An external perspective on CSR: What matters and what does not?

The paper aims at investigating external factors influencing organizational corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related decision making. Two theoretical perspectives—stakeholder theory and institutional theory—have been applied to compile a list of external factors that might affect a company's CSR choices. As a result, a framework built on the government-related, society-related, and business-related groups of external factors is being suggested. This framework is used in the paper to answer (a) to what extent do different external factors influence CSR-related decisions in large Danish companies and (b) how has that influence changed over the years. The research takes a qualitative approach and is designed as a multiple-case study. Empirically, the paper relies on data collected from semi-structured interviews with CSR specialists and managers and presents a dynamic perspective on the pressure exercised by the external factors on CSR decisions and choices.     

Metcalfe’s law: not so wrong after all

Briscoe et al. IEEE Spectrum, 43(7), 34–39 (2006) claim that Metcalfe’s law is “wrong”. One of their arguments is that “if Metcalfe’s Law were true, then two networks ought to interconnect regardless of their relative sizes”. This paper shows that this argument is flawed.     

America’s online ‘jobs’: conceptualizations,measurements, and influencing factors

The paper examines the size and distribution of online income positions (OIPs) from internet platforms in the United States. While researchers have developed traditional internet sector employment estimates (e.g., engineers), this secondary OIP market remains largely unmeasured due to shortcomings in industrial codes, conceptualizations, and methods. The estimates that do exist vary greatly. The paper addresses these shortcomings through original survey data collected directly from internet sector companies, allowing it to develop the first comprehensive look at the market for online income opportunities. The paper provides national and state-level estimates, finding approximately 23.9 million OIPs exist currently in 2017. The paper finds that these OIPs are present across all 50 states and the District of Columbia and that their distribution is less tied to population levels than traditional employment. The paper also develops a model for OIP levels with a surprisingly strong fit, which demonstrates that OIPs are driven by relative cost to income factors, exposure to the ‘tech’ sector, and internet access, but not by unemployment. To the extent of the paper’s knowledge, this is the only research that has drawn on actual internet firm data to estimate the size of the OIP market.     

Remarks on Lydenberg’s “Reason,Rationality and Fiduciary Duty”

In his 2014 paper entitled “Reason, Rationality and Fiduciary Duty”, Lydenberg ventures into the field of the moral and political philosophy dealing with distributive justice in search of fresh perspectives on fiduciary duty. Simply by doing this, Lydenberg makes the very important contribution of drawing a little more attention to the potential that this huge field of study might have in relation to understanding socially responsible investment. There are however difficulties with Lydenberg’s paper. I describe three in particular that I believe warrant critical attention. The first emerges out of Lydenberg’s treatment of the central concepts of reasonableness and rationality. The second lies in his apparent suggestion that at some earlier time fiduciary duty was somehow more generally other-considering than it is today. And finally, the third is associated with the place that impartiality occupies in Lydenberg’s storyline, and the implications of this in terms of his call for a reconciliation between reasonableness and rationality. This critical scrutiny clarifies theoretical and practical implications of the transition Lydenberg is suggesting. In doing this, it makes the realization that what Lydenberg is attempting is more than likely nothing short of resolving “The fundamental problem of ethics and politics” (Russell, Unpopular essays, Routledge, London, p. 3, 2009/1950) in the specific context of fiduciary action.     

The Limits of Generosity: Lessons on Ethics,Economy, and Reciprocity in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

This paper interrogates the relation between reciprocity and ethics as it concerns participation in the world of work and organizations. Tracing discussions of business and organizational ethics that concern themselves, respectively, with the ethics of self-interest, the ethics of reciprocity, and the ethics of generosity, we explore the possibility of ethical relations with those who are seen as radically different, and who are divested of anything worth exchanging. To address this we provide a reading of Franz Kafka’s famous novella The Metamorphosis and relate to it as a means to extend our understanding of business and organizational ethics. This story, we demonstrate, yields insight into the unbearable demands of ethics as they relate to reciprocity and generosity. On this basis, we draw conclusions concerning the mutually constitutive ethical limitations of reciprocity and generosity as ethical touchstones for organizational life while simultaneously accepting the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of exceeding those limits. In such a condition, we argue, ethics is not best served by adopting idealistic or moralizing positions regarding generosity but rather by working in the indissoluble tensions between self and other.     

