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

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

fund loyalty among socially responsible investors the importance of the economic and ethical domains the corporate social responsibility literature has emphasized the importance of both economic and ethical domains of corporate behavior analyzing unprecedented survey data from investors in a socially responsible sr mutual fund this article considers how economic and ethical concerns shape shareholder investment behavior in particular this article analyzes levels of investor fund loyalty defined as the continued investment in a mutual fund despite the belief that one is earning a lower return on investment building upon existing research that shows sr fund assets are more stable than conventional fund assets this article leverages within respondent comparisons to clarify that dual investors i e those who invest in both sr and conventional funds are more loyal to their sr fund than to their conventional fund this suggests that a corporation s ethical behavior attracts more patient investment capital an important consideration for any corporation that is deciding to what degree it should engage in corporate social responsibility in addition this article empirically demonstrates that economic motivations reduce sr fund loyalty and that ethical motivations induce sr fund loyalty this evidence that ethical motivation is associated with fund loyalty advances research on morality in the market by yielding empirical evidence to a largely theoretical debate

why do entrepreneurs leave the market an explanation from experimental economics in peru understanding the behavior of those who start or intend to start a business is vital for a country of entrepreneurs such as peru which registered the third highest rate of active entrepreneurship worldwide in 2011 according to the global entrepreneurship monitor gem however peru also registered in 2011 one of the highest business discontinuation rates among efficiency based and resource based economies this study represents the first effort to analyze certain behavioral characteristics risk aversion joy of winning overconfidence and tax collection of a sample of necessity driven entrepreneurs in lima peru these features might help explain in the first place the decision to become entrepreneurs but also the decision to leave the market in particular wefind that entrepreneurs are risk averse tend to overestimate their abilities and are willing to work harder when the gross pay is higher and are taxed than when it is lower and are not taxed altogether these traits may explain the high discontinuation rate of businesses in peru one of the highest in efficiency based and resource based economies

social capital informal governance and post ipo firm performance a study of chinese entrepreneurial firms social capital can serve as informal governance in weak investor protection regimes using hand collected data on entrepreneurs political connections and firm ownership we construct several original measures of social capital and examine their effect on the performance of entrepreneurial firms in china after their initial public offerings political connections or a high percentage of external investors tend to enhance firm performance but intragroup related party transactions commonly lead to performance decline these forms of social capital have a strong influence on the performance of chinese firms whereas formal governance variables such as board size or board independence have little effect although social capital may serve as an informal governance mechanism and effectively substitute for formal governance mechanisms in an emerging market this role of social capital raises several ethical concerns notably the development of rent seeking and crony capitalism

optimal aging and death understanding the preston curve does prosperity lead to greater longevity if so what is the strength of the income channel to address these questions we develop a life cycle model in which households are subject to physiological aging in modeling aging we draw on recent research in the elds of biology and medicine the speed of the aging process and thus the time of death are endogenously determined by optimal health investments a calibrated version of the model accounts well for the observed non linear cross country link between longevity and income also known as the preston curve

innovation and diffusion in small firms theory and evidence the article provides an inventory of the strengths and weaknesses of small firms in a dynamic context to do this it considers verbal accounts of the processes of innovation and diffusion as well as quantitative studies testing cause effect relations it consider both economic and noneconomic factors concerning issues of motivation perception and knowledge first an overall summary is given of the characteristics of small business compared with large business as a basis for an assessment of strengths and weaknesses perhaps the most important characteristic of small business is its diversity and the article gives the conditions and sources of it other core characteristics are small scale personality and independence of the small firm from these derived characteristics strengths and weaknesses and core strategies can be inferred from the perspective of the firm strengths and weaknesses are subsequently analysed for the successive stages of innovation invention development tooling production introduction to practice market strengths and weaknesses in diffusion are analysed for the successive stages in the adoption process as proposed by rogers reference is made to theory and to empirical studies from the literature and from research by the present author

a new method of estimating risk aversion i show existing evidence on labor supply behavior places an upper bound on risk aversion in the expected utility model i derive a formula for the coefficient of relative risk aversion in terms of the ratio of the income elasticity of labor supply to wage elasticity and degree of complementarity between consumption and labor i bound the degree of complementarity using data on consumption choices when labor supply varies across states using labor supply elasticity estimates i find a mean estimate of 1 then show generating 2 requires that wage increases cause sharper labor supply reductions jel d81 j22

