The ‘Catch 22’ of communicating CSR: Findings from a Danish study

This research explored the apparent ‘Catch 22’ of communicating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Although companies are regularly encouraged to engage in CSR, they are simultaneously discouraged to communicate about this engagement. We contribute with two models that may help to explain how companies can best communicate about their CSR initiatives. Based on a reputation survey and two case studies of Danish corporate CSR frontrunners, first we develop an ‘inside‐out approach’ to suggest how managers can manage their CSR activities to achieve favourable CSR reputation in a ‘Catch 22’ context. Employees appear as a key component in building trustworthiness as CSR communication is shown to evolve when taking an ‘inside‐out approach’. Second, we develop a CSR communication model with two CSR communication processes targeting different stakeholder groups: ‘the expert CSR communication process’ and ‘the endorsed CSR communication process’. Integrating these models and processes may help companies strategically capture reputational advantage from their CSR initiatives.     

Corporate governance or governance by corporates? Testing governmentality in the context of China's national oil and petrochemical business groups

Like other industrial sectors with significant – ‘pillar’ – importance in China's overall economy and development, oil and petrochemicals are governed by state-owned business groups. In this context, ‘corporate governance’ of these groups is of fundamental interest. This study probes corporate governance of 31 national oil and petrochemical business groups by examining their structure, development and business activities in the period from 2007 to 2011. The post-1998 restructuring of China's qiyejituan business groups, their related party transactions and related party corporate finance all yield insight into how property rights are decisive in how corporate governance based on governmentality – or the interrelation of corporate, state and social relations – is structured. This study sheds light on how China's big business policy and governance of the state-business interface progresses in a socialist market economy. It has clear implications international trade and investment as well as multinational corporations doing business with China.     

Age negotiation at the Asian corporate subsidiary: challenges of managerial ‘youth’ in Thai-based subsidiaries of Western multinationals

This study explores how individuals construed as ‘young’ for their managerial positions seek to mitigate their youth in order to gain and maintain legitimacy in an Asian socio-cultural context which (traditionally) privileges age seniority. Drawing on the narratives of local and expatriate managers at the Thai-based subsidiaries of Western multinational companies, we show how individuals experience ‘youth discrimination’ seeking to negotiate their age using alternative identity attributes with differing stakeholder groups. Findings expand our understanding of how and why attitudes towards managers viewed as ‘young’ affect perceptions of role legitimacy and performance. Implications for corporate HRM – specifically managerial selection – in Asia, as well as notions of discrimination ‘intersectionality’ are then progressed.     

Corporate branding: Where are we? A systematic communication-based inquiry

Despite the widely recognized relevance of corporate branding (CB) to gain competitive advantage, CB studies suffer from highly fragmented perspectives that make it difficult to discern the value of CB and orient its practices. Our study is aimed at clarifying how CB has been approached in the academic and practitioners' literature so far to identify the contribution of these different perspectives. To investigate the debate on CB, we adopted a systematic software-assisted content analysis, appropriate when the research aims are to disentangle multiple perspectives on a phenomenon. Software-aided content analysis allows a rigorous treatment of a text highlighting recurrent themes, their semantic links, co-occurrences and correspondences among lexical units. Our findings suggest that CB is a crucial crossroad between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of a company acting as a ‘bridge’ among key intangibles and as an ‘inside–outside’ interface between company and stakeholders. The Thematic Analysis of Elementary Contexts highlights four clusters related to how CB and communication have been conceived. In discussing the findings, we propose integrated marketing communications (IMC) as a conceptual and managerial framework capable of making sense out of CB complexity and casting light on the complementarities between the often conflicting academic and practitioners' views on CB.     

Diversification and financialization of non-financial corporations: Evidence from China

This paper examines whether and how business diversification affects financialization in non-financial corporations. Using data from the Chinese market, we find that business diversification strategy will significantly increase non-financial corporations' investment in financial assets. Furthermore, exacerbated agency problems, increased investment inefficiency and high operational risk are found to be the consequences of business diversification, which induce companies to hold high-risk financial assets. The impact of business diversification on financial investment is stronger in small-cap firms, SOEs, and firms with weak monitoring mechanisms. Finally, the diversification effect on corporate financialization is more significant where regional economic development and regulatory environment is weak.     

