Linking owner–managers' personal sustainability behaviors and corporate practices in SMEs: The moderating roles of perceived advantages and environmental hostility

Drawing on managerial discretion and conflicting institutional logics literature, this study investigates the relation between the personal sustainability behaviors (PSB) of owner–managers and the corporate sustainability practices (CS practices) of SMEs. The research proposes a contingency model that assesses the moderating effects of perceived economic advantages and environmental hostility on this relationship. Based on linear hierarchical multiple regression analyses of a cross‐sectoral sample of French SMEs, the results suggest a positive influence of the manager's PSB on the SME's CS practices that appears to be differently moderated depending on the type of practice considered. The influence on environmental practices is fostered through the perception of economic advantages. The influence on workplace practices is only effective when the business environment is deemed benign and the influence on community practices is dampened by the perception of environmental hostility. Highlighting the trade‐off between the manager's personal values and the SME's economic constraints, these findings contribute to a better understanding of the critical antecedents of sustainability in small businesses.     

Which Dimensions of Social Responsibility Concern Financial Investors?

Social and environmental ratings provided by social rating agencies are multidimensional. The first goal of our paper is to identify a small number of independent and relevant socially responsible (SR) dimensions reflecting a firms’ coherent posture toward social issues. We put forward that these dimensions are not exactly the same as the ESG ones (Environment, Social, and Governance). Using the six sub-ratings provided by the Vigeo rating agency, we perform a principal component analysis and we highlight three main independent SR dimensions related to (1) business stakeholders (employees, customers, and suppliers), (2) societal stakeholders (environment and society), and (3) financial stakeholders (stockholders and debt holders). The second objective of our paper is to explore the link between stock returns and these three SR dimensions. Our most notable finding is that for each SR dimension, investors ask for an additional risk premium when they accept to hold non-socially responsible stocks. The cost of equity is thus lower for SR firms. The average premium over the period 2003–2010 is larger for the components “business stakeholders” and “financial stakeholders” than for the component “societal stakeholders.” The premium for this last component has only existed since the end of 2008. Since that time, environment and community involvement have become important risk factors strongly considered by investors. For the three dimensions, investors notably penalize large non-social firms and reward small social firms.     

Between Flexibility and Regulation: Rights, Equality and Protection at Work

The year 2000 represented the real year of delivery on Labour's proposals for industrial relations and employment rights. This review focuses on the content of the government's legislative programme, taking account of the impact of public policy at European level and its relationship with national legislation. The government's programme included a number of measures designed to target discrimination and promote equality, and the review examines the form and significance of these changes, in the light of continuing discrimination in the labour market. It then turns to examine the most fundamental legal reform of the year, the introduction of the statutory right to recognition.     

When a Sinner Does a Good Deed: The Path‐Dependence of Reputation Repair

This study examines how shareholders will interpret a socially desirable action taken by firms with a damaged corporate reputation status. We first explain theoretically why shareholders’ path‐dependent judgments of a tainted firm increase the likelihood of shareholders making less favourable judgments of the firm's socially desirable actions. We then test the theoretical predictions using a sample of Chinese listed firms that were sanctioned for securities fraud and subsequently made donations to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake relief funds. We find that the shareholders evaluate the donations made by fraud‐tainted firms less favourably than those made by firms that have not been sanctioned for fraud. Furthermore, the shareholders’ evaluations of the donations made by fraud‐tainted firms is less favourable if the firms have committed more serious fraud and undertaken fewer positive remedial actions in the post‐fraud period. Overall, our evidence demonstrates that shareholders’ path‐dependent judgments of fraud‐tainted firms constitute a major obstacle that constrains the effectiveness of reputation repair.     

A test for the too-big-to-fail hypothesis for European banks during the financial crisis

Motivated by the theoretical prediction of the opportunistic behaviour of large banks that face expected public intervention, we test a full and a partial form of the too-big-to-fail (TBTF) hypothesis. The full form of the hypothesis implies the increase in the risk undertakings and profitability of banks that exceed a certain dimension; the partial form of the hypothesis implies only an augmented risk appetite of large banks compared to their smaller counterparts. The examined area is the European banking industry, whose behaviour is observed over the first wave of the present financial crisis (2007/09). The estimation of a quadratic fit that links change in a bank’s credit risk profile and profitability retention rates with a bank’s size suggests the existence of a partial form of the TBTF hypothesis. However, a more precise, local rolling windows estimation of the size sensitivities reveals that large banks – those whose liabilities exceed approximately 2% of the country of origin’s GDP (15% of our sample) – show an increase in credit risk profile and a superior capability of retaining higher ROA scores, vis-à-vis their smaller counterparts. With the caveats of our investigation, we interpret these results as evidence of a full form of the TBTF hypothesis.     

Uncovering Micro‐Practices and Pathways of Engagement That Scale Up Social‐Driven Collaborations: A Practice View of Power

This paper explores how large‐scale social‐driven collaborations might grow in scale and help promote political change. We present the results of a qualitative investigation of a complex platform where multiple and hybrid collaborations co‐exist and where civil society plays a central role. Based on a longitudinal comparative case study, we draw a processual model describing micro‐practices and pathways of engagement. We show that the emergence of these collaborations requires a new type of convener, one that is able to manage the interplay between the sharing/co‐creation of abundant resources and the coordinated decentralization of informal authority. Our study extends existing debates on the role of resources and authority, showing the complementarity between possession and practice perspectives of power. Finally, we identified synergies between collaboration and social movement literatures, particularly showing that large‐scale collaborations could be mobilized to refine social movement agendas and achieve more purposive collective action.