Drivers of Environmental Behaviour in Manufacturing SMEs and the Implications for CSR

The authors use empirical research into the environmental practices of 31 manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to show that ‚business performance’ and ‚regulation’ considerations drive behaviour. They suggest that this is inevitable, given the market-based decision-making frames that permeate and dominate the industry in which manufacturing SMEs operate. Since the environment is a pillar of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the findings have important implications for CSR policy, which promotes voluntary actions predicated on a business case. It is argued that this approach will not alter the behaviour of manufacturing SMEs significantly because CSR practice will be regarded as an optional and costly ‚extra’ affecting core business activity. Consequently, the use and development of existing regulatory structures, providing minimum standards for many activities covered by CSR, remains the most effective means through which the behaviour of manufacturing SMEs will be changed in the short to medium-term. Another feature of the paper is the distinction made between ‚business performance’ and the ‚business case’ argument. Business performance emphasises cost reductions and efficiency whereas the business case accentuates the benefits to shareholders of good practices as their firms become more attractive to stakeholders and society. Manufacturing SMEs␣try to improve business performance because of the pressures placed on them by market-dominated decision-making frames. These frames do not encourage manufacturing SMEs to undertake voluntary actions for the benefit of wider stakeholders and society.David Williamson is Senior Research Fellow in the area of Corporate and Environmental Responsibility at the School of Law, University of Manchester, UK. He has conducted extensive empirical studies into, and written papers on, the environmental behaviour of small and medium sized enterprises. He is also Chair of INDECO, a national body that coordinates sustainable development work on business parks.Gary Lynch-Wood is a Lecturer at the School of Law, University of Manchester, UK. His research focuses on regulation, particularly the impact that regulation has on small and medium-sized enterprises. He teaches a variety of subjects including regulation, environmental law, corporate responsibility and legal methods. He was a Director of the Centre for Research into Corporate Responsibility and the Environment prior to his move to the University of Manchester. John Ramsay is a Reader at the School of Business and Law, Staffordshire University, UK. He has had a number of careers including a decade spent working in the Purchasing Function of a large British component supplier to the European car industry. He teaches a variety of subjects including South East Asian economic development and Negotiation. He is widely published in the Purchasing field with practitioner papers dating back to the 1970s when he was junior buyer, developing in more recent years into academic work in his research area of Buyer–supplier interaction.     

The Role of the Board of Directors in Disseminating Relevant Information on Greenhouse Gases

In today’s world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies’ Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company’s litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization’s country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today’s broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders.     

Wise Up: Creating Organizational Wisdom Through an Ethic of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kaitiakitanga</Emphasis>

Organizations are searching for innovative business approaches that deliver profits and create shared value for all stakeholders. We show what can be learned from the relational wisdom approach of Indigenous Māori and reframe the prevailing economic argument that has seen companies profit and prosper at the expense of communities and ecologies. We develop an ethic of kaitiakitanga model premised on Māori values which holds the potential to enrich and further humanize our understanding of business. The Māori economy is a globally connected, prosperous, and profitable sector of the New Zealand economy. By drawing on Māori values, we present a wisdom position through an ethic of kaitiakitanga or stewardship to emphasize and illustrate the interconnectedness of life in a woven universe. Through practicing kaitiakitanga, organizations can build businesses where wisdom is consciously created through reciprocal relationships. In this worldview of business, humans are stewards endowed with a mandate to use the agency of their mana (spiritual power, authority, and sovereignty) to create mauri ora (conscious well-being) for humans and ecosystems—and this commitment extends to organizations.     

Social Enterprises and the Performance Advantages of a Vincentian Marketing Orientation

This study focuses on the managerial issue of should social enterprises (SEs) become more marketing oriented. It adapts the Kohli et al. (J Mark Res 30:467–477, 1993) MARKOR marketing orientation scale to measure the adoption of marketing by SEs. The items capture Vincentian-based values to leverage business in service to the poor as a measure of a Vincentian marketing orientation (VMO). A VMO is an organisational wide value-driven philosophy of management that focuses a SE on meeting its objectives by adopting a more marketing orientated approach to serve the needy and poor in a just and sustainable manner. SEs that exhibit a VMO seek to understand and respond to both the needs of their beneficiaries and stakeholders. They are constantly generating, disseminating, and responding to environmental, beneficiary, and stakeholder information and develop their business propositions to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the poor, while guided by a philosophy of leveraging business for social good. This study of SEs in Australia found that a VMO is strongly and positively correlated with social, economic, and environmental performance. These findings suggest that SEs may benefit by leveraging marketing capabilities to better serve their beneficiaries and stakeholders.     