Corporations and Citizenship Arenas in the Age of Social Media

Little attention has been paid to the importance of social media in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature. This deficit is redressed in the present paper through utilizing the notion of ‘citizenship arenas’ to identify three dynamics in social media-augmented corporate–society relations. First, we note that social media-augmented ‘corporate arenas of citizenship’ are constructed by individual corporations in an effort to address CSR issues of specific importance thereto, and are populated by individual citizens as well as (functional/formally organized) stakeholders. Second, we highlight that, within social media-augmented ‘public arenas of citizenship’, individual citizens are empowered, relative to corporations and their (functional/formally organized) stakeholders, when it comes to creating, debating, and publicizing, CSR-relevant issues. Third, we posit that information and communication technology corporations possess specific, and potentially very important, capacities, when it comes to creating, or helping construct, public arenas of citizenship from within which individual citizens can influence their broader political–economic environment. Following this, we discuss how social media can contribute to ‘dysfunctions’ as well as ‘progressions’ in corporate–society relations, and conclude with a number of suggestions for future research.     

From conspicuous to considered fashion: A harm-chain approach to the responsibilities of luxury-fashion businesses

Abstract

Throughout the marketing literature, little attention has been paid to the responsibilities of luxury-fashion businesses. Harnessing Polonsky, Carlson, and Fry’s harm chain, the extended harm chain, and the theoretical lens of institutional theory, this conceptual paper explores a systematic way to examine the potential for value co-creation, the harmful outcomes linked to luxury-fashion marketing activities, and how those harms might be addressed. Our analysis identifies a number of harms occurring throughout the luxury-fashion supply chain. The paper concludes by urging luxury-fashion businesses to sustain their success through ‘deep’ corporate social responsibility (CSR), adding voice to the developing conversation that seeks to change the scope of the critique of marketing practice beyond the economic and competitive advantages that CSR delivers.     

Defensive Strategy’s Effect on Firm Value: Evidence from Public-Listed Companies in Malaysia

This study examines the relationship between defensive strategy and firm value for a sample of 596 listed firms in Malaysia over the period 2008 to 2015. For the sake of robustness, the institutional setting is considered in this research by gauging the ownership structure. More specifically, this study seeks to determine whether a firm’s ownership structure might have a significant contribution to the value of its defensive strategy. Additionally, the value creation of defensive strategy is compared among family firms, government-linked firms, and foreign firms. This study concludes that defensive strategy, especially retrenchment strategy, has a positive significance on a firm’s excess value. This implies that defensive strategy will improve the firm performance. The reduction of the costs and assets, the efficiency of monitoring structure, the threat of dismissal, and the promotion of stewardship can enhance a firm’s benefits. Low profitability is found to be better for the firm performance. However, the ownership structures of government-linked and foreign firms tend to have a discount value on the excess value when these firms adopt retrenchment actions. The implication of this study lies in two main points. Firstly, it enriches the body of knowledge by showing how an effective defensive strategy creates value, and the role corporate governance plays in that relationship. Secondly, it helps to inform regulator and policymakers about how defensive strategy might have a good corporate governance to create value.     

‘Public–private partnerships’: The Portuguese General Company of Pernambuco and Paraíba (1759)

This paper proposes that we can learn from past experience how specific contexts can explain specific public–private interfaces and the corporate governance rules ascribed to them, and so inform debate about modern ventures of this type. To this end, the paper explores the ‘public–private partnership’ of the Portuguese Companhia Geral de Comércio de Pernambuco e Paraíba (CGPP – General Company of Pernambuco and Paraíba) founded in 1759 by the Pombal government. Based on archival sources, and considering the social, economic and political context, the study helps to enhance understanding of how the Portuguese enlightened despotic regime developed and connected the empire through a corporatist interface with a private company.     

