Conceptualizing businesses as social actors: A framework for understanding sustainability actions in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises

Small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) can play a crucial role in advancing environmental and social well‐being. Yet various—often conflicting—explanations have been offered to clarify why SMEs pursue sustainability. Some arguments foreground possibilities of profit maximization, whereas others emphasize individual values and convictions. Research supporting such contradicting explanations is often biased towards large enterprises or small, innovative frontrunners. In this article, we examine the underlying drivers of social and environmental interventions of SMEs by exploring empirical data from a survey of over 1,600 Canadian SMEs and complementary in‐depth interviews. We argue that sustainability actions of SMEs can be understood by viewing these firms as social actors—organizations that are shaped by individual values, internal and external interpersonal relationships, and are embedded in a social environment. This conceptualization directs attention to the full range of factors that shape sustainability engagement of SMEs and highlights frequently overlooked forms of sustainability‐oriented actions.     

Subjective Performance Evaluations and Reciprocity in Principal–Agent Relations

We conduct a laboratory experiment with agents working on, and principals benefiting from, a real effort task in which the agents' performance can only be evaluated subjectively. Principals give subjective performance feedback to agents, and agents have an opportunity to sanction principals. In contrast to existing models of reciprocity, we find that agents tend to sanction whenever the feedback of principals is below their subjective self‐evaluations even if agents' pay‐offs are independent of it. In turn, principals provide more positive feedback (relative to their actual performance assessment of the agent) if this does not affect their pay‐off.     

Perceptions of facilitators of a keypad‐based group support system

Organizations are using Group Support Systems (GSSs) to improve the quality of group meetings. Keypad‐based GSSs are a widely used form of this technology, yet there has been little research on their use and effects. This paper reports the findings of a survey of facilitators of a particular keypad GSS. Facilitators indicate that keypad technology improves the quality of meetings for a variety of tasks in a range of group settings and cultures. The findings are in general agreement with field studies of workstation‐based systems.     

Why did socialist economies fail? The role of factor inputs reconsidered

This article presents new estimates for investment and new growth accounts for three socialist economies between 1950 and 1989. Government statistics reported distorted measures for both the rate and the trajectory of productivity growth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Researchers have benefited from revised output data, but have continued to use official statistics on capital input, or estimated capital stock from official investment data. Investment levels and rates of capital accumulation were much lower than officially claimed and over‐reporting worsened over time. A setback in factor accumulation—both investment in equipment and labour input—contributed very significantly to the socialist growth failure of the 1980s.     

$$\mathcal{D}$$-optimal Minimum Support Mixture Designs in Blocks

An easy method to construct efficient blocked mixture experiments in the presence of fixed and/or random blocks is presented. The method can be used when qualitative variables are involved in a mixture experiment as well. The resulting designs are -optimal in the class of minimum support designs. It is illustrated that the minimum support designs are more efficient than orthogonally blocked mixture experiments presented in the literature and only slightly less efficient than -optimal designs.     

Personal responsibility in health benefits: looking backward, looking forward

Consumerism and care management continue to make inroads as cost-containment strategies for employers, as well as for employees who have endured the steady rise in benefit cost-shifting. The latest statistics and trends point the way to a new era of personal responsibility in health benefits. The author describes how this trend has grown, and where it is leading.     

Under what conditions may social contracts arise? Evidence from the Hanseatic League

Social contractarians commonly take social contracts to be solely hypothetical and refrain from elaborating on the factors that influence the feasibility of the formation of social contracts. In contrast, this paper aims at providing a discussion of the conditions affecting the feasibility of social contracts. I argue that the more aligned the preferences of group members for public goods are, the more the individuals share similar social norms, and the smaller the group is the more feasible a genuine social contract becomes. I provide evidence in support of my contention from the medieval Hanseatic League. At the Hanseatic Kontor in Novgorod, one of the four major trading posts of the Hanseatic League in cities outside of Germany, German merchants agreed to live under the rule of a constitution that gave rise to a political authority for the Kontor society.