企业社会责任行为与企业竞争优势:转化效应与逻辑——来自中国100强社会责任上市公司经验证据的分析

本文从竞争优势构成的多层次性入手,剖析企业社会责任与竞争优势之间的契合点和转化机理;选取2009-2015年中国不同性质的社会责任前100强上市公司作为研究对象,引入CSR行为理论探究不同CSR行为在竞争优势不同层面的转化效应。从总体上看,CSR活动对企业竞争优势有显著提升效应,在资源能力与企业价值层面转化效应较好,但企业绩效层面转化效应不显著;不同CSR行为向竞争优势转化的效应不同,而且企业规模越大,转化效应越显著,这一结论 (发现),基于竞争优势来源构成的不同层次,对CSR-CFP关系之谜给出一种合理解释。     

The Paradox of Power in CSR: A Case Study on Implementation

Purpose Although current literature assumes positive outcomes for stakeholders resulting from an increase in power associated with CSR, this research suggests that this increase can lead to conflict within organizations, resulting in almost complete inactivity on CSR. Methods A Single in-depth case study, focusing on power as an embedded concept. Results Empirical evidence is used to demonstrate how some actors use CSR to improve their own positions within an organization. Resource dependence theory is used to highlight why this may be a more significant concern for CSR. Conclusions Increasing power for CSR has the potential to offer actors associated with it increased personal power, and thus can attract opportunistic actors with little interest in realizing the benefits of CSR for the company and its stakeholders. Thus power can be an impediment to furthering CSR strategy and activities at the individual and organizational level.     

Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: A developing country perspective

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted wider research interests over recent decades. While some studies have examined the impact of CSR activities on firm competitive advantage (CA), the findings so far remain contradictory. Moreover, the role of export orientation, firm strategy, and structure on the association between CSR and CA has not been explicitly examined. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of export orientation, firm strategy, structure, and firm size on the association between CSR and CA. Using a sample of 179 responses from management staff in organizations across five sectors in a developing country context of Ghana, the study found positive effects of CSR on CA. The study contributes to the resource‐based view (RBV) scholarship by confirming the important complementary effect of export orientation and organizational structure as important resources and capabilities on the CSR–competitiveness relationship. However, no evidence of a moderating effect of firm strategy, or firm size on the CSR–CA relationship was found. These findings are instructive, impactful, and enrich the existing literature on CSR and strategy. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.     

Corporate Social Strategy and the Generation of Benefits: Case Studies in the Brazilian Electricity and Supermarket Industries

In recent years, scholars and executives alike have devoted attention to the implications of Corporate Social Responsibility policies and practices as well as their relationship to strategy. The objectives of the present article are to investigate the interaction between corporate social responsibility and strategy and the benefits that this relationship can yield to companies. For this purpose, a qualitative multiple case study was made of four Brazilian corporations, two in the supermarket sector and two in the energy distribution sector, comparing a competitive and a monopolized sector in Brazil. The data were collected through interviews with executives from social and environmental areas and through secondary sources. The study finds that corporate social strategy provides several benefits, among them attracting and retaining valuable human resources and enhancing company image and reputation     

Religion and Attitudes to Corporate Social Responsibility in a Large Cross-Country Sample

This paper explores the relationship between religious denomination and individual attitudes to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the context of a large sample of over 17,000 individuals drawn from 20 countries. We address two general questions: do members of religious denominations have different attitudes concerning CSR than people of no denomination? And: do members of different religions have different attitudes to CSR that conform to general priors about the teachings of different religions? Our evidence suggests that, broadly, religious individuals do not prioritise the responsibilities of the firm differently, but do tend to hold broader conceptions of the social responsibilities of businesses than non-religious individuals. However, we show that this neither true for all religious groups, nor for all areas of CSR.     

Antecedents of perceived national and corporate culture differences: evidence from Chinese international strategic alliances

We investigate the determinants of managers' perceptions of national and corporate culture differences, using data obtained from Chinese partner managers of international strategic alliances. An expected positive relationship is found between the extent to which the managers have experienced culture-related management impediments and their perceptions of national and corporate culture differences. An expected negative relationship is found between the extent to which the Chinese partner firms have adopted cultural management policies and the perception of national culture difference, but is not found for the perception of corporate culture difference. The authors find no support for the expected negative relationship between cultural sensitivity and the perception of national and corporate culture differences. Adoption of cultural management policies moderates the relationship between the extent to which managers have experienced culture-related management impediments and their perception of corporate culture difference, but not their perception of national culture difference. It was also found that the degree of cultural sensitivity moderates the relationship between the extent to which the Chinese managers have experienced culture-related management impediments and their perceptions of national and corporate culture differences.     