An investigation of the corporate identity construct in China: Managerial evidence from the high technology industry

The study develops and extends existing frameworks of corporate identity and investigates what organisations in China perceive as essential components of the corporate identity concept including their dimensions and contents. The study adopted a qualitative approach and the method of research was a case study. Using the soft-laddering approach, and a multidisciplinary categorisation of analyses of corporate literature and websites, a systematic analysis of the corporate identity was carried out. Different from previous studies, the study reveals new dimensions on the basis of the industry practitioners’ views. The context of China has shown to influence a different focus, more significantly around the ‘impression’ that corporate identity can contribute with commercially. It is suggested that new high-tech firms in China may not have enough experience and capacity to engage in a more holistic corporate identity concept provided. The lack of such experience is particularly likely for new firms, which are still in their early stage of development. Implications for management of corporate identity in China are presented along with directions for further research in the marketing communications literature.     

A Model of Sponsorship Effects on the Sponsor's Employees

Drawing from the corporate sponsorship literature, a model is developed that seeks to explain how externally directed corporate sponsorship can influence the behavior of the sponsor's employees. External sponsorship conveys a signal that can impact on employees’ perceptions of their employer. The model seeks to explain the processes and types of possible impacts. Although the model requires confirmation, its conceptualization raises additional avenues to assess the benefits of corporate sponsorship.     

Political branding: sense of identity or identity crisis? An investigation of the transfer potential of the brand identity prism to the UK Conservative Party

Abstract

Brands are strategic assets and key to achieving a competitive advantage. Brands can be seen as a heuristic device, encapsulating a series of values that enable the consumer to make quick and efficient choices. More recently, the notion of a political brand and the rhetoric of branding have been widely adopted by many political parties as they seek to differentiate themselves, and this has led to an emerging interest in the idea of the political brand. Therefore, this paper examines the UK Conservative Party brand under David Cameron’s leadership and examines the applicability of Kapferer’s brand identity prism to political branding. This paper extends and operationalises the brand identity prism into a ‘political brand identity network’ which identifies the inter-relatedness of the components of the corporate political brand and the candidate political brand. Crucial for practitioners, this model can demonstrate how the brand is presented and communicated to the electorate and serves as a useful mechanism to identify consistency within the corporate and candidate political brands.     

Subalterns,empowerment and the failed imagination of markets

In our earlier paper, we drew upon Franz Kafka’s literary writings to attend to the repressive sides of the State and markets and their impact on subaltern positions. Moreover, we pointed to some of the key limitations in the theories of the base of the pyramid and subsistence marketplace. In this paper, responding to the commentaries, we clarify some doubts, provide correctives to misinterpretations and further develop the broad theoretical argument we made in our earlier paper. In response to Viswanathan’s commentary, we specifically clarify the role of neoliberal ideology as it impels discourse of subsistence markets. Moreover, as a corrective to Karnani’s reading, we explain the limitations of the State, markets and private enterprises in alleviating poverty in India. Through these clarifications, we ask scholars to attend to systemic features of the current political economy that create poverty and call for an imagination beyond the current capitalist zeitgeist to empower the subaltern.     

The relative impact of corporate reputation on consumer choice: beyond a halo effect

ABSTRACT

Previous work suggests that corporate reputation generates a ‘halo effect’ where products from companies with better reputations are more likely to be chosen. We argue that corporate reputation plays a more expansive role, proposing that consumers will be less price-sensitive to offerings endorsed by companies with good reputations and that it moderates the marginal utility of product features with high clarity. We also propose that an individual’s knowledge of a company increases the likelihood its products will be purchased. Using a choice model incorporating an individual SEM-based reputation measure, we find support for these hypothesised effects in the context of television choices. The results suggest that corporate reputation warrants more attention by marketing managers to increase preferences for their products through these mechanisms.     

Rationale of internationalization of China's national oil companies: seeking natural resources,strategic assets or sectoral specialization?

