the governance of global value chains unresolved human rights environmental and ethical dilemmas in the apple supply chain the continued advance of global value chains as the mode of production for an increasing number of goods and services has impacted considerably on the economies and societies both of the developed world and the emerging economies although there have been many efforts at reform there is evidence of unresolved dilemmas of human rights environmental issues and ethical dilemmas in the operation of the global value chain this paper focuses on the role and performance of apple inc in the global value chain in asia apple is the most successful corporation on earth measured in financial terms and yet has failed to find a solution to recurrent employment and environmental problems occurring in plants manufacturing apple components this analysis informs the current theoretical debate on the development of the global value chain and the continuing institutional failure that leaves employees vulnerable and the environment neglected

strategic and regulatory approaches to increasing women in leadership multilevel targets and mandatory quotas as levers for cultural change while substantial evidence is emerging inter nationally of positive increases in the participation of women on company boards there is less evidence of any significant change in the proportion of women in senior executive ranks this paper describes evidence of positive changes in the number of women on boards in australia unfortunately these changes are not mirrored in the senior executive ranks where the proportion of women remains consistently low we explore some of the reasons for these disproportionate changes and examine the likely effect of the recent amendments to the australian stock exchange s corporate governance code designed to improve gender diversity both on boards and throughout organisations based on the early corporate response to these regulatory changes it is interesting to consider whether australia s approach in promoting voluntary self regulation at the corporate level may be as effective in the long run as the emerging trend in europe to apply legislated quotas for female corporate board representation interview evidence is presented suggesting that the primary reasons for the lack of women in leadership are not simply lack of opportunity at the apex of the corporation but issues at mid management level that are unlikely to be resolved by mandatory board quotas in some circumstances carefully monitored voluntary targets may be more effective at promoting cultural and strategic change at the heart of the corporation in summary mandatory quotas set through hard law usually with sanctions for noncompliance may achieve early and significant results in terms of female board representation however voluntary targets for women s participation on boards and in executive ranks proposed in soft regulation such as corporate governance codes and set as part of corporate strategy may promote more effective cultural and practical change in support of greater representation of women in leadership

women leaders and social performance evidence from financial cooperatives in senegal how do women leaders such as board members and top managers influence the social performance of organizations this paper addresses the question by exploiting a unique database from a senegalese network of 36 financial cooperatives we scrutinize the loan granting decisions made jointly by the locally elected board and the top manager assigned by the central union of the network our findings are threefold first female dominated boards favor social orientation second female managers tend to align their strategy with local boards preferences third the central union tends to assign male managers to female dominated boards probably to curb the boards social orientation

the impact of institutional and social context on corporate environmental social and governance performance of companies committed to voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives abstract using a neo institutional framework this paper discusses the role of national specific social cultural legal regulatory and economic differences when determining the way that companies committed to a specific voluntary corporate social responsibility csr initiative operate in different sustainability dimensions the differences between companies environmental social and governance esg performance of the companies operating in the three countries with highest number of firms committed to the united nations global compact ungc spain france and japan is assessed through a multidimensional hj biplot technique which is a statistical technique that provides a joint graphical representation in a low dimensional euclidean space usually a plane of a multivariate data matrix this research contributes to the existing literature providing quantitative evidence of how different country specific social and institutional schemes influence companies esg performance the main results reveal the existence of two clusters of companies behaving in different ways with regard of sustainability issues first spanish and french companies exhibit similar levels of social and corporate governance performance higher than those of japanese firms second japanese firms seem more committed to environmental issues than spanish and french companies these results confirm that the different countries with different institutional backgrounds induce different priorities among their firms in terms of esg performance even under a common commitment to the same principles of adopted csr initiative

dealing with cultural differences in environmental management exploring the cep cfp relationship abstract despite numerous attempts to agree on the nature of the relationship between environmental and financial performance controversial results still exist in the literature this discrepancy suggests that we must enlarge the spectrum of analysis to understand when it pays to be green the way in which society takes a stance on environmental responsibility is deeply bounded to the cultural lenses through which it sets its priorities a cultural perspective can help explain the capacity for social phenomena to shape behaviour we consider how the contextual environment of culture thus far neglected might moderate the corporate environmental performance corporate financial performance relationship and thus influence firms capacity to offset the costs of environmental management by using a sample of 954 companies we contribute to the long running debate showing how the effect of cultural influence can overcome the hurdle of contrasting results and offer novel insights for both academia and practitioners

integrated environmental and economic accounting an application to the forest resources in india forests contribute to the economy in several ways while forests are a source of timber with market values they also influence local and regional climate preserve soil cover on site and in the case of watersheds protect soil downstream from floods functions which are not in the production boundary of sna further the net value added in forestry sector does not reflect sustainability of forest resources because it ignores the consumption of natural capital depletion that occurs when forests are harvested or converted to other uses the only costs of depletion considered in the national accounts are the extraction costs and records the potential loss in forest wealth as other changes in assets that have no effect on gross domestic product gdp the study tries to incorporate forest resources into the national accounts and adjust the gross domestic product gdp for the depletion of forest capital using the satellite system of integrated environmental and economic accounting seea the value of net accumulation positive or negative of forests is calculated and the net domestic product is adjusted for the depletion of the forest resources to get environment adjusted domestic product edp the results show that the edp equals 98 4 of the adjusted net domestic product in 1993 1994 a proper accounting framework would better reflect not only the long term value of the state s natural wealth but also its immediate contribution to the state economy in the current accounts

