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This paper aims to examine social licence in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Social and economic actors can assist in protecting the environment by granting firms a social licence. The social licence is regarded as a regulatory trigger, which some claim can improve organisational practices and possibly induce beyond compliance behaviour.

The paper uses data from interviews with the owners and managers of 110 manufacturing SMEs.

Social licence pressures are generally weak, while traditional regulation remains essential for encouraging and sustaining environmental activity. That said, the data show important differences across firms, for some SMEs are influenced by and responsive to social licence pressures. Typically, these pressures derive from stakeholders who pursue a relatively narrow self-interest (rather than public interest) mandate, and focus on particular issues rather than broader objectives of environmental responsibility. When responding to pressures, SMEs are likely to take specific and focused actions that address specific stakeholder concerns.

Fresh insights are provided into the social licence and smaller firms. Contrary to previous views, there are circumstances where the social licence provides a limited and tailored regulatory tool for initiating change, and it typically leads to firms making alterations to business practices that tend to be low-cost and easy to implement. The social licence can provide a consensual micro-social contract and limited public interest service, and, subject to supporting circumstances, it may be extendable to other types of smaller firms.

The paper presents fresh insights into the relationship between SMEs and social and economic stakeholders.

The paper provides new insights into how relevant stakeholders can influence the environmental behaviour of small firms.

This study aims to respond to calls for more research to understand how sustainability control systems (SCSs) feature (or do not feature) in short-term operational and long-term strategic decision-making.

An in-depth case study of a large multinational organisation undertaking several rounds of sustainability reporting is presented. Data collection was extensive including 26 semi-structured interviews with a range of employees from senior management to facility employees, access to confidential reports and internal documents and attendance of company meetings, including an external stakeholder engagement meeting and the attendance of the company’s annual environmental meeting. A descriptive, analytical and explanatory analysis is performed on the case context (Pfister et al., 2022).

Simon’s (1995) levers of control framework structures our discussion. The case company has sophisticated and formalised diagnostic controls and strong belief and boundary systems. Conventional management controls and SCSs are used in short-term operational decision-making, although differences between financial imperatives and other aspects such as environmental concerns are difficult to reconcile. SCSs also provided information to justify company actions in short-term decisions that impacted stakeholders. However, SCSs played a very limited role in the long-term strategic decision. Tensions between social, environmental and economic factors are more reconcilable in the long-term strategic decision, where holistic risks and opportunities need to be fully identified. External reporting is seen in a “constraining” light (Tessier and Otley, 2012), and intentionally de-coupled from SCSs.

This paper responds to recent calls for rich, holistic and contextually-grounded perspectives of sustainability processes at an extractives company. The study provides novel insight into how SCSs are used (or not used) in short-term or long-term decision-making and external reporting. The paper illustrates how a large company is responding to sustainability pressures within the unique contextual setting of New Zealand. The study outlines the imitations of existing practice and provides implications for how sustainability-based internal controls can be better embedded into organisations.

We develop a conceptual framework as a basis for thinking about the impact of extractive industries and emancipatory potential of alternative accounts. We then review selected alternative accounts literature on some contemporary issues surrounding the extractive industries and identify opportunities for accounting, auditing, and accountability research. We also provide an overview of the other contributions in this special issue.

Drawing on alternative accounts from the popular and social media as well as the alternative accounting literature, this primarily discursive paper provides a contemporary literature review of identified issues within the extractive industries highlighting potential areas for future research. The eight papers that make up the special issue are located within a conceptual framework is employed to illustrate each paper’s contribution to the field.

While accounting has a rich literature covering some of the issues detailed in this paper, this has not necessarily translated to the extractive industries. Few studies in accounting have got “down and dirty” so to speak and engaged directly with those impacted by companies operating in the extractive industries. Those that have, have focused on specific areas such as the Niger Delta. Although prior studies in the social governance literature have tended to focus on disclosure issues, it is questionable whether this work, while informative, has resulted in any meaningful environmental, social or governance (ESG) changes on the part of the extractive industries.

The extensive extractive industries literature both from within and outside the accounting discipline makes a comprehensive review impractical. Drawing on both the accounting literature and other disciplines, this paper identifies areas that warrant further investigation through alternative accounts.

This paper and other contributions to this special issue provide a basis and an agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake interdisciplinary research into the extractive industries.