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

responsible entrepreneurship in developing countries understanding the realities and complexities developing countries have recently experienced a burgeoning of small scale individual entrepreneurs sies who range from petty traders to personal service workers like small street vendors barbers and owners of small shops as a result of market based reforms rapid urbanisation unemployment landlessness and poverty while sies form a major part of the informal workforce in developing countries and contribute significantly to economic growth their potential is being undermined when they engage in irresponsible and deceptive business practices such as overpricing sale of underweight or substandard products or attempts to hoard goods to name a few despite the growing interest in corporate social responsibility csr initiatives of small businesses in developing countries the sies have received almost no attention to address this void in the literature we explore the reasons for the less than optimal level of social responsibility demonstrated by some sies in developing countries we do so by drawing upon the existing literature to develop a comprehensive framework of social responsibility of sies highlighting their unique characteristics and the different contextual factors that they encounter in developing countries based on this framework we then present a set of propositions specifying the influence of these contextual factors such as business environment cultural traditions socio economic conditions and both international and domestic pressures on the business practices of sies the framework offers an explanation for the lack of responsible entrepreneurship of sies and has important implications for promoting sustainable business practices in developing countries where businesses are striving hard to survive and compete

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

the quantity and quality of life and the evolution of world inequality gdp per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries welfare is also affected by quantity of life however as represented by longevity this paper incorporates longevity into an overall assessment of the evolution of cross country inequality and shows that it is quantitatively important the absence of reduction in cross country inequality up to the 1990s documented in previous work is in stark contrast to the reduction in inequality after incorporating gains in longevity throughout the post world war ii period health contributed to reduce significantly welfare inequality across countries this paper derives valuation formulas for infra marginal changes in longevity and computes a full growth rate that incorporates the gains in health experienced by 96 countries for the period between 1960 and 2000 incorporating longevity gains changes traditional results countries starting with lower income tended to grow faster than countries starting with higher income we estimate an average yearly growth in full income of 4 1 percent for the poorest 50 percent of countries in 1960 of which 1 7 percentage points are due to health as opposed to a growth of 2 6 percent for the richest 50 percent of countries of which only 0 4 percentage points are due to health additionally we decompose changes in life expectancy into changes attributable to 13 broad groups of causes of death and three age groups we show that mortality from infectious respiratory and digestive diseases congenital perinatal and ill defined conditions mostly concentrated before age 20 and between ages 20 and 50 is responsible for most of the reduction in life expectancy inequality at the same time the recent effect of aids together with reductions in mortality after age 50 due to nervous system senses organs heart and circulatory diseases contributed to increase health inequality across countries

fostering responsible communities a community social marketing approach to sustainable living just as socially irresponsible organizational behavior leaves a punitive legacy on society socially responsible organizations can foster curative change this article examines whether small organizations can foster societal change toward more sustainable modes of living we contend that consumption is deeply intertwined with social relations and norms thus making individual behavioral change toward sustainability a matter of facilitating change in individual behavior as well as in social norms and relations between organizations and consumers we argue that it is in this facilitation process that small firms can play a major role by adopting upstream and downstream approaches to diffuse behavioral change by synthesizing four key strands of literature small businesses and corporate social responsibility ethical consumption community social marketing and the diffusion of innovation and using the exemplar case of modbury the iconic plastic bag free town we demonstrate how responsible small firms can influence communities and the individuals therein to encourage environmentally sustainable practice to diffuse and support change in society

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

reference point formation and new venture creation in this study we introduce reference point formation as an important antecedent of new venture creation based on considerations from prospect theory we hypothesize that individuals who generally and consistently set more aspiring reference points have a higher intention to form a new venture testing our hypothesis with entrepreneurs and managers results show that entrepreneurs indeed set more aspiring reference points therefore they might find themselves more often in a perceived loss situation which in turn increases their risk taking behavior following the predictions of prospect theory in testing entrepreneurial intention of business graduate students results are shown to be robust we discuss theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and develop avenues for future research

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

assessing social capital small and medium sized enterprises in germany and the u k social capital can be considered to be the product of co operationbetween various institutions networks and business partners it haspotential as a useful tool for business ethics in this article weidentify categories pertinent to the measurement of social capital insmall and medium sized enterprises smes by drawing on three differentsectors one business to business service one business to customerservice and one manufacturing we have enabled the consideration ofsectoral differences we find sector to play an important part inrelation to business practices and social capital our inclusion of smesfrom germany and the united kingdom has called attention to cultural institutional and economic aspects of two regions of europe and how theycan influence sme social capital social capital is found to beinfluenced by context and in particular institutional arrangements inanalysing the data we note particular areas of interest from the pointof view of smes and social capital as being formal engagement networking within sectors networking across sectors volunteerism andgiving to charity and finally a focus on why people engage we concludethat there is a considerable amount of further research needed on socialcapital sme s and business ethics

the fallacy of only the strong survive the effects of extrinsic motivation on the persistence decisions for under performing firms abstract under performing firms persist even though existing theoretical perspectives indicate that they should be selected out of the market building upon threshold theory gimeno j folta t cooper a woo c 1997 survival of the fittest entrepreneurial human capital and the persistence of underperforming firms administrative science quarterly 42 750 783 and using staw s staw b m 1981 the escalation of commitment to a course of action academy of management review 6 4 577 587 theoretical model of commitment to a course of action we explore and test the factors that lead entrepreneurs to persist with under performing firms we found environmental munificence personal investment personal options previous organizational success and perceived collective efficacy impact the decision to persist with an under performing firm in addition extrinsic motivation moderates those relationships this research adds to the growing literature on highly persistent under performing firms and complements and extends threshold theory

