corporate philanthropy ownership type and financial transparency drawing on stakeholder theory and the concept of enlightened self interest we argue that firms that actively engage in corporate philanthropic giving also tend to demonstrate greater concern for investors interests by providing more transparent financial information and avoiding corporate misconduct moreover the relationships between corporate giving financial information transparency and corporate misconduct vary significantly according to the firm s ownership type which affects the fundamental motivations for corporate philanthropy in a sample of chinese publicly listed firms from the 2003 2009 period we find a positive relationship between corporate giving and financial transparency and note that the relationship is stronger for non state owned enterprises non soes we also find a significantly negative association between corporate giving and corporate misconduct for non soes but not for soes taken together these findings suggest that responsibility to both stakeholders and shareholders is a vital part of building trust and reputations in china s non soe sector

does smallholder land titling facilitate agricultural growth an analysis of the determinants and effects of smallholder land titling in zambia summary zambia s land policies privilege agricultural land alienation by wage earners over local smallholder farmers as a result land title holders are not statistically significantly different from non title holders in terms of agricultural productivity despite greater access to investment capital from wage earnings and higher levels of education the effects of land titling on long and medium term land investments are also limited these results are indicative of widespread speculative alienation of agricultural land by wage earners enabling more productive land users to acquire title requires policy change aimed at lowering the transaction costs and bureaucratic complexity of acquiring land title

corporate social performance firm valuation and industrial difference evidence from hong kong this study addresses two issues first does corporate social performance matter in hong kong second if yes is it relevant to some industries more than others to answer these questions we develop a corporate social performance index csp to measure the quality of corporate social performance of major hong kong listed firms the criteria are based on the oecd principles of corporate governance using the 3 year period from 2002 to 2005 we find that firm valuation is positive and significantly associated with csp interestingly this relation matters less in china related firms and firms with a concentrated ownership structure the results also show that csp impacts firm valuation more positively when the firm is in the service sector we further find that csp is positively related to the market valuation of the subsequent year

three lenses on the multinational enterprise politics corruption and corporate social responsibility scholars who analyze multinational enterprises mnes recognize the complex relationship between international business ib and society however compared with other ib topics research on politics corruption and corporate social responsibility three lenses on the mne remains somewhat embryonic with unresolved issues regarding frameworks measurement methods and theory this presents unique opportunities for integration and extension of disciplinary perspectives which we explore in this article we provide an introduction to potential linkages across these three lenses an agenda for additional theoretical and empirical research and a review of the papers in the jibs focused issue

the probable foundations of sustainabilism information energy and entropy based definition of capital homo sustainabiliticus and the need for a new gold abstract this conceptual interdisciplinary paper will start with an introduction to the new networked knowledge based global economy and the importance of intellectual and specifically human capital next an advanced definition of human and other forms of capital using information energy and entropy will be introduced this will be followed by a discussion of the premises framing the study of economics and will focus on the role of law in the economy afterwards the paper will suggest the addition of a new model of humans that should serve as the base for the concept of law the homo sustainabiliticus ensuing this discussion and consistent with the newly proposed definition of capital a proposal for a new currency new gold will be offered this proposal suggests viewing usable renewable energy knowledge and data as the most important assets for the 21st century and is seen as the building block for the new sustainabilistic economy

comparing virtue consequentialist and deontological ethics based corporate social responsibility mitigating microfinance risk in institutional voids due to the nature of lending practices and support services offered to the poor in developing countries portfolio risk is a growing concern for the microfinance industry though previous research highlights the importance of risk for microfinance organizations not much is known about how microfinance organizations can mitigate risks incurred from providing loans to the poor in developing countries further though many microfinance organizations practice corporate social responsibility csr to help create economic and social wealth in developing countries the impact of such csr practices remains an underdeveloped area of inquiry we use a normative ethics lens to develop an ethics based csr theory that differentiates between three forms of ethics based csr virtue consequentialist and deontological we argue that while all three forms can help mitigate risk virtue ethics based csr is potentially the most useful form of csr toward mitigating microfinance portfolio risk we test our hypotheses using a sample of microfinance organizations from across the world our findings suggest that virtue ethics based csr is not just an important philosophical paradigm it can actually help mitigate microfinance portfolio risk when implemented in practice

being good when being international in an emerging economy the case of china the importance imposed on corporate social responsibility csr is greater in developed economies than in emerging markets the pressures from various stakeholder groups on the csr are expected to have substantial spillover impact on companies domiciled in emerging economies that obtain revenues from companies in developed economies based on the data from 1 330 listed companies in china the largest emerging economy in the world this study provides evidence that the csr performance of china firms is positively related to the degree of their internationalization and such a positive association is less pronounced for state owned enterprises our findings support the hypothesis that internationalized companies in emerging economies are motivated to improve their csr practices to address concerns from their importers or outsourcers in developed economies

