Cross-Sector Partnerships: City Regeneration and Social Justice

In recent years, firms have greatly increased the amount of resources allocated to activities classified as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While an increase in CSR expenditure may be consistent with firm value maximization if it is a response to changes in stakeholders’ preferences, we argue that a firm’s insiders (managers and large blockholders) may seek to over- invest in CSR for their private benefit to the extent that doing so improves their reputations as good global citizens and has a “warm-glow” effect. We test this hypothesis by investigating the relation between firms’ CSR ratings and their ownership and capital structures. Employing a unique data set that categorizes the largest 3000 U.S. corporations as either socially responsible (SR) or socially irresponsible (SI), we find that on average, insiders’ ownership and leverage are negatively related to the firm’s social rating, while institutional ownership is uncorrelated with it. Assuming that higher CSR ratings is associated with higher CSR expenditure level, these results support our hypothesis that insiders induce firms to over-invest in CSR when they bear little of the cost of doing so.     

Tightrope Walking: Navigating Competition in Multi-Company Cross-Sector Social Partnerships

Many challenges to economic and social well-being require close collaboration between business, government, and civil-society actors. In this context, the involvement of multiple companies (i.e., business partners) rather than a single company may enhance such cross-sector social partnerships’ (CSSPs) outcomes. However, extant literature cautions about the tensions arising from companies’ competitive interests and the detrimental effects on the CSSP’s social outcome. Similarly, studies analyzing simultaneous collaboration and competition (i.e., coopetition) suggest shielding off competitive elements from the collaboration. Based on insights into two multi-company CSSPs, we conversely find that government and NGO partnership managers deliberately leveraged competition through the CSSP design. They used similar segmentation mechanisms to enhance CSSP contributions, but differed in the way they integrated collaborative and competitive elements, leading to sustained corporate commitment in one CSSP and unmet promises in the other. These insights expose the paradoxical nature of coopetition at the interface of social and economic goals, and advance current research by indicating competition’s positive effects and the respective partnership design implications. On this basis, our study helps reveal and better understand sustainability-related tensions and opportunities at the inter-organizational level.     

Platforms for Cross-Sector Social Partnerships: Prospective Sensemaking Devices for Social Benefit

We employ a Layers of Workplace Influence theory to guide our study of whistleblowing among public accounting audit seniors. Specifically, we examine professional commitment, organizational commitment versus colleague commitment (locus of commitment), and moral intensity of the unethical behavior on two measures of reporting intentions: likelihood of reporting and perseverance in reporting. We find that moral intensity relates to both reporting intention measures. In addition, while high levels of professional identity increase the likelihood that an auditor will initially report an observed violation, the auditor’s commitment to the organization drives perseverance in reporting. Results may assist organizations and researchers in their understanding of antecedents to whistleblowing as a form of corporate governance and of the effect of these antecedents on whistleblowing perseverance.     

Collaborative Strategic Management: Strategy Formulation and Implementation by Multi-Organizational Cross-Sector Social Partnerships

The focus of this article is on multi-organizational cross-sector social partnerships (CSSP), an increasingly common means of addressing complex social and ecological problems that are too extensive to be solved by any one organization. While there is a growing body of literature on CSSP, there is little focus on collaborative strategic management, especially where implementation and outcomes are concerned. This study addresses these gaps by offering a conceptual model of collaborative strategic management, which is then tested through the use of two qualitative empirical cases of collaborative regional sustainable development strategies (CRSDS). The model augments previous collaboration models by highlighting two levels of implementation (the collaboration and the organizational levels) and by considering the different types of outcomes, and the feedback loops.     

Institutional Antecedents of Partnering for Social Change: How Institutional Logics Shape Cross-Sector Social Partnerships

Using 10 years of publication data (1999–2008) from 10 leading business ethics journals, we examine global patterns of business ethics research and contributing institutions and scholars. Although U.S. academic institutions continue to lead in the contributions toward business ethics research, Asian and European institutions have made significant progress. Our study shows that business ethics research output is closely linked to the missions of the institutions driven by their values or religious belief. An additional analysis of the productivity of each highly ranked institution suggests that business ethics research is highly concentrated in a limited number of eminent scholars within each institution.     

A Case Study in Project-Based Learning: An International Partnership

As our world becomes more integrated, international business students should develop skills that match corporations' needs. Moreover, students need hands-on, problem-solving, team-based, critical-thinking skills that companies demand. Students need international business experience but many of them lack the funds or support to study or intern abroad. This article explains how one program developed a project-based course that addressed these skills by partnering with a local consulate office. It lays the framework for using a project-based course, explains the course's development, outlines the necessary and important skills addressed, and provides an agenda for other schools considering such a course.     