a model of the demand for longevity and the value of life extension we specify a demand function for longevity or quantity of life along with corresponding demand functions for indicators of quality of life and a value of health and life extension function we show that the demand for health must be derived in conjunction with that for longevity and the related consumption plan and that all choices depend on initial individual endowments and terminal conditions our comparative dynamics predictions indicate that optimal health and longevity are increasing functions of endowed wealth rather than necessarily current income that improvements in opportunities to produce health can accentuate the differences between endowed health and attained longevity levels and that the value individuals ascribe to their health may be increasing over a good portion of their life cycle we use this model to analyze observed empirical variations in levels and trends of life expectancy and in exposure to health risks across different population groups

disease and development the effect of life expectancy on economic growth we exploit the major international health improvements from the 1940s to estimate the effect of life expectancy on economic performance we construct predicted mortality using preintervention mortality rates from various diseases and dates of global interventions predicted mortality has a large impact on changes in life expectancy starting in 1940 but no effect before 1940 using predicted mortality as an instrument we find that a 1 percent increase in life expectancy leads to a 1 7 2 percent increase in population life expectancy has a much smaller effect on total gdp however consequently there is no evidence that the large increase in life expectancy raised income per capita

entrepreneurial exit as a critical component of the entrepreneurial process theoretical development abstract by demonstrating the importance of entrepreneurial exit to the entrepreneur the firm the industry and the economy i contend that our understanding of the entrepreneurial process is incomplete without the inclusion of entrepreneurial exit i define entrepreneurial exit and demonstrate how this conceptualization provides concepts that are unique from those addressed by researchers in other domains thus outlining a space for it within the literature in each phase of the entrepreneurial process i explore the development of an exit strategy reasons for exit and options for exit

the development of an infrastructure for entrepreneurship abstract this paper takes a macroperspective of entrepreneurship and focuses on the issues and events involved in constructing an industrial infrastructure that facilitates and constrains entrepreneurship this infrastructure includes 1 institutional arrangements to legitimate regulate and standardize a new technology 2 public resource endowments of basic scientific knowledge financing mechanisms and a pool of competent labor as well as 3 proprietary rd numerous entrepreneurial actors in the public and not for profit sectors play crucial roles it motivates one to examine the different roles played by these actors and how their joint contributions interact to develop and commercialize a new technology this in turn makes it possible to understand how the risk time and cost to an individual entrepreneur are significantly influenced by developments in the overall infrastructure for entrepreneurship it also explains why the entrepreneurs who run in packs will be more successful than those that go it alone to develop their innovations

social capital one or many definition and measurement three families of social capital concepts are discussed fa1 trust fa2 ease of cooperation and fa3 network in the language of game theory social capital is the excess propensity to play cooperative solutions in prisoners dilemma games the three families lead to different definitions and thus to different measurement methods some measures are theory near while others are easy to use proxies it is shown that all definitions and measures are related the social capital dream is that all definitions try to catch aspects of the same phenomenon so that all measures tap the same latent variable it is discussed whether this dream is likely to come true

relative status and satisfaction abstract this paper studies the effect of income rank on satisfaction we hypothesize that a person s satisfaction depends on a comparison of own rank and rank of one s parents estimates using data from the german socio economic panel support the relative rank hypothesis

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

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

the emergence of corporate social responsibility in chile the importance of authenticity and social networks little is known about how and why corporate social responsibility csr emerged in lesser developed countries in order to address this knowledge gap we used chile as a test case and conducted a series of in depth interviews with leaders of csr initiatives we also did an internet and literature search to help provide support for the findings that emerged from our data we discovered that while there are similarities in the drivers of csr in developed countries there are distinct differences as well in particular we found that different sectors drive csr in chile in contrast to other geographies where consumer demand and government regulation provided the impetus for csr efforts multinational companies mncs and non governmental organizations ngos are key actors in chile mncs imported their csr beliefs skills and processes into chile their efforts resulted in a virtuous cycle once large domestic firms felt pressured by their mnc rivals they too adopted csr initiatives the ability to manage relationships with multiple stakeholders and perceptions of authenticity were also critical to the success of csr in chile using network theory as a lens we suggest that network density and centrality largely determine whether csr efforts will be authentic based on these contentions we suggest avenues for future research

ecology driven real options an investment framework for incorporating uncertainties in the context of the natural environment the role of uncertainty within an organization s environment features prominently in the business ethics and management literature but how corporate investment decisions should proceed in the face of uncertainties relating to the natural environment is less discussed from the perspective of ecological economics the salience of ecology induced issues challenges management to address new types of uncertainties these pertain to constraints within the natural environment as well as to institutional action aimed at conserving the natural environment we derive six areas of ecology induced uncertainties and propose ecology driven real options as a conceptual approach for systematically incorporating these uncertainties into strategic management we combine our results in an integrative investment framework and illustrate its application with the case of carbon constraints