building theory at the intersection of ecological sustainability and strategic management this article builds theory at the intersection of ecological sustainability and strategic management literature specifically in relation to dynamic capabilities literature by combining industrial organization economics based resource based and dynamic capability based views it is possible to develop a better understanding of the strategies that businesses may follow depending on their managers assumptions about ecological sustainability to develop innovative strategies for ecological sustainability the dynamic capabilities framework needs to be extended in particular the sensing seizing maintaining competitiveness framework should operate not only within the boundaries of a business ecosystem but in relation to global biophysical ecosystems in addition two more dynamic capabilities should be added namely remapping and reaping this framework can explicate core managerial beliefs about ecological sustainability finally this approach offers opportunities for managers and academics to identify categorize and exploit business strategies for ecological sustainability

rebuilding trust ireland s csr plan in the light of caritas in veritate this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on national corporate social responsibility csr plans from the perspectives of the three logics as articulated in caritas in veritate by using the irish national csr plan as an example good for business good for the community ireland s national plan on corporate social responsibility 2014 2016 maintains that csr activities can enable organisations to build relationships and trust with communities one of the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis was the decrease in trust in banking systems and in business more broadly it is well recognised that relationships of trust are essential to the life of the market the state and civil society pope emeritus benedict xvi s caritas in veritate contends that corresponding to the life of the market the state and civil society are three logics the logic of exchange i e giving to acquire the logic of public obligation i e giving through duty and the logic of gift i e giving due to solidarity this paper proposes that the normative framework of the three logics of caritas in veritate can be read into the irish national csr plan this paper argues that the examples of csr initiatives proffered by the plan could point organisations in the direction of the logic of gift and therefore enable the rebuilding of relationships of trust with citizens and communities

environmental accounting for pollution in the united states economy this study presents a framework to include environmental externali ties into a system of national accounts the paper estimates the air pollution damages for each industry in the united states an inte grated assessment model quantifies the marginal damages of air pol lution emissions for the us which are multiplied times the quantity of emissions by industry to compute gross damages solid waste com bustion sewage treatment stone quarrying marinas and oil and coal fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added the largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal fired electric generation whose damages range from 0 8 to 5 6 times value added jel e01 l94 q53 q56

corporate social performance and economic cycles do firms respond to changes in economic growth by altering their corporate social responsibility programs if they do respond are their responses simply neglect of areas associated with corporate social performance csp or do they also cut back on positive programs such as profit sharing public private housing programs or charitable contributions in this paper we argue that because csp related actions and programs tend to be discretionary they are likely to receive less attention during tough economic times a result of cost cutting efforts however the various csp performance areas vary in terms of their resource requirements and their influence on financial performance short and long term which suggests that firms may respond differently depending on area consequently in addition to examining csp concerns separately from positive actions and programs csp strengths we also examine the influence of economic growth across the five areas of diversity employee relations the environment product quality safety and the community based on data from 837 firms over 15 years our results suggest that firms neglect some areas associated with csp during economic downturns resulting in increased concerns about community and employee relations product safety quality and the environment however this relationship does not apply to positive actions and programs instead firms tend to increase their positive csp programs in areas such as diversity employee relations and the environment during periods of slow economic growth and reduce them when the economy picks up we offer potential explanations for our findings and discuss their importance to research on csp

systematic variation in yield spreads for tax exempt general obligation bonds in recent years much research has centered upon whether yield differentials between bonds which differ in default risk vary systematically over the business cycle theory suggests that during a cyclical upswing the yield differential or risk premium narrows while during a downswing the differential widens the cyclical behavior of yield spreads is well documented in the corporate bond market 4 8 12 16 this effect has only recently been given attention in the tax exempt bond market 1 11 in addition the municipal bond market may be segmented if tax exempt borrowers and investors are unable to substitute between tax exempt securities of varying default risk changes in the relative supply of and demand for these classes of securities could produce systematic fluctuations in tax exempt yield differentials these effects could be produced by regulatory statutes which require that banks purchase high grade securities and the fixed nature of bond ratings

stakeholder pressures as determinants of csr strategic choice why do firms choose symbolic versus substantive self regulatory codes of conduct to encourage corporations to contribute positively to the environment in which they operate voluntary self regulatory codes src have been enacted and refined over the past 15 years two of the most prominent are the united nations global compact and the global reporting initiative in this paper we explore the impact of different stakeholders pressures on the selection of strategic choices to join srcs our results show that corporations react differently to different sets of stakeholder pressures and that the src selection depends on the type and intensiveness of the stakeholder pressures as well as the resources at hand to respond to those pressures our contribution offers a more specific and finely variegated analysis of firm stakeholder interactions

natural resource accounting for indian states illustrating the case of forest resources abstract our main objective is to set out and apply a seea based methodology to reflect the true value of forest resources in india s national and state accounts we establish that a top down approach using available national databases is both feasible and desirable from a policy perspective in this paper we address four components of value creation in forests timber production carbon storage fuelwood usage and the harvesting of non timber forest products the results of our analysis suggest that prevailing measures of national income in india underestimate the contribution of forests to income the income accounts of the northeastern states in particular are significantly understated by these traditional gdp gsdp measures we are also able to identify some states which performed poorly in the context of our sustainability framework reflecting natural capital losses due to degradation and deforestation our results highlight the need to integrate natural resource accounting into the national accounting framework in order to generate appropriate signals for sustainable forest management and for the conservation of forest resources which are widely used by the poor in india as well as being significant stores of national wealth