企业成长过程中的社会责任认知与行动战略

文章从利益相关者角度出发,以一个动态的视角来考察企业成长与企业社会责任之间的关系。通过对319份有效问卷的实证分析,文章基本证实了不同规模的企业、处在不同生命周期阶段的企业对社会责任的认知是存有差异的,企业在不断成长的过程中会采用不同的行动战略来承担社会责任。强求所有的企业都承担等量的社会责任,不仅不利于企业的持续成长,相反还会阻碍企业在承担社会责任方面采取实际行动。     

French multinational companies' HRM in China: strategic orientation and integration approaches

The purpose of this qualitative study is to identify strategic orientation and integration approaches of French companies in implementing the headquarters-based human resource management (HRM) practices in their Chinese subsidiaries. Through a study of 16 French multinationals’ HRM, our findings reveal that a majority of sample companies tend to standardize the HRM practices in their Chinese subsidiaries to a great extent. This strategic orientation is supported by a combination of specific integration approaches at the subsidiary level. The results add knowledge to international management theory and allow us to develop implications in managing employees in China.     

我国企业社会责任评价指标体系的构建及其应用研究

以利益相关者理论为基础,参考深圳证券交易所发布的《深圳证券交易所上市公司社会责任指引》,构建包括对股东、债权人、职工、消费者、供应商、政府以及公益事业的社会责任评价指标体系。基于深沪上市公司2011年数据进行因子分析,发现不同行业的因子总得分、不同行业的同一因子得分、同一行业不同因子得分差异较大,表明不同行业及同行业在不同方面履行社会责任情况存在较大差异。     

Road safety perspectives among employees of a multinational corporation in urban India: local context for global injury prevention

In rapidly developing economies, like urban India, where road traffic injury rates are among the world's highest, the corporate workplace offers a non-traditional venue for road safety interventions. In partnership with a major multinational corporation (MNC) with a large Indian workforce, this study aimed to elicit local employee perspectives on road safety to inform a global corporate health platform. The safety attitudes and behaviours of 75 employees were collected through self-report survey and focus groups in the MNC offices in Bangalore and Pune. Analysis of these data uncovered incongruity between employee knowledge of safety strategies and their enacted safety behaviours and identified local preference for interventions and policy-level actions. The methods modelled by this study offer a straightforward approach for eliciting employee perspective for local road safety interventions that fit within a global strategy to improve employee health. Study findings suggest that MNCs can employ a range of strategies to improve the road traffic safety of their employees in settings like urban India including: implementing corporate traffic safety policy, making local infrastructure changes to improve road and traffic conditions, advocating for road safety with government partners and providing employees with education and access to safety equipment and safe transportation options.     

Across borders and beyond boundaries: How the Olivetti Company became a multinational

‘Ing. C. Olivetti & Co.’, the office machine producer founded in 1908, is one of the few Italian enterprises that was quick to set up a process of internationalisation both in European markets and in other continents. This article shows the evolution of Olivetti as a multinational business from its origins until the 1960s when the manufacturer was owned and controlled by the Olivetti family. It focuses on the role that ‘entrepreneurial cognition’ plays in shaping business as the company pursues new business opportunities across borders. It argues that the internationalisation of Olivetti was pursued in at least three ways: (1) as exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities in response to major historical events, local and global tensions; (2) as the result of entrepreneurial perceived high self-efficacy; and (3) as consequence of heuristic decision-making processes.     

Beating the recession blues: Exploring the link between family ownership,strategic marketing behavior and firm performance during recessions

This study explores whether family firms exhibit unique marketing behavior and whether their unique behavior in turn helps them outperform non-family firms during periods of economic contraction. Findings based on a sample of 275 large publicly listed U.S. firms reveal that family firms outperform non-family firms during recessions. This superior performance is partially driven by family firms' proactive marketing behavior and their relatively strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR). During recessions, while non-family firms tend to decrease their advertising intensities and rates of new product introduction (NPI), family firms are likely to maintain relatively high levels of advertising intensity and rates of NPI. Unlike non-family firms, family firms are also likely to maintain high levels of corporate social performance (CSP) during recessions. These results underscore the benefits of proactive marketing behavior and a continued emphasis on CSR during economic downturns. The authors also add to the scant family-firm literature, demonstrating the family firm to be an effective organizational form.     