The Founding of a Nonprofit Organization as a Teaching/Learning Experience: A Case Study in Service Learning

ABSTRACT

The present case study describes how the founding, by faculty, of a nonprofit organization has aided marketing instructors (and instructors other disciplines) in teaching students to understand and apply marketing (and other business) theories in a “real-world” environment. To that end, the case study is organized as follows. First, it offers a short discussion on the pros and cons of working with for-profit versus nonprofit organizations to add value to the learning experience for students. Second, it describes the benefits and drawbacks instructors and/or students have experienced from starting their own nonprofit organization as a teaching or learning tool to help translate marketing theory into marketing application.     

Maintenance of Cross-Sector Partnerships: The Role of Frames in Sustained Collaboration

The finance industry is required to respond to public criticism of perceived immoral behaviour. To create legitimacy, financial firms not only undertake corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, but also support such activities with precise justifications. In this paper, we study CSR justifications appearing in annual and sustainability reports from the Swedish finance industry. Our objective is to investigate the ethical character of CSR justifications in the finance industry. This is an interesting topic, both because CSR carries ethical meaning and because CSR justifications play a role in actual business activities. A secondary aim of this article is to test whether decoupled corporate claims about CSR can be recoupled, which would potentially help companies to act responsibly. The observed CSR justifications avoided the fundamental question of whether the finance industry does in fact have responsibilities, and they did not manifest awareness of stakeholders’ demands for CSR. Seemingly value-based CSR activities often lacked ethical justifications. These characteristics do not harmonize with the responsible image that the contemporary finance industry wants to portray. Our counterintuitive finding is that amorality prevails in the justifications that banks give for undertaking CSR activities.     

The Registrar in the John Lewis Partnership: a Lesson in Loyalty

The philosophy of the John Lewis Partnership is exemplified by the unique role of the Branch Registrar and her responsibilities to promote partnership. The author has wide international experience of accountancy and general management in the retail trade, and is currently a freelance lecturer on management and marketing. Her latest work is Integrative Management - Creating Unity from Diversity (Blackwell 1991).     

伦理型领导对员工反生产行为的影响:基于社会学习与社会交换双重视角

伦理型领导作为一种新的领导行为成为当前研究的热点.基于社会学习理论与社会交换理论构建了研究模型,并通过437份数据对所提假设进行了检验.结果表明,伦理型领导与反生产行为显著负相关,伦理型领导与程序公平、领导公平显著正相关,程序公平与组织指向反生产行为显著负相关,领导公平与组织指向反生产行为和人际指向反生产行为显著负相关,程序公平在伦理型领导与组织指向反生产行为之间具有部分中介效应,领导公平在伦理型领导与组织指向反生产行为、人际指向反生产行为之间具有部分中介效应.最后,文章指出了研究意义、不足与未来研究方向.     

Investigating Organizational Learning through Social Network Analysis: The Case of a Consultancy Firm in India

Three problems beset the literature on organizational learning—confusion about who learns (individuals, groups, or organization), absence of a robust theory, and tools for measurement. Social network analysis, it is argued, can be used to capture organizational learning at multiple levels, to capture relational data (expressed as linkages between actors), and can yield actionable insights for changes within the organization. Two subprocesses of organizational learning, information acquisition and distribution, were measured using social network analysis in a decade‐old consultancy firm in India. Results reveal who shares information with whom, who goes to whom for information, who is bypassed, who hoards, how groups interact, and how much information is shared at the organizational level. The study provides a deeper understanding of how “people” relationships affect learning at various levels. The theoretical and managerial implications of the approach taken to measure organizational learning using social network analysis are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Partnership Formation for Change: Indicators for Transformative Potential in Cross Sector Social Partnerships

Despite their ethical intentions, ethically minded consumers rarely purchase ethical products (Auger and Devinney: 2007, Journal of Business Ethics 76, 361–383). This intentions–behaviour gap is important to researchers and industry, yet poorly understood (Belk et al.: 2005, Consumption, Markets and Culture 8(3), 275–289). In order to push the understanding of ethical consumption forward, we draw on what is known about the intention–behaviour gap from the social psychology and consumer behaviour literatures and apply these insights to ethical consumerism. We bring together three separate insights – implementation intentions (Gollwitzer: 1999, American Psychologist 54(7), 493–503), actual behavioural control (ABC) (Ajzen and Madden: 1986, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 22, 453–474; Sheeran et al.: 2003, Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 393–410) and situational context (SC) (Belk: 1975, Journal of Consumer Research 2, 157–164) – to construct an integrated, holistic conceptual model of the intention–behaviour gap of ethically minded consumers. This holistic conceptual model addresses significant limitations within the ethical consumerism literature, and moves the understanding of ethical consumer behaviour forward. Further, the operationalisation of this model offers insight and strategic direction for marketing managers attempting to bridge the intention–behaviour gap of the ethically minded consumer.     