what determines principle based standards implementation reporting on global compact adoption in spanish firms international accountability standards have proliferated in the last 20 years with the un global compact gc as the most widely accepted principle based standard catalyzing voluntary participation by firms this study aims to improve understanding about the factors that determine companies progress in adopting principle based standards drawing on the resource based view of the firm we examine the direct and combined influences of different organizational resources firm specific resources innovative capability length of participation and internationalization of the firm on standard implementation as perceived by 213 spanish gc signatories our results reveal that the level of firm specific resources has a positive effect on the extent of gc principles implementation and that innovative capability and length of gc participation strengthen this effect contrary to our expectations we find that the internationalization of firms does not have an effect on gc principles implementation we discuss the implications of these findings for scholars and practicing managers

corporate social responsibility a strategic advantage or a strategic necessity for many firms a focus on corporate social responsibility csr is an indication to stakeholders that the firm is concerned about social and environmental issues however these same firms may engage in csr activities with the expectation that these activities will increase their bottom line a relevant and highly researched question is the relationship between csr and performance the findings are inconclusive indicating a need to consider other explanations several authors have drawn on the resource based view of the firm to suggest that csr can give a firm a competitive advantage in this article we draw on and further develop this research by focusing on four outcomes of csr initiatives strategic disadvantage strategic necessity temporary strategic advantage and strategic advantage we exemplify this with two cases the article contributes to the literature by developing a set of possible outcomes by recognizing several issues which result in strategic necessity and by suggesting movement between the outcomes

determinants of bribery in asian firms evidence from the world business environment survey while it is widely believed that bribery is ubiquitous among asian firms few studies have offered systematic evidence of such activities and the dynamics of bribery in asian firms have not been well understood the research reported here used world business environment survey data to examine some distinct characteristics of bribery in asian firms and to empirically test 10 hypotheses on determinants of bribery we find that firm characteristics such as firm size growth rate and corporate governance are important determinants of bribery activities at the firm level and that asian firms are more likely to bribe when faced with fierce market competition corrupted court systems convoluted licensing requirements nontransparent interpretation of laws and regulations inefficient government service delivery and high taxes

corporate social responsibility theories mapping the territory the corporate social responsibility csr field presents not only a landscape of theories but also a proliferation of approaches which are controversial complex and unclear this article tries to clarify the sit uation mapping the territory by classifying the main csr theories and related approaches in four groups 1 instrumental theories in which the corporation is seen as only an instrument for wealth creation and its social activities are only a means to achieve economic results 2 political theories which concern themselves with the power of corporations in society and a responsible use of this power in the political arena 3 integrative theories in which the corporation is focused on the satisfaction of social demands and 4 ethical theories based on ethical responsibilities of corporations to society in practice each csr theory presents four dimensions related to profits political performance social demands and ethical values the findings suggest the necessity to develop a new theory on the business and society relationship which should integrate these four dimensions

shareholder value stakeholder management and social issues what s the bottom line we test the relationship between shareholder value stakeholder management and social issue participation building better relations with primary stakeholders like employees customers suppliers and communities could lead to increased shareholder wealth by helping firms develop intangible valuable assets which can be sources of competitive advantage on the other hand using corporate resources for social issues not related to primary stakeholders may not create value for shareholders we test these propositions with data from s p 500 firms and find evidence that stakeholder management leads to improved shareholder value while social issue participation is negatively associated with shareholder value copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

does firm growth increase corruption evidence from an instrumental variable approach prior literature on the role that firm heterogeneity plays in corruption finds that larger firms pay smaller bribes and are less likely to pay bribes than smaller firms these studies however often overlook the plausible reverse causality between firm growth or firm size and corruption utilizing an innovative identification strategy that accounts for this source of endogeneity this study finds that increased firm size actually causes greater corruption and bureaucratic burdens on a typical firm and provides evidence against the argument for a uniform corruption burden regardless of size it was determined that a one standard deviation increase in sales leads to 0 33 standard deviation increase in bribes and to 0 36 standard deviation increase in management time spent dealing with public officials moreover although corruption burden increases with increasing firm size we find that this relationship is non linear and diminishes in magnitude as firm size approaches to medium and large we conclude with implications and policy considerations

why and how might firms respond strategically to violent conflict the aim of this study is to investigate factors specifically stakeholder pressures that may affect the likelihood that firms will respond to violent conflict survey and archival data on respondents from 471 multinational and local firms operating in 80 countries were used to explore these issues key findings include 1 local stakeholder pressure is associated with the likelihood that firms will respond directly to violent conflict collaborating with other organizations or working alone when doing so and 2 international stakeholder pressure is associated with the likelihood that firms will respond indirectly to violent conflict collaborating with other organizations or working alone

the impact of stakeholder power on corporate reputation a cross country corporate governance perspective corporate reputation has roots in national beliefs about the role of the business corporation in society these beliefs are constructed in accordance with the preferences of powerful stakeholders building on a stakeholder power approach to corporate governance we investigate whether differences in the legal rights and protections of shareholders creditors and workers across countries affect the general public s reputation assessments of business corporations using a sample of 593 of the largest publicly traded companies in the world from 32 countries during 2007 to 2011 we find that in societies where shareholders enjoy a high degree of legal rights the impact of stock market returns on corporate reputation becomes more positive likewise the negative relationship between earnings volatility and reputation becomes greater when creditor rights are stronger contrary to expectations we found no evidence of an interaction effect between labor rights and corporate social performance on corporate repu

