Corporate sustainability strategies in institutional adversity: Antecedent,outcome, and contingency effects

This study examines (i) how top-level managerial institutional ties drive corporate sustainability strategies of emerging market firms operating under conditions of institutional adversity; (ii) the impact of corporate sustainability strategies on market performance; and (iii) the moderating role of financial resource slack on the relationships between corporate sustainability strategies and market performance. The study builds from institutional development logic and the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. Primary data are collected from 300 firms operating in a major sub-Saharan African market. Findings show that top-level managerial institutional linkages with regulatory national governmental officials, local community leaders, and top managers at other firms drive corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies, which in turn influence market performance. In addition, the findings reveal that financial resource slack strengthens the path between corporate proactive sustainability strategies and market performance, but not the path between corporate responsive sustainability strategies and market performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Value for money in energy efficiency retrofits in Ireland: grant provider and grant recipients

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) administers the Better Energy Homes scheme to provide a financial incentive for home owners to engage in energy efficiency retrofits. This study analyses data from the scheme and Building Energy Rating data for participants to the scheme to examine the value for money achieved by households. In addition, this research identifies which retrofit combinations provide greatest value for money, in terms of energy efficiency gains, for the grant provider. We utilize an error-in-variables approach to model the variation in benefits accruing to households of varying characteristics. We find that household and grant provider surplus can be maximized in the short term by retrofitting less energy efficient and larger homes, timber or steel frame homes and houses rather and apartments. The types of retrofits leading to the greatest surplus for both household and grant provider include cavity wall insulation paired with either a boiler with heating controls or heating controls only retrofit.     

Consumer Regulation Strategies: Attenuating the Effect of Consumer References in a Voting Context

Consumption cues (e.g., brands, money, and advertisements) can have powerful effects on cognition, perception, and behavior, yet how people regulate responses to such cues is not well understood. This is surprising given that consumption cues are increasingly present in nontraditional consumer contexts, such as healthcare, education, and politics. This research develops a measure of two types of consumer regulation strategies, cue‐based and budget‐based (studies 1–4), and demonstrates that these strategies influence how people respond to consumption cues in a political context (study 5). Specifically, in a study involving the 2012 American Presidential Election, priming survey participants as consumers (versus citizens) influenced both voting intentions and self‐reported voting behavior, and the newly developed consumer regulation scale was instrumental in detecting this effect. These findings suggest there may be merit in the escalating debate and concern over referring to voters as consumers.     

Performance measurement,modes of evaluation and the development of compromising accounts

In this paper we develop the concept of compromising accounts as a distinctive approach to the analysis of whether and how accounting can facilitate compromise amongst organizational actors. We take the existence of conflicting logics and values as the starting point for our analysis, and directly examine the ways in which the design and operation of accounts can be implicated in compromises between different modes of evaluation and when and how such compromises can be productive or unproductive. In doing so, we draw on Stark’s (2009: 27) concept of ‘organizing dissonance’, where the coming together of multiple evaluative principles has the potential to produce a ‘productive friction’ that can help the organization to recombine ideas and perspectives in creative and constructive ways. In a field study of a non-government organization, we examine how debates and struggles over the design and operation of a performance measurement system affected the potential for productive debate and compromise between different modes of evaluation. Our study shows that there is much scope for future research to examine how accounts can create sites that bring together (or indeed push apart) organizational actors with different evaluative principles, and the ways in which this ‘coming together’ can be potentially productive and/or destructive.     

Management practices in Australasian ethical investment products: a role for regulation?

This paper adds to the literatures on socially responsible investment (SRI), investment management, regulation of financial services and social accounting by providing a comprehensive survey of investment methods used in SRI products and regulated social reporting in financial services. Australian and New Zealand regulations require issuers of self‐declarative SRI products to provide details on methods used in portfolio construction. Regulators' objectives to standardize the reporting of portfolio construction and thus improve its comparability were identified by examination of parliamentary debates and other public reports. Portfolio construction styles of 86 SRI products managed by 63 financial institutions in Australia and New Zealand were chosen for analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted to identify associations between styles, construction methods and assessment techniques over a four‐year period: 2004–2007. These aspects were further examined in 18 case studies. Over the period, diversity and intensity of construction methods had increased both within and between investment managers. The non‐standard nature of management consultation used in SRI products, marketing needs to distinguish rather than standardize investment methods and the types of information thought relevant to clients did not reconcile easily with the types of information required by regulation. The more recent products in the sample tended to reference market indexes in portfolio construction, separate social considerations from financial considerations and delegate qualitative assessments of invested companies. Consumer policy implications arise from questions bearing on the integrity of information attached to investment products and the effective monitoring of delegated investment processes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Evaluating Advice: Self‐Presentational Biases between High and Low Self‐Monitors

Previous research has demonstrated that high and low self‐monitors sought advice from others who shared their underlying motivational dispositions. Here, three studies extend the prior research by exploring how consumers’ underlying motives direct the type of advice offered and how it is evaluated. In Study 1, high and low self‐monitors were asked to evaluate the advice they gave others. As predicted, high self‐monitors rated their advice more favorably than did low self‐monitors. The underlying motivation that caused high self‐monitors to evaluate their advice more positively was investigated in Study 2. Results indicated that high self‐monitors rated their advice higher because it appeared to be meeting a social‐adjustive function (i.e., self‐presentational needs). In Study 3, high and low self‐monitors created an advertisement that featured their advice on dating for a fictitious online matchmaking service. As expected, advertisements created by high self‐monitors contained advice that addressed social‐adjustive needs while those created by low self‐monitors contained advice that addressed value‐expressive needs. The results of these studies suggest that underlying motivations of the individual play an active role in how advice is crafted and evaluated.