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

regional social capital why it matters malecki e j regional social capital why it matters regional studies social capital refers to a culture of interaction among people with productive economic outcomes social capital promotes regional learning both within a region and beyond as it reinforces openness to the ideas of others regional cultures vary in the degree to which people individually and within their organizations trust and interact with one another which is why regional outcomes vary innovation learning and entrepreneurship key processes of regional development take place largely within and among people as members of companies and territorial organizations innovative milieus industrial districts and knowledge economies are among the regions with extraordinary pools of social capital malecki e j

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

deconstructing the relationship between corporate social and financial performance for four decades research on the role and responsibilities of business in society has centered on the business case for corporate social responsibility csr and an increasing number of studies on the corporate social performance csp corporate financial performance cfp link emerged leading to controversial results heeding the call for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms linking certain csr efforts to certain performance outcomes this study provides a stakeholder based organizing framework rooted in an extensive review of existing literature on the link between csp and cfp in so doing we aim at guiding research and practice toward less simplistic understandings of the csp cfp connection thus advancing the debate over the consequences of voluntary integrating csr into business operations and into relationships with stakeholders by disentangling specific drivers and outcomes of the csp cfp link we underline the importance of setting clear boundaries and specifying levels of analysis to generate comparable results

is consumption growth consistent with intertemporal optimization evidence from the consumer expenditure survey in this paper we show that some of the predictions of models of consumer intertemporal optimization are in line with the patterns of nondurable expenditure observed in u s household level data we propose a flexible specification of preferences that allows multiple commodities and yields empirically tractable equations we estimate preference parameters using the only u s micro data set with complete consumption information we show that previous rejections can be explained by the simplifying assumptions made in previous studies we also show that results obtained using good consumption or aggregate data can be misleading

can an sme become a global corporate citizen evidence from a case study global corporate citizenship gcc continues to become increasingly popular in large corporations however this concept has rarely been considered in small and medium size enterprises smes a case study of a norwegian clothing company illustrates how gcc can be also applied to small companies this case study also shows that smes can be very innovative in exercising corporate citizenship without necessarily following the patterns of large multinational companies the company studied engages as partner in some voluntary labor initiatives promoted by the government employs people in marginal situations and exerts influence for the adoption of good working conditions in its supply chain environmental issues and actions of solidarity are also considered within a global scope ethics of care and concern for specific aspects of the common good seem crucial as gcc drivers in this company as do personal values character and leadership of the owner manager of the firm

social and symbolic capital and responsible entrepreneurship an empirical investigation of sme narratives this paper investigates links between social capital and symbolic capital and responsible entrepreneurship in the context of small and medium enterprises smes the source of the primary data was 144 business profiles written by the owner managers of small businesses in application for a small business awards competition in 2005 included in each of these narratives were claims relating to the firms contributions to wider society relationships with customers employees and stakeholders these narratives were coded and classified in a framework drawn from nahapiet and ghoshal s 1998 academy of management review 23 2 242 266 categorisation of social capital the analysis revealed a range of strategic orientations towards the development of social and symbolic capital along a conceptual continuum ranging from being responsible for oneself to being responsible for others overall the evidence demonstrates the significance of the power inherent in the social relations of smes as a force for ethical behaviour and suggests that normative theories of the development of social capital may provide competitive advantage through responsible behaviour for small business in the global economy

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

relative income effects on subjective well being in the cross section abstract recent work suggests that a person s subjective well being swb depends to a large degree on relative income focusing on the underlying identification this paper makes four contributions to this literature it describes the aggregation problem with past studies implements an estimation strategy to overcome this problem finds micro level evidence in support of the hypothesis that relative income does matter in individual assessments of swb and uses cross section estimates to replicate the aggregate time series the evidence further indicates that relative income effects may be smaller at low income levels the results are obtained from ordered probit techniques and the general social survey gss