municipal bond pricing and the new york city fiscal crisis this paper s findings suggests that the new york city fiscal crisis by itself did not lead to a fundamental change in risk perceptions of investors resulting in higher interest rates in the municipal bond market the monthly prediction errors generated by time series tests were relatively small and none were statistically significant only the signs on the prediction errors for june july and august were consistent with a new york city effect thus if the new york city default had an impact on aggregate interest rates it was at most small and of short duration a great deal of controversy has arisen in recent years over the impact of the new york city default upon the municipal bond market during 1975 municipal borrowing costs rose to historically high levels with most issues carrying their highest interest cost during the summer of 1975 it was during this period that new york city experienced the worst of its 15 year history of financial problems while most observers argue that the problems of new york city represent a special case of fiscal mismanagement many conclude that the high market rates of interest in the municipal bond market were caused by the new york city default research by forbes and peterson 3 and gramlich 5 supports the latter contention in addition others contend that the impact of the default was not just temporary but was felt long after 1975 8 these contentions if true have significant policy implications not only do they suggest that all municipalities suffered immediate as well as long term higher interest cost due to the fiscal irresponsibility of new york city but they are important arguments for the provision of federal aid to prevent the failures of other large municipalities or corporate entities 1 the purpose of this paper is to examine whether the new york city default by itself caused risk perceptions of investors to change resulting in higher interest rates to other municipal borrowers the hypothesis is tested by applying a random coefficients model to aggregate time series interest rate data the major finding of the study is that there is little evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the new york city crisis had a fundamental or long lasting impact on municipal borrowing costs this paper is organized as follows section i describes how the new york city fiscal crisis may have raised municipal borrowing costs

taxes default risk and yield spreads this paper develops a model of bond prices and yield spreads that incorporates the effect of both taxes and differences in default probabilities the tax loss consequences of default are recognized traditionally tax free municipal bond yields have been viewed as linearly related to taxable yields with a slope coefficient equal to one minus the tax rate and the intercept representing differences in default risk while our model supports the linearity assumption it implies that the slope and intercept are both functions of both the break even tax rate and the default probability ies clientele effects among both municipal and taxable bonds are demonstrated finally the implied marginal tax rates and the implied default probabilities are estimated for different categories of municipal bonds students of financial markets cannot help but be impressed by the number of new financial instruments that have been introduced successfully in recent years the fixed income market has been particularly innovative as bonds carrying a whole host of specific features have been successfully marketed bonds with small or zero coupons variable coupon rates or detachable warrants are three examples from among an expanding list of such features not surprisingly there has developed a large and expanding literature attempting to explain the rate spreads between different fixed income securities this literature has evolved much as one would expect early empirical work was in general not well founded in theory and was not based on an underlying expected return price model later empirical research has tended to be more careful in its specification of factors affecting yield spreads and as a consequence better founded in valuation

institutionalizing sustainability an empirical study of corporate registration and commitment to the united nations global compact guidelines abstract drawing upon institutional and stakeholder theories we explore the causal mechanisms of institutionalization and their influence on sustainable development initiatives to test our arguments we study the registration patterns of 394 large corporations from 12 western european and latin american countries into the united nations global compact results indicate that the normative and mimetic mechanisms of institutionalization i e academe and peer influence are better indicators of sustainable development initiatives than the coercive one i e government regulation the implications of these findings are consequential if sd practices continue as an ethical choice and not a mandated obligation for corporate decision makers

sustainable business model adoption among s p 500 firms a longitudinal content analysis study in this study we examine the diversity of sustainable business models adopted by the largest global corporations those listed in the s p 500 index over the period 2005 2014 we examine press release communications during this period which represent public data about business relevant events we expect that examining this communication can reveal longitudinal patterns in the adoption of sustainable business activities and models empirically we utilize academic and practitioner expert panels to build a set of keywords across nine sustainable business model archetypes and utilize automated content analysis to examine the breadth and nature of a firm s sustainable business activities and practices we find evidence of the increasing prominence of different types of sustainable business models over time in particular the results show that large capitalized firms have mostly adopted the environmentally oriented archetypes and to much lesser extent the societal and organizational ones

a resource based view of the socially responsible firm stakeholder interdependence ethical awareness and issue responsiveness as strategic assets in recent years the resource based view of the firm has made significant headway in explaining differences in interfirm performance however this perspective has not considered the social and ethical dimensions of organizational resources this paper seeks to provide such an integration using kuhn s three stage model of adaptive behavior the resource worthiness of stakeholder management business ethics and issues management are explored the paper concludes by drawing on prospect theory to understand the reasons for this conceptual lacuna

does equity ownership matter for corporate social responsibility a literature review of theories and recent empirical findings based on the concept of shareholder primacy many scholars have argued that it is more important for businesses to earn profits for their shareholders than to provide benefits to society at large corporate social responsibility csr is often regarded as an investment that comes at the expense of shareholders in contrast research analyzing the connections between the equity ownership structure of a company and its level of csr engagement suggests that csr offers benefits to shareholders that go beyond direct financial returns from investments this study provides a comprehensive review and systematic assessment of theoretical considerations and approaches regarding different forms of equity ownership and their relationships to csr and it discusses the relevant benefits and motivations of shareholders the perceived value of these csr benefits varies among different types of shareholders as they assign unequal values to short term financial or to rather long term csr benefits based on a literature sample of 146 publications this review demonstrates central problems inherent in previous analyses given the ambiguous and partially contradictory findings of prior research this study identifies potential moderating influences that help clarify empirical evidence a contingency approach is suggested in future research as this can help resolve the problem of contradictory empirical findings and theoretical arguments

corporate environmental citizenship variation in developing countries an institutional framework this study focuses on why some companies in developing countries go beyond environmental regulations when implementing their corporate environmental social responsibilities or citizenship behavior drawing mainly upon the new institutional theory this study develops a conceptual framework to explain three institutional factors companies market orientations industrial characteristics and corporate identities accordingly we suggest that companies from developing countries that are oriented to markets in developed countries operate in highly concentrated industries and have missionary identities adopt corporate environmental citizenship behavior by going beyond environmental regulations the study also discusses the theoretical policy and managerial implications of the conceptual framework