Moving Forward with the Concept of Responsible Leadership: Three Caveats to Guide Theory and Research

Integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in business is one of the great challenges facing firms today. Societal stakeholders require much more from the firm than pursuing profitability and growth. But these societal stakeholders often simply assume that increased societal expectations can easily be accommodated within efficiently run business operations, without much attention devoted to process issues. We build upon the core–periphery thesis to explore potential avenues for firms to add recurring CSR initiatives to their existing business practices. Based on Siggelkow’s (Admin Sci Quart 47:125–159, 2002) analysis of organizational change, we conceptualize seven major patterns of CSR initiative adoption. We develop a new organizing framework showing how a firm can integrate CSR initiatives in business. Within the new framework, each of the seven patterns represents an idiosyncratic path through which recurring CSR initiatives can be included as practices into conventional operations. We also explore the nature of the resulting internal fit between recurring CSR initiatives and business practices.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring Stakeholder Relationships and Programme Reporting across Leading FTSE Companies

Although it is now widely recognised by business leaders that their companies need to accept a broader responsibility than short-term profits, recent research suggests that as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social reporting become more widespread, there is little empirical evidence of the range of stakeholders addressed through their CSR programmes and how such programmes are reported. Through a CSR framework which was developed in an exploratory study, we explore the nature of stakeholder relationships reported across leading FTSE companies and the importance they attach to communicating both social and business outcomes. It is evident from the hypotheses tested that the bigger FTSE companies, particularly extraction companies and telecoms, are more adept at identifying and prioritising their stakeholders, and linking CSR programmes to business and social outcomes. However, we draw the general conclusion that building stronger stakeholder relationships through CSR programmes – other than with customers – is not currently a priority for most companies. We also conclude that a limited sophistication in managing multiple stakeholders may compromise the impact of CSR upon business and social results. Finally, the managerial implications and the contribution of our study are discussed before closing with an acknowledgement of the limitations of this work and suggestions for further research.     

A Genealogy of Business Ethics: A Nietzschean Perspective

This article approaches the field of business ethics from a Nietzschean vantage point, which means explaining the weakness of the field by means of providing an etiological account of the values esteemed by the decadent business ethicists therein. I argue that such business ethicists have wandered from their immanent philosophical ground to act as scientists, businesspersons, and preaching-moralists as a way of evading their human self-contradictions. In actuality, this fleeing exacerbates them into a sickness of self-idolatry and self-loathing. I bring in Nietzsche’s approach to the value of truth and his ascetic priest figure to get to the origin of this problem. Moreover, I attend throughout to delimiting the field of business ethics as that branch of ethics that can be taught in business schools. Indeed, the article itself is a movement in this direction, being inherently and intentionally philosophical.     

Knowledge spillovers, collective entrepreneurship, and economic growth: the role of universities

To improve our understanding of the role that universities play in facilitating the transmission of knowledge to private-sector business enterprises so as to generate economic growth, this article builds on the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship to develop a formal model of university-with-business enterprise collaborative research partnerships in which the outcome is both mutually desirable and feasible. This model shows that if a university seeks to act as a complement to private-sector collaborative R&D so that it will be attractive to both incumbent firms and startup entrepreneurs, it needs to structure its program so that business enterprise revenues increase and business enterprise R&D costs rise by a smaller proportion than revenues increase, if they rise at all (and a fall would be better). Such a structure is consistent with both business enterprise and university interests, but is only likely to be feasible if the university is subsidized to cover the cost of such public-private collaborative research partnerships. In the absence of such support, the university will have to cover its costs through a fee charged to participating business enterprises and that will result in the university being seen as a substitute rather than a complement to private-sector collaborative R&D, and thus the university will be seen as an unattractive partner for many business enterprises.     

The influence of family ownership on SME performance: evidence from public firms in Taiwan

The relationship between family ownership and firm performance has gained increased attention in the business strategy and financial economics literature. Most existing studies use large companies as the research sample; studies that explicitly investigate the influence of family ownership on the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain sparse. This study raises this issue explicitly by investigating the influence of founding-family ownership on the return on assets and Tobin’s q of 341 public SMEs in Taiwan, during the period of 2002–2006. It emerges from the data that family ownership is prevalent and substantial in Taiwan, representing half of the public SMEs and accounting for more than 11 percent of their outstanding equity. It was found that the influence of family ownership on SME performance is positive and significant. Overall, the results suggest that family ownership is an effective organizational structure for SMEs in Taiwan.     