The influence of self-construal and materialism on social media intensity: a study of China and the United States

This study investigated the potential influence of self-construal and materialism on intensity of usage for three social media platforms: social networking sites (SNSs), microblogging sites (MBSs), and video sharing sites (VSSs). Data were collected from China and the United States – two countries with the highest advertising expenditures and Internet populations. Drawing from the social comparison theory (SCT) and the framework of independent and interdependent self-construal, results of the hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that both independent and interdependent self-construal were positively related to SNS intensity among Chinese and American users. However, interdependent self-construal had a significant, negative relationship with the intensity of MBS use among users in the two countries. Materialism was found to positively relate to SNS intensity, MBS intensity, and VSS intensity among Chinese and American users. These results provide evidence that self-construal and materialism contribute to social media use independent of nationality. Theoretical and managerial implications for international advertising strategies are discussed.     

The Effects of Person–Organization Ethical Fit on Employee Attraction and Retention: Towards a Testable Explanatory Model

An exploratory model is presented as a heuristic to indicate how individual perceptions of corporate reputation (before joining) and corporate ethical values (after joining) generate specific individual organizational senses of fit. The paper suggests that an ethical dimension of person-organization fit may go some way in explaining superior acquisition and retention of staff by those who are attracted to specific organizations by levels of corporate social performance consonant with their ethical expectations, or who remain with them by virtue of better personal ethical fits with extant organizational ethical values. Specifically, the model suggests that individual misfits that arise from ethical expectations that either exceed or fall short of perceived organizational ethical performances lead to problematic acquisition and retention behavioural outcomes.     

The Social Commitment of Brazilian Managers: The Concept,a Scale,and an Empirical Study of Corporate Social Responsibility

The purpose of this study is to analyze the attitudes of Brazilian managers toward Corporate Social Responsibility, defined as their willingness to simultaneously meet the economic, legal, and ethical commitments that bind business companies to society. A Managers' Social Commitment Index (SCI) is proposed and a new scale is presented and confirmed as a reliable research instrument in a field study involving 252 Brazilian business managers. Results revealed that managers prioritize economic commitment, even though as they get older and more experienced they tend to sacrifice this commitment to comply with the law. Women showed greater willingness to integrate ethical interests in management decision making, revealing a higher degree of social commitment.     

Power and responsibility: How different sources of CEO power affect firms' corporate social responsibility practices

Does greater CEO power come with more responsibility? Previous scholarly work in this field entails divergent results on this question. Based on the upper echelons theory and CEO power literature, this study aimed to explore the mechanisms underlying how different sources of CEO power, including structural, ownership, expert, and prestige power, affect firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and whether such relationships are moderated by firm visibility. Using a panel dataset comprising 6604 yearly observations of Chinese publicly traded firms from 2009 to 2019, we found that structural power is negatively related to CSR practices and that expert power is positively related to CSR practices, whereas ownership power and prestige power have no direct relationship with CSR practices. Our results show that firm visibility weakens the negative relationship between structural power and CSR practices and strengthens the relationship between expert power and CSR practices, respectively. Overall, this study reconciles the mixed results of previous studies on the impact of CEO power on CSR and integrates the effect of firm visibility as a contextual factor. This article concludes with practical recommendations on how to manage CSR engagement.     

Impacts of Corporate Code of Conduct on Labor Standards: A Case Study of Reebok’s Athletic Footwear Supplier Factory in China