the total economic value of amazonian deforestation 1978 1993 national income accounting has been criticized because of its failure to encompass the notion of sustainability several studies address this problem through green income accounting i e by adjusting conventionally measured gdp for reduction in a given country s stock of natural resources these studies generally base value on the unit net price of the resource other studies go beyond net price emphasizing a natural resource s total economic value tev that is its non marketable as well as its marketable values this paper combines the green income accounting and tev approaches and applies the new framework to brazil in order to assess the foregone economic benefits resulting from amazonian deforestation the results lend support to calls for greater policy emphasis on conservation of unique and irreplaceable ecosystems 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

revisiting supplier compliance with mnc codes of conduct recoupling policy and practice at chinese toy suppliers does private regulation of workers rights in global value chains improve working conditions on the factory floor drawing on one of the first systematic longitudinal studies of supplier compliance with multinational corporation mnc codes of conduct this paper finds in contrast to previous research substantial improvements over time while in 2004 the four examined chinese toy suppliers violated most of the evaluated code of conduct criteria and consciously decoupled the code of conduct policy from actual practices by 2009 they had recoupled policy and practice and complied with nearly all examined criteria except working hours the paper contributes to the private regulation literature by challenging previous research claims identifying factors that could make private regulation effective and outlining a research method for empirically studying the effects of codes of conduct over time the paper also contributes to new institutional theory by discussing how recoupling could be influenced by two factors not identified in previous research i trusting relationships between the organization and the stakeholder exerting pressure and ii factors unrelated to main external pressures leading to accidental recoupling

accounting for india s forest wealth in this paper we account for forest wealth in india changes in the timber and carbon wealth embodied in these forests are related to important green national accounting aggregates such as genuine saving and the change in wealth per capita important accounting issues include the timing of carbon releases that occur when forests are disturbed as well as the valuation of these releases our empirical findings suggest that while india s forest wealth is substantial net changes in this wealth are arguably not so large at least in relation to gnp however when viewed in the context of the wealth diluting effects of population growth this implies a far larger additional savings effort is required to cover the net loss in forest values than otherwise appears to be the case finally we examine ways in which the accounting approach that we adopt can be reconciled with approaches which stress conserving forest wealth

term structure effects on default risk premia and the relationship of default risky tax exempt yields to risk free taxable yields a note abstract the behavior of the default risk premium on bonds has caught the attention of many researchers some researchers have analyzed how default risk premia may vary with maturity it has been suggested that default risk premia are independent of maturity however recent research by rodriguez 1988 shows this to not hold for nonpar taxable bonds this research shows that the shape of the underlying term structure affects default risk premia for even par bonds in a systematic way furthermore the maturity dependent variation in equilibrium tax rates has a strong impact upon default risk premia behavior where equilibrium tax rates are derived from comparisons of taxable and tax exempt bonds the inclusion of the shape of the underlying term structure also has very important implications for the relation between taxexempt yields and taxable yields the slope and intercept terms of the relation between taxexempt and taxable yields are clearly dependent upon maturity a fact which has not been recognized before

the anatomy of the high yield bond market 1987 the anatomy of the high yield bond market financial analysts journal vol 43 no 4 pp 12 25

the relevance of stakeholder theory and social capital theory in the context of csr in smes an australian perspective the concept of business responsibility usually termed as corporate social responsibility csr originated in the early 1930s after the wall street crash of 1929 exposed corporate irresponsibility in large organisations the understanding of csr has evolved since then and its scope has now broadened from mere compliance to corporate laws to active alignment of internal business goals with externally set societal aspirations unfortunately the significance of this multidimensional concept within the small and medium enterprise sme sector has continued to be overshadowed by its application in large and multinational organisations more importantly this has led to the practice of judging smes which are experiencing increasing pressure to engage in social activities as if they are no different from their larger counterparts this study therefore investigates csr from the perspective of smes in australia without any theoretical presumptions and then comments on the relevance and applicability of the two theories that have been commonly used to investigate business responsibility namely stakeholder theory st and social capital theory sct the research findings indicate that csr within the sme sector is more aligned to the fundamentals of sct mainly owing to the unique resource and survival challenges that they face and which are arguably not so pronounced in large organisations

the impact of the new york city fiscal crisis on the interest cost of new issue municipal bonds the default of a major corporation or municipality generates debate over the impact these failures have on the borrowing cost of other issuers theory suggests that in efficient markets individual failures by themselves should not increase the level of interest rates in a market unless the default provides unanticipated information about other issuers the default of new york city in the summer of 1975 was believed by many to have provided information that increased the perceived risk of investors and consequently increased new issue borrowing costs in the municipal bond market empirical research by forbes and peterson 2 and gramlich 3 supports this contention reporting that borrowers paid as much as 119 basis points more because of the new york city crisis a study by hoffland 6 suggests that the impact of the default was not just temporary but was felt long after 1975 though less scientific others note that during 1975 municipal borrowing costs rose to record high levels with most issues carrying their interest cost during the summer of 1975