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

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

are medical prices declining evidence from heart attack treatments we address long standing problems in measuring medical inflation by estimating two types of price indices the first a service price index prices specific medical services as does the current cpi the second a cost of living index measures a quality adjusted cost of treating a health problem we apply these indices to heart attack treatment between 1983 and 1994 more frequent reweighting and accounting for price discounts lowers the measured price change for heart attacks by three percentage points annually accounting for quality change lowers it further we estimate that the real cost of living index fell about 1 percent annually

are there limits to growth a simple theoretical model of pollution is developed that generates an inverted u shape relationship between per capita income and environmental quality this model is then used to study long run growth the same inverted u shape is shown to appear in time series and the prospects for sustained growth are shown to hinge on whether increasingly strict environmental regulation is compatible with a constant rate of return on capital implementation is also studied tax and voucher schemes are shown to have an advantage over direct regulation because they provide the correct incentives for capital accumulation copyright 1998 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

role of multiple stakeholders and the critical success factor theory for the sustainable supplier selection process abstract the concept of sustainability has become an essential theme for many industries and organisations due to a heightened sensitivity towards environmental protection and social responsibility at the same time firms still need to achieve economic viability and retain their competitive advantage because suppliers are the first entity and the initial source of any supply chain organisations should select their suppliers by a careful evaluation of their critical success factors csf achieving a successful sustainable supply chain management sscm strategy requires a firm to consider its stakeholders views based on the csf theory and by considering the multi stakeholders view in a sustainability perspective this work provides a decision support system for the sustainable supplier selection sss problem in a real world textile industry located in the emerging economy of india through a three phase methodology this study examines indian suppliers by considering the sustainability views of various stakeholders including employees customers researchers shareholders and a government environmental officer the csf priorities show that the first four influential csfs are categorized as social concerns i e maintaining long term relationships and alliances stakeholder empowerment equity labour sources and individual human rights the fifth factor is an environmental issue i e production of polluting agents among the five suppliers being evaluated in this work supplier 4 receives the top ranking specifically the results show that the supplier rankings are highly influenced by csf s social dimensions hence to validate the influence of csf s social dimensions in relation to the sss process a sensitivity analysis has been done by varying the respective weights the study concludes with the relevant managerial implications and limitations

increasing income inequality external habits and self reported happiness a large literature has documented an increase in income equality in the united states over the past several decades see for example david h autor lawrence f katz and melissa s kearney 2006 at the same time real aggregate income has risen markedly and most socioeconomic groups have experienced at least some rise in real purchasing power standard models of consumption which typically assume that an individual s utility is based only on her own consumption would predict that these gains have led to higher levels of happiness for all groups albeit with greater increases for some more than others economists have long recognized however that an individual s utility may depend not only on the level of her own consumption but also on how that level compares with the consumption of others if preferences are characterized by such external habits then the observed widening of the income distribution may have implications for the happiness of different groups that go beyond those associated with the changes in their respective incomes this study combines data from two sources to document the evolution of reported levels of happiness for different socioeconomic groups over the past 25 years and to explore whether those levels have been affected by the changing relative position of these groups within the habit persistence and the macroeconomy

price competition short termism and environmental performance this paper studies the relationships between the intensity of price competition time horizon and environmental performance we hypothesize that more intense price competition discourages environmental performance by inducing short termism in companies we test the hypotheses on a sample of 3152 companies from twelve european countries using structural equation modeling test results show that price competition significantly shortens the time horizon that companies apply in strategic decisions and that long time horizon significantly increases their environmental performance however the net negative effect of the intensity of price competition on environmental performance is small in absolute terms the policy implication is that there is no serious dilemma between fostering environmental performance on one hand and increasing consumer surplus by encouraging price competition on the other hand

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 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

consumer reactions to corporate tax strategies effects on corporate reputation and purchasing behavior on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach linking taxation marketing and corporate social responsibility the present research investigates the effects of media reports on aggressive and responsible corporate tax strategies ctss on corporate success with consumers by means of two laboratory experiments n 150 360 we analyze the effects of the ctss on corporate reputation consumer purchase intention and the consumer s willingness to pay our results suggest that aggressive ctss diminish corporate success with consumers whereas responsible ctss enhance it nevertheless consumers are not willing to pay a price premium for products sold by responsible tax planning companies but rather punish aggressive tax planning companies through a slightly lower willingness to pay finally consumers tax morale and their attitude toward tax avoidance are important moderating variables given the growing level of media interest in taxation our findings are crucial for assessing consumer related non tax costs and the benefits of different ctss

using mandated speed limits to measure the value of a statistical life in 1987 the federal government permitted states to raise the speed limit on their rural interstate roads but not on their urban interstate roads from 55 mph to 65 mph since the states that adopted the higher speed limit must have valued the travel hours they saved more than the fatalities incurred this institutional change provides an opportunity to estimate an upper bound on the public s willingness to trade off wealth for a change in the probability of death our estimates indicate that the adoption of the 65 mph limit increased speeds by approximately 4 percent or 2 5 mph and fatality rates by roughly 35 percent together the estimates suggest that about 125 000 hours were saved per lost life when the time saved is valued at the average hourly wage the estimates imply that adopting states were willing to accept risks that resulted in a savings of 1 54 million 1997 dollars per fatality with a sampling error roughly one third this value we set out a simple model of states decisions to adop