Internet and consumer privacy: Considering the FTC’s “do not track” proposal

The digital economy relies on the collection of personal data on an ever-increasing scale. Regulations have to be found which can provide an optimal balance between consumers’ interest in privacy and the benefits from innovations that rely on the largely invisible collection, retention and sharing of consumer data. The following article discusses current US reform proposals and their relevance for the ongoing debate in Europe.     

International strategy’s effects on retailers’ local implementation and performance

Retailers dynamically expand abroad and strategically seek local performance because their business is local. However, knowledge of the contribution of retail firms’ international strategies to subsidiaries’ local performance is limited. Based on the prominent I/R strategy framework, the authors conceptualize integration/responsiveness as the transfer/local generation of firm-specific advantages and analyze (direct and indirect) paths of varying degrees of I/R via local implementation decisions to performance. Because retailers’ firm-specific advantages have a limited geographic reach, different successful paths are expected in close and distant countries. Empirically, a survey based on face-to-face-interviews with 126 retail CEOs and expansion managers, partial least squares structural equation modelling and bootstrapping-based mediation analyses were conducted. The results reveal only indirect paths of international strategy to local performance through local standardization/centralization. Unique insights into the paths of firm? strategy to subsidiary performance emerge, such as important tradeoffs between superior paths in close countries.     

Some thoughts on the European Communities’ Budget

The Budget of the European Communities has recently moved from the political periphery to the centre of the stage. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers could not agree on the 1980 Budget, the main issue being its domination by the expenditures on agriculture. Moreover, a financial crisis is to be expected for 1981 or 1982 as the Community’s financial “own Resources” will no longer be sufficient. Finally there is the still unsolved problem of the unequal way in which the costs and benefits of the Community Budget are distributed among the Member States. Christopher Tugendhat, Budget Commissioner of the European Communities, comments on these questions.     

Burger King and McDonald’s: Where’s the Spillover?

This paper studies how spillover effects from competitors’ choices affect a firm’s decision to open a store. Using panel data from the UK’s fast food industry, I propose and estimate a game of entry under incomplete information that incorporates spillover effects between firms’ entry decisions. A positive spillover is identified for Burger King – increasing the stock of existing McDonald’s by one outlet increases Burger King’s estimated equilibrium probability of opening a new store by approximately 18 percentage points. Furthermore, the estimated model suggests that this spillover affects Burger King’s variable profit, as opposed to its fixed cost of entry. It is less clear whether this externality matters for McDonald’s.     

Stephen E. Koonin: unsettled: what climate science tells us,what it doesn’t,and why it matters

Business Economics -     

Stakeholder’s Preference and Rational Compliance: A Comment on Sacconi’s “CSR as a Model for Extended Corporate Governance II: Compliance, Reputation and Reciprocity”

Lorenzo Sacconi’s recent re-statement of his social contract account of business ethics is a major contribution to our understanding of the normative nature of CSR as the expression of a fair multi-party agreement supported by the economic rationality of each participant. However, at one crucial point in his theory, Sacconi introduces the concept of stakeholders’ conformist preferences – their disposition to punish the firm if it defects from the agreement, refusing to abide by its own explicit CSR policies and norms. We take issue with him over this concept: we show that the assumption of conformist preferences is a moral premise, and it arguably weakens the normativity of the theory as a whole. As an alternative, we propose an evolutionary game theoretic approach. We draw upon recent applications of evolutionary game theory to moral philosophy (Skyrms, Danielson), and we use a computer simulation of the trust game. According to this approach, the failure of the logic of reputation, which is the problem conformist preferences were introduced to solve, is overcome through the dynamics of interaction.     

The Fog of War: Russia’s War on Ukraine,European Defence Spending and Military Capabilities

Intereconomics - Some … may look at the depleted nature of Russia’s military after its invasion of Ukraine and incorrectly surmise that defence spending increases are not that necessary...     

Is globalization what it’s cracked up to be? Economic freedom,corruption, and human development

This paper examines the effect of economic globalization on human development and argues that the relation between economic globalization and human development is mediated by economic freedom and corruption. Findings suggest that economic globalization affects economic freedom positively and corruption negatively. In turn, economic freedom has a positive effect and corruption has a negative effect on human development. All relations are in the hypothesized directions and significant. Research, business, and public policy implications as well as directions for future research are presented.     