scoring firms codes of ethics an explorative study of quality drivers research in the field of management has increasingly focused on strategies and tools related to corporate sustainability of the tools examined codes of ethics have been found to play a primary role many studies have investigated the content of such codes as well as their capacity to condition the behaviour of people within organizations however few studies have considered the intrinsic quality of codes of ethics this study aims to investigate the impact that specific factors firm size degree of internationalization and industry effect can have on the quality of codes of ethics based on a sample of 248 listed italian companies the results of the empirical analysis show that the quality standard is particularly high in larger companies and in those firms operating in industries in which relationships established with critical stakeholders and disclosure to those stakeholders play a crucial role these results have interesting implications for both researchers and practitioners

the corporate social responsibility of pharmaceutical product recalls an empirical examination of u s and u k markets the pressure on companies to practice corporate social responsibility csr has gained momentum in recent times as a means of sustaining competitive advantage in business the pharmaceutical industry has been acutely affected by this trend while pharmaceutical product recalls have become rampant and increased dramatically in recent years no comprehensive study has been conducted to study the effects of announcements of recalls on the shareholder returns of pharmaceutical companies as product recalls could significantly damage a company s reputation profitability and brand integrity this paper investigates the effect on shareholder wealth and the extent to which the adoption of csr practices by pharmaceutical companies in the united kingdom u k and the united states u s the two largest markets for pharmaceutical products in the world affected market reactions surrounding product recall announcements the analysis of product recall announcements from 1998 to 2004 compiled from the pharmaceutical journal and u s food and drug administration enforcement reports revealed marked differences in the way market participants in the two countries responded to news of product recalls u s investors penalised firms according to the severity of product defects while u k investors were indifferent while u k investors rewarded product recalls by firms which were not usually csr active u s investors punished non csr active firms that performed recalls these observations could pose strategic challenges to pharmaceutical firms operating in both countries

integrating sustainability in business model disclosure evidence from the uk mining industry abstract this article offers a methodological tool that assesses a company s commitment to sustainability by analysing its business model which is defined here as a description of processes through which organizations implement their competitive strategies and create value insofar as they are considered a key driver for long term profitability sustainability strategies should involve a company s value creation processes that is a company s business model this paper specifically examines the extent to which mining companies engage in sustainability by performing content analyses of their business model disclosures our empirical analysis focuses on the uk mining industry because this sector often struggles with a host of societal organizational and environmental issues and because uk mining companies are obliged to describe their business model in their strategic reports in order to determine whether and how companies implement sustainability strategies in their business model we perform a content analysis of the business model disclosures of 16 ftse all share index uk mining companies for a total of 1048 text units our results suggest that mining companies have opted for a selective and soft approach to sustainability although air energy water local community engagement environmental protection and labour conditions are often addressed in the business models of uk mining companies there is very little evidence to suggest that concrete initiatives were actually implemented in other areas in fact some topics are completely ignored raw materials almost completely ignored waste corruption and lobbying local employment or discussed in a predominantly descriptive manner human rights opportunity and equality recruitment and bargaining training the practical implications of this study are twofold first we offer a new means of investigating how companies engage in sustainability by performing content analyses of their business model disclosures secondly we offer a detailed discussion of how sustainability affects value creation processes in the uk mining industry

ecosystem services and regional development an application to sweden this study carries out interregional comparisons of development and sustainable use of natural capital with and without inclusion of non marketed ecosystem services a simple dynamic model of an open economy shows that appropriate adjustment of conventional income accounts includes flow and stock components but excludes explicit entrance of pollution calculations are made for swedish regions and for two types of ecosystem services pollution sequestration and recreational services provided by three types of ecosystems forests agricultural landscape and wetlands when comparing the adjusted and non adjusted regional income accounts it is shown that the two measurements generate significantly different pictures of regional income and growth regions that are traditionally considered as relatively less growth promoting are shown to hold important sources of wealth from natural capital while counties that are rich in conventional accounts fall behind when adjusting for values of changes in natural capital

the new york city fiscal crisis what happened and what is to be done the new york city fiscal crisis as it was played out in the nation s newspapers this year had all the elements of a first class drama there was first of all the tension would the city make it through its periodic financial hurdles would the ford administration blink what would happen if the city defaulted then there were the accusations was it the fault of wagner lindsay beame rockefeller ford the unions or economic and social forces beyond the city s control then the controversy the issue seemed ideally suited to split deficit spenders from budget balancers soft headed liberals from hardheaded accountants eastern establishment intellectuals from the silent majority finally though it did not capture as much press coverage the crisis also graphically illustrated several basic issues in the economics of federalism that are now creeping into public finance textbooks the proper role of local and national governments in stabilizing the economy and redistributing income whether the federal or the state government has an obligation to protect the financial integrity of local governments whether public expenditures can be effectively controlled in the short run this paper discusses the city s fiscal plight in the context of all of these issues i how big are the deficits

private regulation and trade union rights why codes of conduct have limited impact on trade union rights codes of conduct are the main tools to privately regulate worker rights in global value chains scholars have shown that while codes may improve outcome standards such as occupational health and safety they have had limited impact on process rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining scholars have though only provided vague or general explanations for this empirical finding we address this shortcoming by providing a holistic and detailed explanation and argue that codes in their current form have limited impact on trade union rights due to i buyers paying lip service to trade union rights ii workers being treated as passive objects of regulation in codes of conduct iii auditing being unable to detect and remediate violations of trade union rights iv codes emphasizing parallel means of organizing v suppliers having limited incentives for compliance and vi codes being unable to open up space for union organizing when leveraged in grassroots struggles our arguments suggest that there is no quick fix for codes limited impact on trade union rights and that codes in their current form have limited potential to improve trade union rights we conclude by discussing ways in which codes of conduct and private regulation of worker rights more generally could be transformed to more effectively address trade union rights