The purpose of this study is to understand the driving forces of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence organizations’ “license to operate” using data from the Ghanaian business environment.

This study used purposive sampling with a well-structured questionnaire as a data collection tool. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to study the driving forces of CSR initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence their social license.

The findings indicate that CSR initiatives are driven by the normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures. The regulative pressure has no significant effect on CSR initiatives. The authors found no difference between the services and the manufacturing sectors as far as the results are concerned using multi-grouping analysis.

From the results, the importance of normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures as the driving forces of CSR are established. The finding indicates that CSR demands by suppliers, customers the extent to which organizations perceive their competitors have benefited from initiating CSR are benefiting, the willingness of investors to invest in companies whose CSR activities are best and the opinion on the extent to which the District Assembly and the Chief Executive in the district, the Chiefs, the Churches, the Opinion leaders have significant impact on CSR initiatives.

The results indicate the need for suppliers and customers to continually demand from corporations to initiate CSR activities as organizations seem to respond to these pressures, and these initiatives are also likely to be mimicked by other organizations in the same industry to enable this drive the social responsibility agenda. Investors and community members are also encouraged to invest and accept, respectively, organizations with very good CSR records to send a signal to companies who see CSR as a cost instead of performance enhancement.

The work illustrates and provides some insights and builds on the literature in the area of CSR from a developing country’s environment. This is also one of the few works that investigate the driving forces of CSR and social license using the institutional theory based on data from the African business environment.

This paper aims to contribute to the scientific and societal debates about the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and particularly on the resettlements’ processes as part of extractive multinational companies (MNCs)’s commitments where the host country is an emerging extractive economy.

It is an exploratory study based on the analysis of secondary data, few interviews and on-site observation and deals with the description of the assessment of VALE, SA resettlement processes and assumed CSR practices of VALE, SA, an MNC operating in the Moatize district, Tete province in Mozambique.

The MNC assumes resettlement processes to be part of the CSR arena and reveals that VALE, SA follows a reactive poor approach as to CSR. The weak institutional context in Mozambique is like others described in the literature. The empirical data together with the sense of an ethical responsibility approach associated with resettlement processes and the paradigm shift in aid for trade as to development supported by the MNC’s CSR leads to the conclusion that resettlement can be considered part of the CSR of a mining MNC.

The difficult access to key informants of the resettled communities, local government and little interest in interview participation by VALE, SA, showed a current lack of confidence and communication limitations by the company as to this issue.

The failure of VALE, SA and other mining companies to meet their resettlement responsibilities and the inability of government supervision, requires local and national, as well as social and scientific communication processes and debate on this issue to be maintained on an ongoing basis during the mining life cycle to guaranty accomplishments of CSR.

The controversy over whether mining MNCs will benefit Africa’s emerging economies as to their socio-economic development will continue until MNCs commit themselves and act to be economically, legally and ethically responsible for contributing to the sustainable development of the countries where they operate.

This paper contributes to the debate on whether CSR frames the resettlement process based on literature review and key stakeholder views.

The aim of this paper is to focus on the legitimacy problems faced by the Finnish forest industry in the Brazilian context, specifically from the perspective of the region's indigenous communities: the Tupinikim, the Guarani and the Pataxó.

The method used is qualitative research with a case study approach. The empirical data are based on the fieldwork in the states of Espírito Santo and Bahia. The aim was to scrutinize the corporate tactics in gaining societal legitimacy, both in Brazil and in Finland; these were categorized into thematic groups.

The legitimacy of the Finnish companies becomes questionable due to the unethical tactics of their Brazilian business partner, Aracruz Celulose SA. When the company takes its “marginal” stakeholders' demands seriously and commits itself to them in diverse ways (economically, ecologically etc.), corporate social responsibility becomes a reality. The search for legitimacy also requires the company to change its corporate knowledge production systems, and also requires a willingness on the part of the company to encounter different types of knowledge that are locally attached.

The study offers new information about the relationship between multinational corporations and local communities in Brazil – especially from the perspective of indigenous communities. The paper also contributes to legitimation research. Finally, the authors offer some concluding remarks considering the new cultural environments of Finnish companies operating in the global South.

If a society does not identify with purchase of illegal goods, consumers will undertake more psychological burden when buying the goods. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of social norm of anti‐piracy on social welfare.

This paper uses a theoretical model to consider that although consumers will select piracy goods for the concerns of net utility, due to pressure from social norms, consumers are not wiling to purchase piracy goods.