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

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

planned behaviour of tourism students entrepreneurial intentions in china this research aims to investigate the influence of planned behaviour and personal variables on entrepreneurial intention in order to explain and improve low entrepreneurial intention among tourism

the value of life and the rise in health spending over the past half century americans spent a rising share of total economic resources on health and enjoyed substantially longer lives as a result debate on health policy often focuses on limiting the growth of health spending we investigate an issue central to this debate is the growth of health spending a rational response to changing economic conditions notably the growth of income per person we develop a model based on standard economic assumptions and argue that this is indeed the case standard preferences of the kind used widely in economics to study consumption asset pricing and labor supply imply that health spending is a superior good with an income elasticity well above one as people get richer and consumption rises the marginal utility of consumption falls rapidly spending on health to extend life allows individuals to purchase additional periods of utility the marginal utility of life extension does not decline as a result the optimal composition of total spending shifts toward health and the health share grows along with income in projections based on the quantitative analysis of our model the optimal health share of spending seems likely to exceed 30 percent by the middle of the century

small business owner managers perceptions of business ethics and csr related concepts recent academic articles point to an increased vagueness and overlap in concepts related to business ethics and corporate responsibility further the perception of these notions can differ in the small business world from the original academic definitions this article focuses on the cognition of small business owner managers given the impact of small business owner managers on their ventures corporate responsibility and ethical issues can take a different route in smes the small business owner manager is able to shape the corporate culture and to enact values other than profit adopting a cognitive perspective we have identified how the small business owner manager makes sense of notions linked to corporate social responsibility csr and business ethics the concept of sensemaking has recently been applied to csr basu and pallazzo 2008 cramer et al 2006 applying a cognitive perspective to small business owners may help in explaining specific phenomena found within small business ownership for this research the repertory grid technique rgt is used a method that has not previously been widely applied in the business and society field

a proclivity for entrepreneurship abstract despite intensive inquiry relatively little is known about the entrepreneur the central figure in entrepreneurship the question of how an individual who operates his or her own business differs from a corporate manager remains unanswered in addressing this question the primary purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of psychological constructs to predict a proclivity for entrepreneurship the research model includes three classic themes in the literature achievement motivation risk taking propensity and preference for innovation a survey of 767 small business owner managers and corporate managers was assembled from a 20 state region primarily the southeastern united states the participants completed a questionnaire composed of the achievement scale of the personality research form the risk taking and innovation scales of the jackson personality inventory and questions pertaining to numerous individual and organizational variables respondents were first divided into two groups managers and small business owner managers subsequently due to the often cited variations in entrepreneurs the owner managers were further categorized as either an entrepreneur or small business owner using the widely cited carland et al 1984 theoretical definitions entrepreneurs are defined by their goals of profit and growth for their ventures and by their use of strategic planning alternatively small business owners focus on providing family income and view the venture as an extension of their personalities in this study both groups of owner managers were simultaneously compared with managers using hierarchical set multinomial logit regression the results indicated that the psychological constructs are associated with small business ownership but with some important caveats as hypothesized those labeled entrepreneurs were higher in achievement motivation risk taking propensity and preference for innovation than were both the corporate managers and the small business owners this profile of the entrepreneur as a driven creative risk taker is consistent with much of the classic literature concerning the entrepreneur nonetheless not all of the owner managers fit this profile when compared with managers the small business owners demonstrated only a significantly higher risk taking propensity in terms of the constructs studied the small business owners were more comparable to managers than to entrepreneurs in addition to theoretical and methodological implications the results presented here have important implications for small business owner managers of both types a major issue is the connection between the owner s psychological profile and the characteristics of the venture including performance it would appear that psychological antecedents are associated with owner goals for the venture some owners will be more growth oriented than will others and performance should be assessed in light of the owner s aspirations for the venture moreover owners should be aware of their own personality sets including risk preferences which may be more or less suited to different venture circumstances including those with relatively high levels of risk planning in small businesses appears to enhance venture performance research has demonstrated the connections between psychological factors and planning behaviors in small businesses those labeled entrepreneurs in this study have goals of profit and growth and tend to engage in more planning an awareness of these psychological preferences and concomitant attention to planning behaviors have the potential to improve the performance of the venture irrespective of owner aspirations venture teaming is becoming more popular among entrepreneurs balanced venture teams appear to improve the chances of entrepreneurial success timmons 1990 but a common source of conflict among venture team members is inconsistent or ambiguous motives for the new venture awareness of venture partners psychological predispositions in areas such as risk taking could be used to identify and reconcile areas of potential conflict and enhance the planning process in the small firm in sum an individual s awareness of his or her psychological profile provides a number of advantages not only to existing entrepreneurs but also to aspiring entrepreneurs who should assess their perceived entrepreneurial opportunities against the backdrop of their psychological proclivity for entrepreneurship