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

asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage given incomplete factor markets appropriate time paths of flow variables must be chosen to build required stocks of assets that is critical resources are accumulated rather than acquired in strategic factor markets barney barney j 1986 strategic factor markets expectations luck and business strategy management sci october 1231 1241 sustainability of a firm s asset position hinges on how easily assets can be substituted or imitated imitability is linked to the characteristics of the asset accumulation process time compression diseconomies asset mass efficiencies inter connectedness asset erosion and causal ambiguity

can socially responsible investment for cleaner production improve the financial performance of spanish pension plans abstract assets under management involved in socially responsible investing almost trebled from 2007 to 2011 in europe led by pension funds such growth has encouraged the implementation of socially responsible activities by companies which have improved their cleaner production methods in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions total water used energy consumption and waste generated among others integrating environmental social and governance policies for cleaner production into the investment strategy of pension plans could increase their cost deriving from the screening process and or increase the benefits because socially responsible companies in which pension funds invest might achieve a better financial performance than traditional companies which could in turn affect pension plans financial performance for this reason the aim of this paper is two fold firstly to examine the financial performance of spanish pension plans compared to market benchmarks taking into account the category to which they belong and the socially responsible business strategy implemented by the manager and secondly to analyze whether differences in financial performance exist between solidarity pension plans ethical pension plans and traditional pension plans to do this we have a sample of 651 individual system pension plans using these sample data we implement the robust random effects panel data methodology the results show that ethical pension plans which invest in companies that improve their cleaner production methods achieve a similar financial performance to conventional pension plans while solidarity pension plans significantly outperform conventional pension plans

compensating outside directors with stock the impact on non primary stakeholders two obvious trends in corporate governance include broadening board accountability beyond shareholders interests and paying outside directors with equity compensation stock and stock options by integrating common agency and instrumental stakeholder theories we examine the effect of stock compensation on secondary stakeholders and a firm s participation in social issues two areas where interests are less aligned with shareholder value consistent with our predictions we found that while stock compensation may be an effective way to align directors goals to those of shareholders it has adverse effects on important non shareholder constituencies in the company s operating environment

non libertarianism and shareholder theory a reply to schaefer libertarianism and the shareholder model of corporate responsibility have long been thought of as natural bedfellows in a recent contribution to the journal of business ethics brian schaefer goes so far as to suggest that a proponent of shareholder theory cannot coherently and consistently embrace any moral position other than philosophical libertarianism the view that managers have a fiduciary obligation to advance the interests of shareholders exclusively is depicted as fundamentally incompatible with the acknowledgement of natural positive duties duties to aid others that have not been acquired by some prior commitment or transaction i argue that schaefer is mistaken positive duties are incompatible with the shareholder model only if we must contribute to their fulfilment in the corporate context only if we have some reason to think that it is not possible or not permissible to discharge these obligations entirely in our private lives or through our various other roles and capacities but we have no good reason to accept this i argue that individuals are presumptively free to decide how and when to discharge their positive duties and that buying shares does not cause this presumption to lapse hence a non libertarian moral theory can be held without incoherence by a proponent of the shareholder model

factors affecting entry and intensity in informal rental land markets in southern ethiopian highlands abstract informal land transactions particularly rental land markets are emerging in rural ethiopia in response to the inadequacies of the administratively based land distribution system to meet the growing demand for land and correct imbalances in factor proportions at the farm level these informal land markets provide a vehicle to equalise factor proportions at the farm level and to improve productivity and hence households welfare among the farmers who lease out land those who live in the highland areas where land is scarce and unequal are more likely to engage in these markets increases in the size of land holdings relative to labour and livestock ownership the number of non working household members and pressure for subsistence increase the likelihood of leasing out land on the other hand increases in the number of working adults improved nutritional status and greater wealth affect negatively the supply of land into these markets the potential exists for these markets to improve factor equalisation reduce inequality in land holdings and shift the income position of participating households however success depends on whether other factor markets are functioning to thwart forced disposal of land to meet subsistence public policy has pivotal role in fostering the growth of these markets and their land transfer and factor equalisation functions by ensuring their legally enforceable status and removing legal restrictions that constrain choices of contracts and trading over greater distances in addition both long and short term policy measures are needed to reduce the extent to which poor farmers engage in distress transactions