The results show that enhancement of social norm of anti‐piracy will improve overall social welfare; however, the social norm of anti‐piracy must be limited to certain scope. Extreme social norm of anti‐piracy, in comparison to the situation without social norm of anti‐piracy, will lower overall social welfare.

If complete laws and strict enforcement cannot curb piracy, we can boldly assume that mature and high degree of “rule of low” is the force to restrain purchase of piracy goods. The paper examines the relations between social norm of anti‐piracy and social welfare.

This paper aims to present a systematic review of the literature concerning major aspects of innovation performance and compare the research hotspots of innovation performance in the twenty-first century with three primary purposes: first, to view the trend of Chinese and English literature on innovation performance research; second, to summarize the research streams in innovation performance; and third, to predict possible directions for future innovation performance research.

The authors first introduce a framework of innovation performance research developments. Then they construct a representative data set of bibliographic records, obtaining 1,768 articles in the SSCI citation index database and 1,431 articles in the CSSCI database. The authors then make a comparative analysis from two aspects: research themes and development of academic communities. The research objects are keywords and references so that co-word and co-cited reference networks are established. Finally, the authors combine the direction of research streams about “innovation performance” to summarize 28 questions in three research fields that can be studied in the future.

The momentum of the literature in English on innovation performance is increasing, whereas the Chinese literature has declined in recent years. The direction of research streams in Chinese and English literature is the same: they are the “innovation system/elements” research stream, the “innovation activity/ability” research stream and the “innovation network/social capital” research stream. Although the directions are the same, the specific contents of the research are different. The direction of future development of innovation performance research can be undertaken in three aspects: follow research into expanding hot topics, mine the research of typical academic circles and develop research into exploring more fields. Combined with the direction of research streams, 28 questions in three research fields are summarized.

Based on the background of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” in China, the research on enterprise “innovation performance” is becoming more and more important. The findings help us summarize the research streams related to innovation performance research, better understand the themes that point to directions for future development of innovation performance research and summarize 28 questions.

Almost five years after legalization, the unlicensed cannabis market is still thriving in Canada, and legacy cannabis retailers continue to face barriers to legal market entry. This study aims to shed light on these challenges and offer policy recommendations supporting legacy retailers and the government’s goals of enhancing public safety and displacing the unlicensed market.

This study reviewed online sources, including the media, gray literature, government, and other policy and legal websites, to identify legacy retailers’ challenges to entering the Canadian ecosystem since legalization and policy approaches of legalized jurisdictions with similar issues.

Legacy retailers face financial, legal and social barriers to entering the legal market. The Canadian government should focus on lowering and eliminating these barriers by developing programs that reduce financial risks and required capital, facilitate partnership programs and accelerators, provide innovative options that reduce overhead expenses, encourage pooled ownership to support small businesses, prioritize market entry for equity-deserving individuals and enable automatic expungement. A description of programs that have been implemented in other jurisdictions to address similar barriers is provided.

The policy recommendations in this paper would enable increased entrepreneurship and employment in a growing sector. While the tax revenue earned from the new market entrants may not be enough to support all the recommended policy initiatives, it could be reinvested to fund some of them creating sustainable growth opportunities.

The paper provides practical, timely policy recommendations on expanding the legal cannabis market in Canada and addressing unintended negative consequences of current policies.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize how past corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the occurrence of organizational misconduct by the means of moral licensing.

To this end, the authors conduct a conceptual review and develop a framework illustrating how moral credits and moral credentials (moral licensing) may institutionalize irresponsibility and lead to subsequent misconduct.

The authors propose a conceptual framework that describes the relationship between past CSR and organizational misconduct by the means of moral licensing. Based on initial literature-based findings, this paper provides confirmatory evidence for the authors’ framework and illustrates that past CSR might be used as a moral licensing tool that eventually fosters the occurrence of organizational misconduct.

The authors propose future researchers account for the moral licensing effect when examining the antecedents of misconduct and explore the potential moderators of this effect.

The authors recommend that organizations establish management control systems that specifically address the issue of moral licensing when evaluating CSR initiatives. The authors also propose that organizations should adhere to a consistent CSR strategy that potentially fosters the selection of moral leaders who are not prone to moral licensing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to connect corporate social responsibility, moral licensing and organizational misconduct from a conceptual perspective.