Working Together: Critical Perspectives on Six Cross-Sector Partnerships in Southern Africa

Early strategy scholars have pointed to the importance of reflecting on moral issues within the scope of strategic management. Although strategy content and context have been discussed in relation to ethical reflection, the third aspect, strategy process, has found only little or no attention with regard to ethics. We argue that by emphasizing the process perspective one can understand the related character of strategic management and ethical reflection. We discuss this relatedness along formal, functional, and procedural similarities. Whereas formal aspects refer to the conditions under which both processes occur, functional aspects look at the role that strategy process and ethical reflection fulfill. Procedural aspects account for similarities in the nature of both processes insofar as the activities that are conducted within each process phase share common characteristics. We claim that ethical reflection can be thought of as an integrative part of strategic management – either explicitly or implicitly. Michael Behnam received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He is an Associate Professor of Management at the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, Boston, USA. Prior to this he was the Head of the Department of International Management at the European Business School, Germany. His research has been published in Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Business and Economy as well as in German top-tier outlets. He authored or co-authored numerous book chapters as well as three books, most recently the 7th edition of a textbook on Strategic Management. His research areas are Strategic Management, International Management and Business Ethics. Andreas Rasche received his PhD from European Business School, Germany and is currently Assistant Professor for Business Ethics at Helmut-Schmidt-University, University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg, Germany. He has published articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly and authored numerous book chapters on international accountability standards. He has gained working experience at the United Nations in Washington D.C. and New York and works closely with the United Nations Global Compact Office. His research interests and publications focus on the process of standardization in the field of CSR and the adoption of standards by corporations. More information is available under: http://www.arasche.com     

The Formation of Cross-Sector Development Partnerships: How Bridging Agents Shape Project Agendas and Longer-Term Alliances

Cross-sector development partnerships (CSDPs) are project-based collaborative arrangements between business, government, and civil society organizations in support of international development goals such as sustainability, health education, and economic development. Focusing on public private partnerships in development cooperation, we examine different constellations of bridging agents and their effects in the formation of single CSDP projects and longer-term alliances. We conceptualize bridging agency as a collective process involving both internal partner representatives and external intermediaries in initiating and/or supporting roles. We find that the involvement of external intermediaries eases the formation of single projects and longer-term alliances. However, when projects are initiated by external intermediaries they tend to be repetitive and narrow in scope, whereas projects initiated by internal partner representatives often explore novel agendas and embody a greater potential for social innovation. Yet, the longer-term pursuit of these agendas beyond single projects may require external intermediaries in supporting roles. Findings help better understand micro-processes and collective practices of brokerage and alliance formation in transnational governance contexts and beyond.     

Working Together: Critical Perspectives on Six Cross-Sector Partnerships in Southern Africa

This paper examines six cross-sector partnerships in South Africa and Zambia. These partnerships were part of a research study undertaken between 2003 and 2005 and were selected because of their potential to contribute to poverty reduction in their respective countries. This paper examines the context in which the partnerships were established, their governance and accountability mechanisms and the engagement and participation of the partners and the intended beneficiaries in the partnerships. We argue that a partnership approach which has proven successful in one context can be used as a valuable learning resource. However, a partnership’s work, which includes all aspects of the partnership and its activities, cannot necessarily be transferred directly to another partnership without a thorough and locally informed analysis of the context in which it is implemented. In addition, we suggest that it is difficult to assess whether the good intentions behind partnerships were translated into real benefits for target groups as effective monitoring and evaluation procedures were not in place in the partnerships studied. Similarly, the absence of regularised governance and accountability systems in partnerships made it difficult to support partner and beneficiary participation and engagement. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to partnerships and that partnership replication should focus more strongly on the transfer of learning about partnership processes instead of simply copying partnership activities. Moreover, the development of stronger mechanisms for assessing and ensuring accountability towards both partners and intended beneficiaries is required if partnerships are to meet their intended objectives.     

Translating Corporate Social Responsibility into Action: A Social Learning Perspective

Journal of Business Ethics - Interest in the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown over the past decade. In this study, we draw on social learning theory to examine...