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

conventional resource based theory and its radical alternative a less materialist individualist approach to strategy management scholars practitioners and policy makers alike have sought to develop a deeper understanding of recent business crises including corporate scandals the collapse of financial institutions and deep recession in order to prevent their recurrence among the culprits that have been identified is conventional management theory based upon a moral point of view founded on assumptions of materialism and individualism there have been calls to move beyond the dominant profit maximization paradigm and think about other potentially more compelling corporate objectives hamel 2009 in this article we respond to those calls and seek to develop what we call radical resource based theory rbt which draws from and contrasts with the highly influential conventional rbt radical rbt defines the value of resources more broadly than profit maximization rarity as an occasion for stewardship inimitability as an opportunity for teaching and non substitutability as an opportunity to meet a panoply of human needs this augmentation of rbt promises to help managers and scholars address a myriad of problems that are insoluble under conventional assumptions more generally it shows the value of broadening management theory to a radical perspective by relaxing assumptions of self interest and materialism

the signaling effect of corporate social responsibility in emerging economies what signals do firms in emerging economies send to stakeholders when they adopt corporate social responsibility csr practices we argue that in emerging economies firms that adopt csr practices positively signal investors that their firms have superior capabilities for filling institutional voids from an institution based view we hypothesize that the institutional environment moderates the signaling effect of csr on a firm s financial performance based on a sample of firms from ten asian emerging economies we find a positive relationship between csr practices and financial performance this positive relationship is stronger in the less developed capital market than in the more developed one the financial benefits of csr practices are also more salient in the low information diffusion market than in the high one we emphasize that signaling theory and the institution based view can jointly contribute to the csr literature

the value of corporate philanthropy during times of crisis the sensegiving effect of employee involvement recent research suggests that philanthropy s value to the firm is largely mediated by contextual factors such as managers assumed motives for charity our article extends this contingency perspective using a sensegiving lens by which external actors interpretations of organizational actions may be influenced by the way in which the organization communicates about those actions we consider how sensegiving features in philanthropy related press releases affect whether investors value those donation decisions for the empirical investigation in this study we analyze abnormal returns to announcements by u s fortune 500 firms documenting their donations to hurricane katrina disaster relief in 2005 we expect that in general donation decisions would be controversial given the uncertainty surrounding the hurricane s economic effects at the time however we also propose that announcements emphasizing employee involvement in the donation send investors positive signals about the firm s ability to bounce back from the disaster s adverse effects we find empirical support for the proposed hypotheses and discuss the implications for theory and practice

labor shortages on small landholdings in malawi implications for policy reforms abstract a simple linear programming model of representative smallholder households is used to investigate the sources of relative scarcity of labor and land in malawi the paradox of on farm labor shortages on small landholdings can be explained by the multiple constraints smallholders face these multiple constraints including lack of finance concerns for food security and others lead to suboptimal allocations of household resources in turn the low returns to labor and land contribute to household food insecurity and a vicious cycle of poverty the findings of the paper provide a clear signal to policymakers and research and extension institutions that these constraints are all linked and addressing one cannot be effective without addressing the others

employee well being firm leverage and bankruptcy risk employees of liquidating firms are likely to lose income and non pecuniary benefits of working for the firm which makes bankruptcy costly for employees this paper examines whether firms take these costs into account when deciding on the optimal amount of leverage we find that firms with leading track records in employee well being significantly reduce the probability of bankruptcy by operating with lower debt ratios moreover we observe that firms with better employee track records have better credit ratings even when we control for differences in firm leverage

the effectiveness of bank governance reforms in the wake of the financial crisis a stakeholder approach this study examines the impact of bank corporate governance reforms in the wake of the financial crisis these reforms correspond to criticism of shareholder focused agency based corporate governance practices and a renewed focus on the stakeholder impact of corporate governance lapses in the financial sector this study differs from previous studies of corporate governance in the financial sector in using performance indicators that proxy the interests of customers and the community drawing on data from 134 countries over an eight year period from 2004 to 2011 we find that the post crisis corporate governance reforms in the banking sector appear to be effective in promoting greater bank attention to non shareholder stakeholders interests this study provides a means to conceptualize measures of bank performance from a stakeholder perspective in order to test emerging ideas about governance effectiveness in the financial sector