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

small firms social capital and the enhancement of business performance through innovation programmes the paper explores the extent to which social capital is advantageous to small and medium enterprise sme growth social capital is a communal property involving civic engagement associational membership high trust reliability and reciprocity in social networks it is capable of being identified in social political and economic contexts often associated with strong communities however not all strong communities exert the effects of social capital in respect of business activities this paper assesses government programmes to promote collaboration amongst smes for improving innovation capacity by increasing social capital through networking it shows that for a sizeable proportion of programme funded firms in denmark ireland and wales u k social capital building was associated with enhanced business knowledge and innovation performance of particular importance was the opportunity afforded to firms for linkage with external innovation networks and the build up of embeddedness or the institutional basis for the enhancement of social capital as a consequence of discovering the advantages of social capital over a third of respondents planned to continue to develop it in future in many cases funding such activities privately rather than calling on the public purse

individual dynamic managerial capabilities influence over environmental and social commitment under a gender perspective abstract the current business market is characterized by rapid and continuous changes companies should adapt to new situations to guarantee sustainable development managers need to have capabilities to understand the new environment s requirements managers individual dynamic capabilities idc help them face these unpredictable changes in the market however few authors have analysed individual dynamic capabilities to ensure business sustainability this study aims to shed light on the relationship between a manager s idc and business sustainability from a gender perspective a survey of 339 managers was conducted and structural equation modelling sem was applied to study the impact of the relationship the results show that managers individual dynamic capabilities help them detect changes in the market earlier and promote a greater social and environmental commitment from those managers in addition significant differences in the environmental and social commitment between men and women were found therefore this paper first provides advice for developing business sustainability to provide an advantage for organizations second individual dynamic managerial capabilities appear to be important for promoting sustainability finally another step in the construction of gender and sustainability is provided thus this paper provides useful empirical evidence for managerial practice from a strategic management viewpoint

the entrepreneur s character life issues and strategy making abstract although entrepreneurs seem to engage little in formal planning strategy in entrepreneurial firms can exhibit identifiable patterns over time the strategic orientations of such firms are particularly likely to reflect the priorities of their entrepreneurial ceos while researchers have looked at entrepreneurial traits in order to explain business start ups and generic strategies little attention has been paid to possible interactions between entrepreneurs personal characteristics and the strategic options they choose to pursue this study links entrepreneurs strategy making processes to their life issues legacies of their past histories its finding suggests that an entrepreneurial firm will consistently pursue the strategic directions that most reflect the entrepreneur s set of life issues

the importance of timing attitudes in consumption based asset pricing models abstract a new utility kernel for epstein zin weil preferences is proposed to disentangle the intertemporal elasticity of substitution ies the relative risk aversion rra and the timing attitude these new preferences resolve two puzzles in the long run risk model where consumption growth is too strongly correlated with the price dividend ratio and the risk free rate the proposed preferences also enable a new keynesian model to match equity and bond premia with a low rra of 5 importantly the mechanism enabling epstein zin weil preferences to explain asset prices in these models is not to separate the ies from rra but to introduce a strong timing attitude

personality characteristics of self employed an empirical study this paper is concerned with the personality characteristics of self employed most existing studies on personality characteristics of entrepreneurs concentrate on factors like age educational profile and motivations to become self employed there is a lack of significant empirical findings to claim that entrepreneurs are psychologically different from the general population based on a large sample of 14 846 individuals we compare self employed with the general population and with wage and salary earners we empirically show that entrepreneurs differ from the general population and wage and salary earners in a number of characteristics entrepreneurs are more individually oriented than the rest of the population individual responsibility and effort are distinguishing characteristics when asked about important qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at home entrepreneurs answer that it is important to teach children an ethic of working hard except for the latter characteristic the same holds if we compare self employed with wage and salary earners

risk uncertainty and entrepreneurship evidence from a lab in the field experiment theory predicts that entrepreneurs have distinct attitudes toward risk and uncertainty but empirical evidence is mixed to better understand the unique behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs and the causes of these mixed results we perform a large lab in the field experiment comparing entrepreneurs to managers a suitable comparison group and employees n 2 288 the results indicate that entrepreneurs perceive themselves as less risk averse than managers and employees in line with common wisdom however when using experimental incentivized measures the differences are subtler entrepreneurs are only found to be unique in their lower degree of loss aversion and not in their risk or ambiguity aversion this combination of results might be explained by our finding that perceived risk attitude is not only correlated to risk aversion but also to loss aversion overall we therefore suggest using a broader definition of risk that captures this unique feature of entrepreneurs their willingness to risk losses this paper was accepted by uri gneezy behavioral economics

life and growth some technologies save lives new vaccines new surgical techniques safer highways others threaten lives pollution nuclear accidents global warming and the rapid global transmission of disease how is growth theory altered when technologies involve life and death instead of just higher consumption this paper shows that taking life into account has first order consequences under standard preferences the value of life may rise faster than consumption leading society to value safety over consumption growth as a result the optimal rate of consumption growth may be substantially lower than what is feasible in some cases falling all the way to zero