Why Wine is not Glue? The Unresolved Problem of Negative Screening in Socially Responsible Investing

The purpose of socially responsible investing (SRI) is to: (1) allow investors to reflect their personal values and ethics in their choices, and (2) encourage companies to improve their ethical, social, and environmental performance. In order to achieve these ends, the means SRI fund managers employ include the use of negative screening, or the exclusion of companies involved in “sinful” industries. We argue that there are problems with this methodology, both at a theoretical and at a practical level. As a consequence, current SRI offerings cannot accurately reflect the values and ethical beliefs they propose to represent. Moreover, the use of a␣priori criteria is potentially misleading, as we show by discussing examples of glue and wine making. Applying this flawed approach SRI funds fail to influence the direction of the firms they deem most in need of re-directing. Rather than engaging in the simple a␣priori assumption that some industries are “saints” while others are “sinners” (Freeman, 2007) we suggest a new framework upon which the SRI screening methodology could be grounded. Embracing the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism, we suggest that SRI methodology could be improved by engaging in an analysis based on (1) the actual impacts of the company’s products and services, (2) the company’s relationships with its specific, real stakeholders, and (3) the contingent environment (social, economic, political, legal, and cultural) in which the business operates.     

民营企业的政治资源与民营企业多元化投资——以中国民营企业500强为例

This paper argues that the political resources owned by Chinese private enterprises affect their diversification strategy under the context of China’s transitional economy. Based on the sample of top 500 private enterprises in 2004 in China, we find the following empirical evidence: First, political resources owned by private enterprises are positively and significantly related to their degree of diversification. Second, the possibility for private enterprises to diversify their business by entering industries under government regulation is positively related to their political resources. Third, the possibility of related diversification for private enterprise is negatively related to its political resources. Translated and revised from Zhongguo Gongye Jingji 中国工业经济 (China Industrial Economy ), 2008, (4): 5–14     

Political and Economic Arguments for Corporate Social Responsibility: Analysis and a Proposition Regarding the CSR Agenda

Different perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) exist, each with their own agenda. Some emphasise management responsibilities towards stakeholders, others argue that companies should actively contribute to social goals, and yet others reject a social responsibility of business beyond legal compliance. In addition, CSR initiatives relate to different issues, such as labour standards and corruption. This article analyses what types of CSR initiatives are supported by political and economic arguments. The distinction between different CSR perspectives and CSR issues on the one hand and between political and economic arguments on the other could help to advance the debate on the justification and welfare impact of CSR. It is argued that ordinary boundary conditions for business behaviour in a market economy provide support for some, but not all, CSR initiatives. This has implications for policy priorities. Building on the analysis, it is proposed that more attention should be paid to the behaviour of large multinational enterprises in their normal business operations and to CSR issues with a potentially large impact on market functioning.     

What Affects New and Established Firms’ Expansion? Evidence from Small Firms in Russia

Research on financial constraints of very small firms is scarce because it is difficult to observe and measure their transactions. Previous studies on small enterprises in post-communist countries have focused either on the effect of financing constraints on business growth (Budina et al., 2000, Economics of Transition 8(2), 453–475; Bratkowski et al., 2000, Economics of Transition 8(1), 101–116) or on the effect of property rights (Johnson et al., 2002, American Economic Review 92(5), 1335–1357). This paper provides evidence on both. It turns out that financing constraints and property rights considerations affects investment in firms of different age differently. Younger firms face higher information costs and their expansion is more dependent on the availability of internal funds than is the expansion of older firms. This paper also finds that while the financial sector did not channel funds to the most successful businesses, there is evidence that loans were given to firms that had more transparent transactions. Results also indicate that the security of property rights does not influence investment in young firms, which is interpreted to mean that only the most efficient entrepreneurs entered the market. In older small firms, investment is negatively influenced by the index of security of property rights suggesting that these firms might have “secured” their property rights by bribes. Improvements in the security of property rights, therefore, would help more micro enterprises to be born as well as decrease transaction cost of established enterprises.      

进入模式、区域产业环境以及经营特性对中小企业跨区域经营绩效影响——基于浙商的实证研究

文章以238家总部设在浙江赴异地投资的中小企业为实证对象,通过多变量变异数分析、以及GLM回归分析等方法进行实证研究,探讨进入模式、区域产业环境以及经营特性对浙商在国内异地市场经营绩效的影响。研究结果显示：中小企业进入异地市场时,在综合绩效上以多数股权表现最好、独资次之、等额股权第三、少数股权最差;区域产业环境对异地经营绩效存在显著性影响。在具有供应链优势、成本优势或营销密集度优势的产业环境中,企业容易获得更佳的绩效表现,而在高研发密集度的区域,则呈现无差异表现;企业经营特性对其异地经营绩效存在显著性影响。具有良好控制能力和营销能力的企业容易获得更好的绩效。     