Culture’s effects on corporate sustainability practices: A multi-domain and multi-level view

With a triple-bottom-line lens on sustainability, this study examines the effects of culture on companies’ economic, social, and environmental sustainability practices. Drawing on institutional theory and project GLOBE, we delineate cultural practices dimensions that consistently predict sustainability practices related to each of the three domains. Based on a sample of 1924 companies in 36 countries and nine cultural clusters, we find that future orientation, gender egalitarianism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance practices positively, and performance orientation practices negatively, predict corporate sustainability practices. Further, our findings suggest that these effects might vary according to the country vis-à-vis cluster level of analysis.     

Maybe It’s Right,Maybe It’s Wrong: Structural and Social Determinants of Deception in Negotiation

Context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. Focusing on negotiators use of deception, we used a simulated two-party negotiation to test how three contextual variables—regulatory focus, power, and trustworthiness—interacted to shift negotiators’ ethical thresholds. We demonstrated that these three variables interact to either inhibit or activate deception, providing support for an interactionist model of ethical decision-making. Three patterns emerged from our analyses. First, low power inhibited and high power activated deception. Second, promotion-focused negotiators favored sins of omission, whereas prevention-focused negotiators favored sins of commission. Third, low cognition-based trust influenced deception when negotiators experience fit between power and regulatory focus, whereas affect-based trust influenced deception when negotiators experience misfit between these structural context variables. We conclude that regulatory focus primes different moral templates: promotion-focused negotiators’ decision to deceive is determined by moral pragmatism, whereas prevention-focused negotiators’ decision to deceive is determined by opportunism. Because each combination of power and regulatory focus was tied to a specific subcomponent of trust, we further conclude that negotiators engage in motivated information search to determine whether they should deceive their opponents.     

The psychology of behaviorally-focused résumés on applicant selection: Are your hiring managers really hiring the ‘right’ people for the ‘right’ jobs?

This article examines the explosive growth of competency-based, or behavioral, selection programs within organizations. Recognizing this trend, many job applicants have learned to position themselves for selection by leveraging competency-based selection program concepts and psychological factors that influence résumé screening processes and interview decision outcomes. Specifically, there is a growing trend for job applicants to submit behaviorally-focused résumés—that is, résumés which emphasize behaviors required for success in positions—to gain interviews for job opportunities. These behaviorally-focused résumés may position applicants as the ‘right’ candidates for job opportunities, even if they are not truly the ‘right’ candidates for the jobs they seek. As such, it benefits employers to familiarize their hiring professionals with behaviorally-based résumés and competency program theories. Understanding these concepts and the psychology of behaviorally-focused résumés helps hiring professionals evaluate behaviorally-focused résumés more accurately, and minimizes résumé prescreening and selection mistakes.     

Founder centrality effects on the Mexican family firm’s top management group: firm culture,strategic vision and goals,and firm performance

Using social networks, we examined the founder’s influence on key strategic behaviors in Mexican family business. First, we drew on a sample of 42 Mexican family businesses and 201 managers to show how founder centrality affects the top management group (TMG) members’ cohesiveness. TMG members’ cohesiveness was examined in terms of the firm’s culture, its strategic vision, and strategic goals. Second, we examined how founder centrality and top management member group cohesiveness are related to performance in terms of financial, social and family-oriented objectives. Significant relationships were found between a founder’s centrality and the TMGs strategic behavior. Further, significant results connect different aspects of the founder’s centrality and the TMGs strategic behavior to financial, social and family-oriented objectives.     

When two ‘wrongs’ make a right: An essay on business ethics

Sometimes two wrongs do make a right. That is, others' violations of moral rules may make it permissible for one to also violate these rules, to avoid being unfairly disadvantaged. This claim, originally advanced by Hobbes, is applied to three cases in business. It is suggested that the claim is one source of scepticism concerning business ethics. I argue, however, that the conditions under which business competitors' violations of moral rules would render one's own violations permissible are quite restricted. Hence, the observation that two wrongs may make a right does not give people a broad warrant for ignoring moral standards in their business activities. Gregory S. Kavka is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He was awarded a NEH Fellowship for Independent Study and Research, 1982–83. His most important publication is: Some Paradoxes of Deterrence, Journal of Philosophy (June 1978).My work on this paper was partly supported by a University of California, Irvine Summer Faculty Research Fellowship. I am grateful to the University of Virginia for use of its library facilities, and to Mike W. Martin, Rick O'Neil, a referee for the Journal of Business Ethics, and participants at the Society for Business Ethics meeting at the Pacific Division APA convention in March 1982, for helpful comments on earlier drafts.