reconsidering the relevance of social license pressure and government regulation for environmental performance of european smes whereas social license pressure is held as a strong motive for the corporate social performance csp of large enterprises it is argued in literature that it will not sufficiently motivate small and medium sized enterprises smes in this view government regulation is the most effective way to improve the environmental performance of smes other studies argue that social license pressure is also important for smes because of the strong embeddedness of smes in their local communities a large scale empirical study into the effects of social license pressures and government regulation on the environmental performance of smes that could help solve this debate is however still lacking this paper contributes to the scientific literature by using structural equation modeling on a sample of 4929 smes from twelve european countries to test both views for micro small and medium sized enterprises another contribution to scientific literature is that our model includes direct as well as indirect effects from social license pressures on environmental performance the indirect effects are mediated by perceived market benefits of csr the estimation results show that social license pressures as perceived by smes significantly affect the environmental performance of micro small and medium sized enterprises directly as well as indirectly through mediation by perceived market benefits of csp in all cases the perceived social license pressure provides a stronger stimulus to improving environmental performance than the motive to comply with government regulation the policy implication is that governments should not rely on direct regulation of environmental performance only but also aim to improve the transparency of environmental performance by soft regulations that induce smes to publish key performance indicators on environmental issues

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

using founder status age of firm and company growth rate as the basis for distinguishing entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses abstract this article examined the empirical implications of definitions that distinguish entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses based on their founder nonfounder status and their firms ages and growth rates the best distinctions were created using 1 founders 2 younger companies and 3 the combination of founders and younger companies growth indicators did not discriminate well the two founder based distinctions shared a profile of entrepreneurs as running smaller companies with higher return on assets roa than nonentrepreneurial managers having shorter tenure in their positions having previous work experience in the same industry and having higher risk taking propensity the distinction based on age of firm also showed strong ability to discriminate among respondents the field of entrepreneurship has few longer standing controversies than the one surrounding the question of what distinguishes entrepreneurs from nonentrepreneurial managers in trying to separate entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses in particular questions exist concerning the key defining differences definitions of entrepreneurship have utilized founder versus nonfounder status company age and company growth rates as distinguishing elements entrepreneurs have been defined by one or more of the following elements being a company founder running a young company and running or desiring to run a high growth company this article tests these elements to see if they provide a clearly differentiated profile of entrepreneurs it uses the founder nonfounder distinction for example to see if this distinction functions well in identifying a number of company financial and personal attributes that associate with founders rather than nonfounders the approach advocated here borrows from configurational theory as it has emerged in the fields of strategic management and organizational theory meyer tsui and hinings 1993 to look for a constellation of variables that group together in depicting entrepreneurs if founder status company age and growth rate are useful definitions of entrepreneurship they should point to a configuration of factors that together comprise a profile of an entrepreneur in predicting what configuration of factors will emerge this article adopts a strategic adaptation perspective low and macmillan 1988 to argue that differences between entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs spring from divergent thought processes and personal attributes of individuals who face the question of whether and how to enter business for themselves using the founder nonfounder distinction we view individuals who decide to start a new business rather than buy or manage an existing one as more likely to have previously founded a business have experience in the same industry be higher in risk taking show more type a behavior and be more growth oriented findings from a sample of ceos in the smaller business association of new england indicated that neither of the two tests based on high growth as a definition of entrepreneurial firms proved adept at creating a distinct entrepreneurial profile distinctions based on founder status younger firm status and founder of a younger firm status on the other hand proved effective in creating such profiles dimensions shared by the two founder based definitions of entrepreneurship included company attributes of smaller size and higher roa and ceo attributes of shorter tenure on the job previous experience in the same industry and higher risk taking propensity additional attributes showed in the younger company founder group including company attributes of lower liquidity and higher sales growth and personal attributes of having previously founded a business ranking roa as a high priority and external locus of control the distinction based on younger firm status performed well in discriminating among respondents in this study in addition to sharing several variables with the founder based distinctions it alone identified younger firms ceos as having lower education and type a tendencies and higher expectations of children succeeding them in the business as one implication of these findings knowledge of the profiles may help people who deal with these groups to have a better sense of how to interact with and respond to them the young company founder profile for example presents a picture of a relatively small company experiencing high rates of sales growth squeezing all it can from its assets in the face of high comparative liabilities because the company is young its founder has relatively short tenure but may well have had previous experience in the industry and have previously founded a company personally the founder is a risk taker who is external in locus of control and places high priority on roa if this configuration holds firm in future research those who deal frequently with entrepreneurs such as bankers venture capitalists consultants accountants and lawyers will be able to use a few identifying factors such as founder status and age of firm to draw reasonable inferences about a host of other characteristics of their clients the attempt to profile the entrepreneur in recent years thought to be futile may yet prove viable

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