what do unions and employers negotiate under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility comparative evidence from the italian metal and chemical industries the corporate social responsibility csr and industrial relations ir studies have evolved mostly in parallel in this paper we integrate the ir with the csr perspective highlighting their similarities and differences in particular the study adopts a framework which includes a wide set of csr related issues to explore what unions and companies negotiate under the umbrella of csr it analyses and compares the national sectoral agreements of two key industries in the italian economy i e metal and chemical we find that these two sectors exhibit differences because the csr related issues covered by the two contracts are formally labelled as csr in the chemical contract and not labelled as csr in the metal contract we also find similarities regarding the csr related issues covered and not covered by the national contracts and the binding processes centrally negotiated for their implementation we interpret the similarities in light of the specificities of the italian ir system and the differences in light of the negotiation traditions of the two sectors under study which induce the actors in the metal sector traditionally with more conflictual ir relations to focus more on what differentiates the csr and ir perspectives and the actors in the chemical sector traditionally with more cooperative ir relations to focus more on what the csr and ir perspectives share

an assessment of how well we account for intangibles estimates of intangible capital stock are of prime importance for accurate measurement of productivity growth aggregate intangible capital stock is usually estimated using the so called corrado hulten sichel chs new growth accounting framework yet this framework has not received much academic scrutiny to date this article proposes a validity test of two intangible investment series in the chs framework namely brand equity and architectural and engineering designs the test involves assessing the extent to which these intangible investment series explain the demand for trademarks and design rights the econometric analysis is performed on an unbalanced panel of 32 countries from 1980 to 2010 the results suggest that brand equity investment is a powerful predictor of trademark applications however investment in design activity is not correlated with the count of design rights which i take as evidence that current methodologies do not account well for design activities

household resources transaction costs and adjustment through land tenancy this paper examines the role of household endowments of imperfectly tradeable factors of production e g male female child labor and draft animals on land leasing an explicit attempt is made to account and test for the role of transaction costs on the incidence and extent of adjustment taking place through the land lease market the econometric model is implemented using pooled data from six villages in the semiarid region of india the results confirm the significant role of nontradeable family endowments and indicate the presence of frictions in the land tenancy market

exploring the curvature of the relationship between hrm csr and corporate financial performance this article contributes to the general literature on the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance as well as to the emerging hrm csr literature by exploring the curvature of the relationship between hrm csp and cfp we advance conceptual arguments in favor of an inverted u shaped relationship our results demonstrate a significant quadratic relationship between hrm csp and cfp we provide evidence that this relationship is not linear or s shaped but rather inverted u shaped

clarifying the epistemology of corporate sustainability abstract business research is placing increasing focus on the relationship between the natural environment and the political concept of sustainable development within this nexus one area labelled corporate sustainability emphasizes the interactions between economic environmental and social values the need to consider multiple values has contributed to a blur in the conceptual landscape this is partly due to the fact that authors often address epistemological challenges on an implicit level moreover hidden ideologies e g the profit maximization paradigm can explain the conceptual obscurity the contribution of this article is twofold firstly a conceptual framework is developed based on the dichotomy of positivism and constructivism a relation is established between these epistemological positions and the analytic treatment of environmental and social values the framework can be applied to increase transparency on epistemological challenges and thereby strengthening construct validity in the field secondly an analysis of the most influential literature from the last 50 years shows that there is a trend of clustering theoretical positions and value constructs without any critical awareness of their philosophical assumptions the authors hope that acknowledgement of a multi paradigmatic approach can help to clarify the epistemology of the research area by establishing pluralism as an explicit position

doing well while doing bad csr in controversial industry sectors in this article we examine the empirical association between firm value and csr engagement for firms in sinful industries such as tobacco gambling and alcohol as well as industries involved with emerging environmental social or ethical issues i e weapon oil cement and biotech we develop and test three hypotheses the window dressing hypothesis the value enhancement hypothesis and the value irrelevance hypothesis using an extensive us sample from 1995 to 2009 we find that csr engagement of firms in controversial industries positively affects firm value after controlling for various firm characteristics to address the potential endogeneity problem we further estimate a system of equations and change regression and continue to find a positive relation between csr engagement and firm value our findings support the value enhancement hypothesis and are consistent with the premise that the top management of us firms in controversial industries in general considers social responsibility important even though their products are harmful to human being society or environment

