Business & Society
March 2015; Vol. 54, No. 2
Articles
Value Creation Through Social Strategy
Bryan W. Husted, David Bruce Allen, and Ned Kock
Literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has tended to treat economic benefits to the firm as unintentional spillovers that result from laudable CSR behavior. Empirical studies of the relationship between CSR and corporate financial performance (CFP) have reported mixed findings. This article shifts the conceptual and empirical focus to investigate the conditions under which intentional profit-seeking through corporate social action projects can create economic value for the firm. The article uses resource-dependency theory and the resource-based view to define the firm's external and internal environments respectively. From that perspective, the article looks at how corporate social action creates economic value through strategic social planning and strategic social positioning. A survey instrument was developed and applied to 110 large Spanish firms. In that sample, munificence and continuous innovation positively affect social positioning, while nongovernmental organization salience and social responsibility orientation positively affect social planning. Both social positioning and social planning in turn contribute to corporate ability to create value. The article concludes with a discussion of the research and managerial implications of these findings. | | What Prompts Companies to Collaboration With NGOs? Recent Evidence From the Netherlands
Frank den Hond, Frank G. A. de Bakker, and Jonathan Doh
This article examines the factors that influence the propensity of corporations to engage with NGOs. Drawing from resource dependency theory (RDT) and related theories of social networks and the resource-based view of the firm, the authors develop a series of hypotheses that draw from this conceptual foundation to predict a range of factors that influence firms to collaborate with NGOs. These factors include the level of commitment of the firm to CSR, the strategic fit between the firm's and the NGO's resources, the level of trust the firm has in NGOs, the frequency of contact with NGOs, prior level and perception of experience with NGOs, and the level of pressure exerted by NGOs. The authors report on results of a survey of the Top 500 firms in the Netherlands on their interactions with NGOs, finding general support for our hypotheses, and suggest that understanding the motives for firm–NGO interactions can teach us more about firms' corporate social activities and the way such activities are shaped in the dynamic interplay between firms and their stakeholders. Our findings are relevant for future research on cross-sectoral interactions, for corporations considering future relationships with NGO cohorts, and for broader questions about the role of stakeholders and the role of business in society | | | Research Note
The Relationship Between Norwegian and Swedish Employees' Perception of Corporate Social Responsibility and Affective Commitment
Caroline D. Ditlev-Simonsen
Corporations are spending a substantial and increasing amount of money on corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, little is known about the effects on key stakeholders of these activities. This study investigates if CSR activities have an effect on employees' affective commitment (AC). Two models test to what extent employees' CSR perception, involvement in decision processes, and demographic variables are related to their AC relative to their perception of positive organizational support (POS). The analysis is based on a sample of 512 employees from 4 Scandinavian companies; 3 Norwegian and 1 Swedish, randomly selected from a population of 6,710 mostly Norwegian and Swedish employees in those 2 countries. The results indicate that CSR perception is a significant predictor of AC, although how employees feel that the company cares about them (POS) has stronger explanatory power on AC. Contrary to the few other studies addressing AC and CSR, gender was not found to be a significant variable in the model. | | | Dissertation Abstract
Examining the Impact of Moral Imagination on Organizational Decision Making
Lindsey N. Godwin
Emerging research suggests that an organization's ability to sustain a competitive advantage is increasingly linked to its successful pursuit of a business strategy that generates mutual benefit where the business is both profitable and functional for the common good. The question remains, however: What are the attributes of decision makers that enable them to realize mutually beneficial outcomes? This dissertation argues that one critical key to solving this question is a better understanding of moral imagination in organizational decision making. To test this hypothesis, a new vignette-based cognitive measure for moral imagination in organizational decision making was created to explore empirically the relationship between moral imagination and mutually beneficial decision making. Overall, findings from 180 respondents supported the hypothesis that individuals, who exercise moral imagination, including the ability for discerning moral issues and developing a range of possible outcomes during the decision-making process, are indeed more likely to generate a mutually beneficial outcome for a situation compared to those who do not exercise moral imagination. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. | |
Andy Crane, Dirk Matten, Irene Henriques, Bryan Husted
Co-Editors, Business & Society
Schulich School of Business
York University
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, M3J 1P3
baseditors@schulich.yorku.ca | | |
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