Designing and Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility: An Integrative Framework Grounded in Theory and Practice

This article introduces an integrative framework of corporate social responsibility (CSR) design and implementation. A review of CSR literature – in particular with regard to design and implementation models – provides the background to develop a multiple case study. The resulting integrative framework, based on this multiple case study and Lewin’s change model, highlights four stages that span nine steps of the CSR design and implementation process. Finally, the study identifies critical success factors for the CSR process.     

Designing and Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility: An Integrative Framework Grounded in Theory and Practice

This article introduces an integrative framework of corporate social responsibility (CSR) design and implementation. A review of CSR literature – in particular with regard to design and implementation models – provides the background to develop a multiple case study. The resulting integrative framework, based on this multiple case study and Lewin’s change model, highlights four stages that span nine steps of the CSR design and implementation process. Finally, the study identifies critical success factors for the CSR process.     

The impact of medical complications on optimal hospital payment

This paper studies the optimal payment policy offered by a regulator to a partially altruistic hospital when the latter privately observes the severity of illness of patients and chooses a hidden quality that influences the probability of medical complications occurring. We analyze how the level of altruism of the hospital affects the conditions under which the payment, for a given diagnosis-related group, should be refined according to the severity of illness and the occurrence of complications.     

Regulatory competition and rules/principles‐based regulation

This paper analyses how regulatory competition affects principles‐based and rules‐based systems of regulation. Competition between regulators creates the possibility of regulatory arbitrage that generates a race to the bottom by regulators that is socially harmful. We derive the welfare effects of such competition and the regulatory response to these effects, in particular, regulatory harmonisation. We find, however, that regulators can adopt harmful regulatory harmonisation. These effects can make coordination efforts in developing global regulation socially desirable. We demonstrate, moreover, that corporate lobbying is not always harmful: it can both encourage and discourage socially desirable regulation.     

Non‐additivity in Accounting Valuation: Theory and Applications

This paper has three objectives. First, to introduce a theoretical solution to the issue of non‐additivity between assets in place, relying on an accounting‐based valuation approach. Second, to explain how such an approach can be implemented empirically by measuring synergies between assets. Third, to present the properties of this non‐additive valuation technique. We use Choquet capacities, that is, non‐additive aggregation operators, to measure the interactions between assets and apply our methodology to a sample of US firms from the capital goods industry. To operationalize our approach we examine the relationships between synergies—captured by Choquet capacities—and the market‐to‐book ratio (proxying for growth options), and show how interactions between assets are consistently linked to a firm’s market‐to‐book ratio. We also measure firm‐specific productive efficiency relative to the industry and firm size. For large firms, efficiency, as defined by our approach, is positively associated with higher future operating cash flows. For small firms, efficiency is positively associated with higher future sales growth. We document that the non‐additive approach appears to be better able to identify expected relationships between efficiency and future performance than a simpler approach based on the market‐to‐book ratio.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Eco‐Control Deployment: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing Firms

Environmental issues have become an important consideration for a growing number of organizations. Eco‐control may represent a valuable tool to help organizations address such issues. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the eco‐control practices adopted by Canadian organizations and to understand the antecedents and consequences of their adoption. More specifically, this study examines (i) the extent to which eco‐control practices are deployed within organizations, (ii) the factors and motivations that lead organizations to implement eco‐control practices, and (iii) the impact of adoption on firms’ managerial and operational environmental actions as well as on environmental and economic performance. Using survey data from a sample of 249 Canadian manufacturing firms, this article shows that environmental missions, environmental policies, environmental strategic planning, environmental budgets and environmental performance indicators are the most frequently adopted eco‐control practices among the investigated firms, while environmental incentives seem to be less frequently adopted. The results of this study also suggest that competitive and ethical motivations as well as size, environmental exposure and stakeholder pressure are all important factors in explaining eco‐control practice adoption by Canadian manufacturing firms. Moreover, the results of this study show that organizations that have undertaken more intensive managerial and operational environmental actions have also adopted more intensive eco‐control practices. Organizations adopting more intensive eco‐control practices perform better both environmentally and economically performance than firms adopting less intensive eco‐control practices.     

Maintaining Moral Legitimacy through Worlds and Words: An Explanation of Firms' Investment in Sustainability Certification

A prominent way for firms to manage their moral legitimacy is to invest in sustainability certifications. However, a significant subset of firms remain reluctant to invest in sustainability certifications even decades after the establishment of such certifications. Our paper seeks to elucidate this variance by exploring how firms in the coffee, tea, and chocolate industries legitimise themselves on moral grounds through external communication to stakeholders. Drawing on insights from French Pragmatist Sociology, we suggest that firms primarily rely on two distinct sets of legitimacy principles that reflect their identity orientation: the ‘civic and green’ world and the ‘domestic’ world. Specifically, our results show that reliance on the domestic world is negatively related to firms' investment in sustainability certifications. Our findings also suggest that the strength of the relationship between these distinct methods of moral legitimising and certification varies depending on whether firms are characterised by first‐ or multi‐generation family control.     

Statistical Inference,Learning and Models in Big Data

The need for new methods to deal with big data is a common theme in most scientific fields, although its definition tends to vary with the context. Statistical ideas are an essential part of this, and as a partial response, a thematic program on statistical inference, learning and models in big data was held in 2015 in Canada, under the general direction of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute, with major funding from, and most activities located at, the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. This paper gives an overview of the topics covered, describing challenges and strategies that seem common to many different areas of application and including some examples of applications to make these challenges and strategies more concrete.