dealing with uncertainties when governing csr policies as corporate social responsibility involves a voluntary business endeavour to address social and environmental issues beyond legal compliance governments cannot fall back on hierarchical command and control policies to support it as such it is complementary with the increasing popularity of public policies known as new governance policies where the government is engaged in a horizontal inter organizational network of societal actors and where public policy is both formed and executed by the interacting and voluntary efforts from a multitude of stakeholders however such policies are known to generate substantive uncertainty about the content of csr and its related issues strategic uncertainty regarding the behavior of the actors involved and institutional uncertainty related to the interaction process involved in the institutional change we explore new governance policy instruments to address these uncertainties in the context csr and discuss the experiences with these methods in the european union

fluidity of regulation csr nexus the multinational corporate corruption example corporate social responsibility csr is a relatively undeveloped concept despite its increasing importance to corporations one difficulty is the possible inexactness of csr another is the apparent reluctance by regulatory authorities and policy makers to intervene in the area this is largely a result of inhibitions created by traditional approaches to company law with emphasis on shareholder protection and financial disclosure the consequence is the stultification of independent development of csr by tying social issues to financial performance this attitude might not be unconnected to the theoretical and practical challenges in justifying csr and defining its scope the underlying impediment is a factual and theoretical failure to distinguish instrumental and pure ethical csr this article demonstrates that ethical csr highlights the role of regulation and a principal stance is that regulation is neither incompatible nor irreconcilable with ethical csr the article argues that cognizance of the intrinsic moral justification of pure csr is required for delineating the scope of csr as well as for clarifying the desirability and extent of its regulation it argues that the dynamic history and visage of multinational corporate corruption illuminates the fluidity of the regulation csr relationship the current and widening backlash against transnational corporate corruption is arguably a demonstration of the position that regulation and csr are not mutually exclusive and absolute concepts this article submits that recognition and application of this ethical and instrumental csr distinction is fundamental to the development of csr and resolution of connected questions of regulation

the default rate experience on high yield corporate debt recent 1978 83 net returns on high yield low rated debt have been impressive averaging 490 to 580 basis points above the long term government bond index but low rated junk bonds pose a risk of default not present in the higher rated segment of the bond market the authors divided the par value of defaulting debt by total low rated straight debt outstanding to arrive at an estimate of the default rate for high yield bonds excluding johns manville which had the only defaulting debt rated investment grade just prior to the default date for the 1974 84 period this averaged 1 52 per cent or 152 basis points annually year to year variations in the rate were substantial furthermore default experience differed across various industry segments railroads and reits were particularly vulnerable to default in the past although they are unlikely to represent a large portion of future defaults retailer electronic computer airline and oil and gas defaults have become more common in recent years losses from default are actually lower than the default rate alone implies defaulted bonds traded on average at 41 per cent of par shortly after default after accounting for the bonds retained value and the loss of interest the average reduction in return to the investor who had purchased the bonds at par would have been in the range of 96 to 100 basis points annually

the stakeholder theory and the common good the theory of the social responsibility of the firm oscillates between two extremes one that reduces the firm s responsibility to the obtainment of the greatest possible profit for its shareholders and another that extends the firm s responsibility to include a wide range of actors with an interest or stake in the firm the stakeholder theory of the social responsibility of business is more appealing from an ethical point of view and yet it lacks a solid foundation that would be acceptable to a variety of schools of thought in this paper i argue that the stakeholder theory could be founded on the concept of the common good first i explain the foundations of the theory of the common good the concept itself how it relates to the individual good and its role in the firm following that i explain how the theory of the common good could be applied to the stakeholder theory finally i draw some conclusions

the resiliency of the high yield bond market the ltv default this paper investigates the resiliency of the new issue high yield bond market by examining the changes in implied default rates of such bonds before and after the largest high yield bond default i e the ltv bankruptcy specifically the paper compares implied default probabilities of high yield bonds during the post ltv period calculated from actual new issue yields with instrumental default probabilities calculated on the assumption that the default had not occurred a comparison of these probabilities reveals that the market s perception of default on the hjgh risk segment of the bond market increased significantly after the ltv bankruptcy however the effect was transitory lasting only six months thus the market was resilient to a major default in recent years high yield debt has become a significant segment of the corporate bond market the main source of the growth has come from new issues of high yield corporate bonds rather than an increase in fallen angels 1 the driving force behind this new breed of high yield debt growth has been its use as a means to tap the capital markets to finance increasingly common leveraged buyouts hostile takeovers and major corporate restructurings the market acceptance of high yield bonds was further enhanced by empirical evidence that net returns on a diversified portfolio of low grade bonds exceeded those on highgrade bonds while the volatility of their monthly returns was no greater 2 the frenzied pace of growth in the high yield debt market however has been accompanied by increasing concerns from various quarters 3 critics have char

corporations and ngos when accountability leads to co optation interactions between corporations and nonprofits are on the rise frequently driven by a corporate interest in establishing credentials for corporate social responsibility csr in this article we show how increasing demands for accountability directed at both businesses and ngos can have the unintended effect of compromising the autonomy of nonprofits and fostering their co optation greater scrutiny of ngo spending driven by self appointed watchdogs of the nonprofit sector and a prevalence of strategic notions of csr advanced by corporate actors weaken the ability of civil society actors to change the business practices of their partners in the commercial sector to counter this trend we argue that corporations should embrace a political notion of csr and should actively encourage ngos to strengthen downward accountability mechanisms even if this creates more tensions in corporate ngo partnerships rather than seeing ngos as tools in a competition for a comparative advantage in the market place corporations should actively support ngo independence and critical capacity