This study examines the social impacts of labor-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies or corporate codes of conduct on upholding labor standards through a case study of CSR discourses and codes implementation of Reebok – a leading branded company enjoying a high-profiled image for its human rights achievement – in a large Taiwanese-invested athletic footwear factory located in South China. I find although implementation of Reebok labor-related codes has resulted in a “race to ethical and legal minimum” labor standards when notoriously inhumane and seriously illegal labor rights abuses were curbed, Chinese workers were forced to work harder and faster but, earned less payment and the employee-elected trade union installed through codes implementation operated more like a “company union” rather than an autonomous workers’ organization representing worker’ interests. In order to explain the paradoxical effects of Reebok labor-related codes on labor standards, I argue the result is determined by both structural forces and agency-related factors embedded in industrial, national and local contexts. To put it shortly, I find the effectiveness of Reebok labor-related codes is constrained not only by unsolved tension between Reebok’s impetus for profit maximization and commitment to workers’ human rights, but also by hard-nosed competition realities at marketplace, and Chinese government’s insufficient protection of labor rights. Despite drawing merely from a single case study, these findings illuminate key determinants inhibiting the effectiveness of labor-related CSR policies or codes in upholding labor standards, and hence two possible way-outs of the deadlock: (1) sharing cost for improving labor standards among key players in global supply chain; and (2) combining regulatory power of voluntary codes and compulsory state legislations. I would like to thank three anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier version of this article. I also would like to express my appreciation to professor Pun Ngai, for her continuous guidance and support during the work on this article.     

Corporate Social Strategy in Multinational Enterprises: Antecedents and Value Creation

In this article, we examine the relationship of the multinational firm’s market environment, stakeholders, resources, and values to the development of strategic social planning and strategic social positioning. Using a sample of multinational enterprises in Mexico, we examine the relationship of these different ways of conducting social strategy to the creation of value by the firm. The market conditions of munificence and dynamism, and the resource for continuous innovation are found to be related to strategic social positioning. The social responsibility orientation of the firm is related to strategic social planning. Positioning is related to value creation for the multinational firm, but planning is not. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice. Bryan W. Husted is a professor of management at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico) and Alumni Association Chair of Business Ethics at the Instituto de Empresa (Spain). His research focuses on corporate social and environmental management. His work has appeared in such publications as the Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, and the Journal of Business Ethics. David B. Allen is a professor of strategy at the Instituto de Empresa (Spain). He received an MBA from New York University and his M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. His research focuses on non-market strategy. His work has appeared in such publications as the Journal of International Business Studies and the Journal of Business Ethics. He has consulted extensively for European and American multinational firms.     

The impact structure of social capital on corporate performance: Empirical evidence from listed companies in China

Vertical relationships with the government, particular relational capital and organizational social network capital, constitute corporate social capital (CSC). Using the empirical data of 97 listed companies in China, this paper examines the impact of CSC on corporate performance, finds that CSC has a positive impact on sales revenue but an insignificant impact on the improvement of ROA. More specifically, when a firm enlarges its sales revenue, the function of organizational network capital is stronger than that of a particular relational capital and that of governmental connections. The paper also finds that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have more advantages in using governmental connections, therefore leading to better social status than non-SOEs do, who have fewer advantages in using any particular relational capital. The article suggests that managers should appraise carefully the effectiveness of CSC, and combine it with other resources; firms should distinguish the structure of the impact of CSC on performance improvement in a dynamic way. With respect to the implication of this paper, it could help in analyzing firm behaviors in the transitional China. Translated from paper in International Symposium on Entrepreneur Research and Education, 2006, April (in Chinese)     

Selective Engagement in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Stakeholder Perspective

This paper attempts to understand selective engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR involves various issues that can meet demands from multiple stakeholders. A firm can focus on certain CSR issues to satisfy a particular stakeholder while ignoring the demands from other stakeholders, or it can take a more balanced approach to CSR by addressing a wider range of social issues. In this paper, I investigate how stakeholder pressures from three types of primary stakeholders (customer, supplier, and employee) shape selective engagement in CSR. The empirical results based on a representative sample of more than 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the early 2000s suggest that firms prioritize their stakeholders based on instrumental considerations. Those stakeholders who have greater power over the focal firm will exert a larger impact on a firm’s CSR engagement. Constrained by limited managerial resources, firms accord attention to a limited range of issues most relevant to salient stakeholders. Specifically, MNCs as major customers pressure the focal firm to assume more responsibility for product quality, as well as on a wider range of social issues; SOEs as both major customers and major suppliers pressure the focal firm to assume more responsibility for employee welfare; employees with higher education pressure the focal firm to assume more responsibility for employee welfare, and for a wider range of social issues. This study contributes to stakeholder theory and research on the CSR of SMEs, and has important implications for CSR practitioners.