what good does doing good do the effect of bond rating analysts corporate bias on investor reactions to changes in social responsibility in this study we explore how investors reconcile information on firms social responsibility with analysts assessments of future firm risk in the pricing of long term bonds we ask whether investors pay attention to small strides toward and or small slips away from socially responsible behavior arguing that analysts corporate bias toward gains and against losses influences investor reactions to corporate social responsibility we hypothesize that analysts notice and reward improvements in social responsibility yet excuse lapses we find support for this hypothesis using a unique dataset of long term bonds that combines lagged measures of firm level financial and social performance with bond specific data pertaining to risk of default and pricing the empirically robust asymmetry in investor responses to small but often cumulative increases versus decreases in corporate social responsibility reveals an under examined root cause of longer term larger scale distortions in financial market returns regarding corporate social performance our findings elaborate earlier behavioral research on how corporate bias influences analysts short term assessments of economic risk by theorizing why this corporate bias may influence long term assessments of social risk our work also motivates more critical scrutiny of the role analysts play in revising the future risk of today s social action versus inaction

the relation between farm size and farm productivity the role of family labor supervision and credit constraints abstract the paper shows that if the performance of hired farmhands is affected by supervision from family members and if the availability of credit is dependent on the amount of land owned then a systematic positive or negative relationship between per acre yields and farm size will prevail a model with no supervision effects on labor productivity would predict that yields are unaffected by farm size the paper also investigates the relation between land utilization and owned holding size when land rental possibilities are limited results are shown to be compatible with various observed patterns in ldcs

do land markets improve land use efficiency evidence from jiangsu china inefficient use of scarce and fragmented land challenges the sustainability of agriculture land markets may improve land use efficiency in recent years china has employed various instruments to

the effects of top management team integrative complexity and decentralized decision making on corporate social performance we examine the influence of top management teams tmts integrative complexity and decentralization of decision making on corporate social performance we argue that both factors increase tmt ability to gather information on and attend to stakeholder needs thereby yielding higher corporate social performance we further predict that decentralization moderates the relationship between integrative complexity and corporate social performance in such a way that the relationship is stronger under conditions of centralization using a q sort methodology which translates complex qualitative observations into quantitative metrics we examined integrative complexity and decentralization in 61 fortune 500 firms and found support for our predictions in the wake of numerous corporate scandals corporate social performance has garnered much attention from business practitioners and academics alike corporate social performance refers to a business organization s configuration of principles of social responsibility processes of social responsiveness and policies programs and observable outcomes as they relate to the firm s societal relationships wood 1991 693 the dominant perspective taken in evaluating a firm s corporate social performance is the stakeholder approach according to which firms act in a socially responsible manner when they take the interests of multiple stakeholders e g customers employees into account mcguire dow argheyd 2003 ruf muralidhar brown janney paul 2001

the roles of stakeholder support and procedure oriented management on asset recovery abstract as the management of returned products is fast becoming a business trend caused by pressure for compliance asset recovery is increasingly viewed as a fertile area for firms to reduce cost and improve quality environmental management is a viable approach for chinese manufacturers to respond to the escalating international quest for conserving the environment to tackle the problem of rising raw material costs and to improve product quality by analyzing returned products to reach the goals of cost reduction and product quality improvement manufacturers need to understand how asset recovery can be leveraged through procedure based practices and stakeholder support to enhance performance product type characterized by different levels of demand uncertainty and time to market may affect the outcomes of asset recovery adoption and should also be taken into account drawing on the environmental management and business logistics literature we provide empirical insights on asset recovery adoption using survey data collected from export oriented chinese manufacturers we find that asset recovery and stakeholder support are complementary in strengthening manufacturers financial performance regardless of product type in addition the performance impact of asset recovery can be substantial when manufacturers environmental management practices are less procedural allowing flexibility in the logistics management of product flows

markets and pro poor agricultural growth insights from livelihood and informal rural economy models in malawi this article presents the development of a set of programming models describing the major features of different rural livelihoods and of the informal rural economy they together make up in malawi the models allow for differentiated responses by different household types to change and for the partial equilibrium effects of consequent supply demand and price adjustments in labor and grain markets the models provide insights into the relations between own farm and nonown farm activities in different households livelihoods and in the informal rural economy as a whole and are used to investigate possible impacts of increasing cash crop prices and of a more open rural economy impacts of these changes on the poor are found to be critically dependent upon supply and demand elasticities in labor and grain markets but the poor could potentially suffer significant losses from increased openness of the local economy leading to increased expenditure by less poor households on imported goods and services

