiatives has drawn from various theoretical bases, including entrepreneurial cognition, knowledge-based view, and management control theory. Empirical studies and cases have consistently pointed to the temporal dimension, highlighting the dynamic elements of learning, capability development and evolution, and consequences of conflict. By incorporating theory on time use into the analysis, we develop a new theoretical insight regarding the temporal dimension of MNE entrepreneurial initiatives. Our analysis offers a basis for a more explicit focus on time use in studies of entrepreneurial initiatives in MNEs than has been offered to date. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Corporate venturing initiatives, which exemplify corporate entrepreneurial behavior, follow an evolutionary path of variation, selection, and retention. While their external selection is a consequence of their performance, their internal selection is subject to forces of complementarity and legitimacy, and how well competition from other initiatives is overcome. This chapter aims to unfold the dynamics of the internal selection process of initiatives, focusing on its emotional dimensions. Assuming that organizational agents have a deliberate role in guiding the internal selection process of initiatives, the chapter examines how organizational agents' emotional dynamics influence this process. The chapter draws its theoretical basis from the intraorganizational evolutionary perspective and the literature on emotions in organizations. The case of a corporate venturing initiative and the narratives of four managers involved directly and indirectly in the initiative are used to illustrate how the emotional dynamics of organizational members evoked envy toward a venturing initiative and directly impacted its degree of competition and complementarity with other interacting initiatives, ultimately hampering its selection.

Previous work has shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives can preserve shareholder value after an organization experiences a negative event. I expand on this theory by examining one boundary condition that could lead to the opposite relationship: when the organization has a CSR initiative intended to prevent the type of event that occurs. The author argues that activist pressure will enhance the negative relationship between event-specific CSR and shareholder value. Using an event-study, the author examines the apparel industry after the collapse of Rana Plaza which killed over a thousand apparel supply chain employees.