lower grade bonds their risks and returns to reflect as realistically as possible the risks and returns of lower grade bonds the authors constructed an index from actual average returns used in the compilation of the salomon brothers and drexel burnham lambert lower grade indexes supplementing these with month end prices prior to 1982 from the sp thus a diversified portfolio may contain both the debt and equity of the issuing companies

an analysis of cause related marketing implementation strategies through social alliance partnership conditions and strategic objectives cause related marketing crm is an effective marketing tool for promoting corporate social responsibility csr activities and the bulk of campaigns are designed and delivered through collaborative social alliances with non profit organisations npos the authors seek to uncover some of the factors that explain how firms and npos choose their potential partners in the development of their crm strategy the rationales for the observed patterns are investigated through semi structured interviews conducted with managers employed by the uk based firms and npos the authors find that each party has specific preferences when choosing the particular crm implementation strategies in different situations as well as different initial positions when negotiating the formation of the social alliance this article contributes to our understanding of the crm implementation strategies and both the company s and the npo s behaviours toward each of the strategies

the governance of corporate sustainability empirical insights into the development leadership and implementation of responsible business strategy this article explores how corporate governance processes and structures are being used in large australian companies to develop lead and implement corporate responsibility strategies it presents an empirical analysis of the governance of sustainability in fifty large listed companies based on each company s disclosures in annual and sustainability reports we find that significant progress is being made by large listed australian companies towards integrating sustainability into core business operations there is evidence of leadership structures being put in place to ensure that board and senior management are involved in sustainability strategy development and are then incentivised to monitor and ensure implementation of that strategy through financial rewards there is evidence of a willingness to engage and communicate clearly the results of these strategies to interested stakeholders overall there appears to be a developing acceptance amongst large corporations that efforts towards improved corporate sustainability are not only expected but are of value to the business we suggest that this is evidence of a managerial shift away from an orthodox shareholder primacy understanding of the corporation towards a more enlightened shareholder value approach often encompassing a stakeholder orientated view of business strategy however strong underlying tensions remain due to the insistent market emphasis on shareholder value

determinants of bribery in international business the cultural and economic factors corruption perceptions index cpi scores for 47 countries reported by transparency international were used to ascertain determinants of bribe taking in international business two sets of independent variables economic and cultural were used in a multiple regression analysis results indicate that bribe taking was more likely to be prevalent in countries with low per capita income and lower disparities in income distribution cultural factors such as high power distance and high masculinity in a country were also likely to be associated with high level of bribe taking both economic and cultural factors were important explanatory factors of bribery implications of the findings for combating bribery are discussed

the public perceptions and willingness to pay from the perspective of the smog crisis in china the deteriorating air quality which is linked to human actions related to energy resources has become an urgent global problem china s air pollution has reached the hazardous level since 2000s in consideration of the serious health and social problems residential demand for clean air is increasing this paper applies the contingent valuation method to estimate public s willingness to pay wtp for reducing air pollution in the urban area of china open ended scenarios through face to face surveys are used to elicit public s wtp the two part model is employed for the estimation the probit model is used to estimate the probability of respondents who have positive wtp values and the interval regression model is employed to estimate the specific wtp level of those with nonzero wtp values the results show that nearly 90 of the respondents are willing to pay for reducing air pollution and the average amount of wtp per individual is 382 6rmb per year household income is found to be positively correlated with people s wtp and those who trust the government are more willing to share the cost of reducing air pollution this study recommends designing some effective mechanisms to tap the potentially available source of money for smog mitigation and improving the transparency of smog governance to enhance the government credibility as solutions to cope with smog crisis

governing corporate social responsibility an assessment of the contribution of the un global compact to csr strategies in the telecommunications industry csr has become an important element in the business strategy of a growing number of companies worldwide a large number of initiatives have been developed that aim to support companies in developing implementing and communicating about csr the global compact gc initiated by the united nations stands out since its launch in 2000 it has grown to about 2900 companies and 3800 members in total the gc combines several mechanisms to support csr strategies normative principles networks for learning and co operation and communication and transparency about csr activities however up to now only a few empirical evaluations of the contribution of the gc to csr strategies have been conducted that however have not differentiated between different types of companies regarding type of industry or regarding the maturity of csr this paper aims to partly fill this knowledge gap by a case study examination of three frontrunner companies in the telecommunications industry the results show that the gc is only one of the many initiatives that these companies employ in shaping implementing and reporting about their csr strategies and that its role is at most modest there are two important reasons one is that many of the csr issues that these companies deal with are industry specific and are hence addressed in specific networks the second reason is that the gc principles are perceived as minimum requirements that do not provide many incentives to the three case study companies to perform better a differentiation of norms for gc members is expected to enhance the contribution of the gc to csr strategy employment not only for frontrunner companies but as well for other categories of companies

the icelandic banking crisis a reason to rethink csr in the fall of 2008 the three largest banks in iceland collapsed with severe and lasting consequences for the icelandic economy this article discusses the icelandic banking crisis in relation to the notion of corporate social responsibility csr it explores some conceptual arguments for the position that the icelandic banking crisis illustrates the broad problem of the indeterminacy of the scope and content of the duties that csr is supposed to address in particular it is suggested that the way the banks in question conceived of csr i e largely in terms of strategic philanthropy was gravely inadequate it concludes by proposing that the case of the icelandic banking crisis gives us a reason to rethink csr

the corporate social performance financial performance link strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management rather than traditional arenas of strategic management using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance corporate social performance csp is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance supporting the theory that slack resource availability and csp are positively related csp is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance supporting the theory that good management and csp are positively related 1997 by john wiley sons ltd