The bulk of the existing literature emphasized that China's companies sought strategic assets (technology, brands and access to markets) through internationalization in order to overcome latecomers' comparative disadvantage, while some studies suggested that these firms went after natural resources to address China's rising oil imports. The third argument (which we coin the ‘sectoral strength’ hypothesis) suggested that the upstream firms in extractive business would seek natural resources, whereas downstream ones would seek strategic assets. In this study, we examine the rationale of main overseas investment deals (‘going out’) of China's two largest national oil companies during 2002–2010 which were also China's top two non-financial firms with the largest outward investment stocks during 2004–2010. We conclude that these deals can be best explained by the ‘sectoral specialisation’ hypothesis supplemented with a consideration for strategic assets.     

Shareholder Theory and Kant’s ‘Duty of Beneficence’

This article draws on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant to explore whether a corporate ‘duty of beneficence’ to non-shareholders is consistent with the orthodox ‘shareholder theory’ of the firm. It examines the ethical framework of Milton Friedman’s argument and asks whether it necessarily rules out the well-being of non-shareholders as a corporate objective. The article examines Kant’s distinction between ‘duties of right’ and ‘duties of virtue’ (the latter including the duty of beneficence) and investigates their consistency with the shareholder theory. The article concludes that it is possible within the ethical framework of shareholder theory for managers to pursue directly the happiness of non-shareholders. Furthermore, shareholders have a duty to hold management to account for the moral consequences of the firm’s activities on non-shareholding stakeholders.     

Corporate reputations in UK biotechnology: an analysis of on‐line ‘company profile’ texts

Internet technology is creating a new corporate communications framework, which is affecting communication channels, corporate audiences, message content and form, communication feedback and corporate personae. Confronted with a complex communications environment, which is characterized by many conflicting views and highly sensitive topics, biotechnology companies have to transmit a clear and powerful message to their target audiences. This study analyses the projection of corporate images in the ‘company profile’ texts published on‐line by biotechnology firms in the UK.     

Beyond Philanthropy: Community Enterprise as a Basis for Corporate Citizenship

In this article we argue that the emergence of a new form of organization – community enterprise – provides an alternative mechanism for corporations to behave in socially responsible ways. Community enterprises are distinguished from other third sector organisations by their generation of income through trading, rather than philanthropy and/or government subsidy, to finance their social goals. They also include democratic governance structures which allow members of the community or constituency they serve to participate in the management of the organisation. Partnerships between corporations and community enterprises therefore raise the possibility of corporations moving beyond philanthropic donations toward a more sustainable form of intervention involving long-term commitments to communities. At the same time they change substantively the nature of any collaboration by allowing relationships to proceed on the basis of mutual advantage, thereby broadening their appeal and scope. In doing so, partnerships build capacity and enfranchise communities in a way that avoids the paternalism that has traditionally characterised relationships between corporations and voluntary sector organisations. Power relations are transformed because partners are seen as sources of valuable assets, knowledge and expertise, rather than recipients of patronage or charity.     

Enterprise logic vs product logic: the development of GE’s computer product line

The following article focuses on corporate strategies at General Electric (GE) and how corporate-level interventions impacted the market performance of the firm’s general purpose commercial mainframe product set in the period 1960–1968. We show that in periods of both divisional independent planning and corporate-level planning strategic governance, central decisions interfered in the execution of GE’s product strategy. GE’s institutional ‘enterprise logic’ negatively impacted the ‘product logic’ of its computer product line leading to a weakened position in the market for these systems.     

The rise of super-elite law firms: towards global strategies

This paper reviews the pressures towards globalisation reshaping the corporate law sector. It uses Yip's [Yip, G.S. (1996). Total global strategy (2nd ed.). Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall] framework of global industry drivers. The dominant view has been that the globalisation potential of the legal industry is low since there are few global legal products and many regulatory differences between markets. However, within the corporate law sector, strong regulatory differences between countries are outweighed by the combined impact of market, competitive and cost drivers. Evidence from this research shows that the balance of industry drivers is towards there being benefits to the pursuit of global strategies within this sector. In practice, a small number of very large corporate law firms are implementing global strategies in pursuit of specific sources of future competitive advantage. Thus a small ‘super-elite’ of globalising firms is emerging.