An Investigation of Real Versus Perceived CSP in S&;P-500 Firms

Firms are spending billions annually in the name of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Whilst markets are increasingly willing to reward good and responsible firms, they lack the instruments to measure corporate social performance (CSP). To convince investors and other stakeholders, firms invest heavily in building a reputation for good corporate behaviour. This article argues that reputations for CSP are often unrepresentative of true CSP and investigates how differences in ‹perceived’ and ‹actual’ – as measured by the Fortune and KLD databases, respectively – can partly be explained by firm characteristics. Amongst other things, it finds that overrated firms are more likely to be relatively big, profitable, operating in non-polluting but competitive industries and with no history of wrong doings to their primary stakeholders. They will also typically spend a lot of effort satisfying the claims of their secondary stakeholders. Above all, the results emphasise the need for researchers to recognise that the databases measure different phenomenon and are not interchangeable.     

Collaborative Enterprise and Sustainability: The Case of Slow Food

The current and prevailing paradigm of intensive agricultural production is a straightforward example of the mainstream way of doing business. Mainstream enterprises are based on a negativistic view of human nature that leads to counter-productive and unsustainable behaviours producing negative impact for society and the natural environment. If we want to change the course, then different players are needed, which can flourish thanks to their capacity to serve others and creating values for all the participants in the network in which they are embedded. In the article, through the analysis of the Slow Food movement and the use of recent theoretical and empirical contributions in behavioural sciences and psychology, we support the collaborative enterprise model as an alternative to the still prevailing, mainstream business models. Evidence shows that caring and responsible efforts of economic agents are acknowledged and reciprocated even in highly competitive markets.     

Values that create value: socially responsible business practices in SMEs – empirical evidence from German companies

Socially responsible business and ethical behaviour of companies have been of interest to academia and practice for decades. But the focus has almost exclusively been on large corporations while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have not received as much attention. Thus, this paper focuses on socially responsible business practices of SME entrepreneurs or owner–managers in Germany. Based on the assumption that decision-makers in SMEs are the central point where all business activities start, members of a German entrepreneurs association were approached in the course of a qualitative and quantitative survey. They were asked to assess in what way their social responsibility is expressed in specific management practices towards selected stakeholder groups. These practices in turn were assumed to result in perceived positive reactions of the respective stakeholders and subsequently to positively influence the firm's financial performance, i.e. cost reductions and increase in profits. In the paper, a research model is presented that elaborates the relationship between an SME executive's social responsibility and the value creation of a firm, i.e. whether (personal) values create (economic) value. It was found that socially responsible management practices towards employees, customers and to a lesser extent society have a positive impact on the firm and its performance. As such, values can create additional value.     

企业组织资本、战略前瞻性与企业绩效:基于中国企业的实证研究

Organizational capital is an institutional arrangement in a firm’s production and management activities, which helps integrate all resources in the firm and affect the firm’s strategic choice and performance. This paper classifies organizational capital into three subtypes, namely power orientated capital, norm orientated capital and knowledge orientated capital. Moreover, strategic proactiveness is also brought into this influencing process. Results show that strategic proactiveness fully mediates the effect of power orientated capital on firm performance, but partially mediates that of norm orientated capital. It is also found that neither power nor norm orientated capital affects innovative performance, whereas knowledge orientated capital affects directly both financial performance and innovative performance. The significance of this research is to provide a meaningful supplement to the theory of decision-making-process for the top management team. Suggestions on how to cultivate organizational capital are provided for Chinese enterprises. __________ Translated and revised from Guanli shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2007, (5): 83–93     

The ethos of business students

Business schools are the “nurseries” of the corporate world. This article offers an empirical analysis of the business student ethos on the basis of research conducted at three Dutch universities. A theoretical framework in the tradition of virtue ethics and dubbed “moral ethology” is used to identify the values business schools convey to their students. The central research question is: What types of ethos do Dutch business students have? Forty-three undergraduate students participated in Q-methodological research, a mixed qualitative–quantitative small-sample method. Five different types of ethos were generated: Do-Good Managers, Market Managers, Searching Managers, Balancing Managers, and Radical Market Managers. Some general characteristics that apply to all the types of ethos were identified, such as the search for efficiency. It is argued that business schools should pay much more attention to the values that are endorsed in both life and business and should help students to address situations in which values are neglected.     

The cultural system and integrated reporting

The complexity of the business world has led to growing demands being made of companies regarding the information provided on their financial performance, management, corporate governance and sustainability record. In response, some leading companies have begun to publish integrated reporting, in the form of a document providing a coherent summary of this information, thus facilitating decision-taking by different stakeholders.The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the Hofstede national cultural system, which is representative of the values of local stakeholders, on integrated reporting, in comparison with the provision of various unrelated documents on corporate performance. The results obtained show that companies located in societies with stronger collectivist and feminist values are in the vanguard of information integration.