corporate reputation and philanthropy an empirical analysis this paper analyzes the determinants of corporate reputation within a sample of large uk companies drawn from a diverse range of industries we pay particular attention to the role that philanthropic expenditures and policies may play in shaping the perceptions of companies among their stakeholders our findings highlight that companies which make higher levels of philanthropic expenditures have better reputations and that this effect varies significantly across industries given that reputational indices tend to reflect the financial performance of organizations above other factors fryxell g e and j wang 1994 journal of management 20 1 14 and that elements of the literature emphasise that discretionary aspects of social responsibility including corporate donations may not be in the financial interests of organizations e g friedman m 1970 the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits new york times magazine september 13 this is a significant finding it suggests that philanthropic expenditures may play a significant role in stakeholder management and may in particular lead to stakeholders holding more positive impressions of philanthropic corporations

what are the most promising conduits for foreign knowledge inflows innovation networks in the chinese pharmaceutical industry we study innovation networks in emerging markets where foreign actors have been identified as key sources of knowledge spillovers as well as progenitors of industry clusters focusing on connectivity as a channel for international knowledge sourcing we widen our lens beyond mnes to include critical innovative actors such as research institutions i e universities and research centers we examine the geographic dispersion of co inventor networks generated by us patents associated with the chinese pharmaceutical industry previous research has highlighted the role of organizationally driven mne networks as enablers of foreign knowledge inflows to less developed countries however our results emphasize the critical role of individually motivated networks arising from advanced economy research institutions in connecting china to global knowledge networks

the close but adversarial model of supplier relations in the u s auto industry while cooperative buyer supplier relations are an important source of sustainable competitive advantage noncooperative behavior persists widely this paper tests a model incorporating noncooperative behavior within a context of formal commitment using data from the u s auto industry this close but adversarial model appears to be reasonably well supported by the data suggesting that even within professed cooperative buyer supplier relationships adversarial behavior persists in contrast a small but significant minority of the relationships were found to be characterized by high levels of trust as well as informal commitment the results suggest specific strategies for developing cooperative supplier relations 1998 john wiley sons ltd

does social performance really lead to financial performance accounting for endogeneity the empirical relationship between a firm s social performance and its financial performance is still not well established in the literature despite more than 30 years of research and more than 100 empirical studies on the issue the results are still mixed we argue that the heterogeneous results found in previous studies are not due exclusively to problems related with the measurement instruments or the samples used instead we posit that a more fundamental problem related with the endogeneity of social strategic decisions could be driving most of the empirical findings we show that using a panel data of 658 firms from 1991 to 2005 how some of the results found in previous research change and some are even reversed when endogeneity is properly taken into account

intangible capital and the rise in wage and hours volatility in a standard real business cycle model extended to include intangible capital ic i show that a rise in the income share of ic in the production function in line with data can account for a significant share of the increase in real wage volatility both absolute and relative to income and labor input volatility relative to income observed in the u s since the mid 1980 s even as volatility of output declined intangible capital accumulates stochastically and similar to final goods requires physical capital intangible capital and labor to produce under these conditions an increase in the share of ic in production increases the propagation of the ic specific shock which raises absolute and relative wage and labor input volatility the higher propagation of the ic shock also accounts for the large decline in the pro cyclicality of labor productivity relative to both output and labor observed during this period

barriers to product returns and recovery management in a developing country investigation using multiple methods abstract there is growing recognition of the value that can be recaptured from unproductive assets resulting from returned merchandise using product returns and recovery management prrm this is important as organizations can no longer ignore or accumulate returns at the back of the warehouse this paper identifies the barriers that impede prrm among manufacturing firms in malaysia and provide useful summary data and analysis to entice firms to consider adopting pprm this study reviewed 38 journal articles which were subsequently validated through field interviews using multiple case study method the content analysis reveals that the two major obstacles are financial and resource constraints which fall within the category of internal barriers however the results of the interviews with six manufacturers in malaysia indicate that external barriers are the main obstacles that hinder the adoption of prrm thus suggesting that there may be a subtle difference between the results reported in academic research and managers perceptions of the barriers of product returns and recovery management the external barriers such as customers operational performance and perception are perceived by managers to be detrimental to the adoption of prrm which is contradictory to the academic findings in addition financial and resource constraints impede the adoption of prrm this suggests that further study should be conducted by expanding the sample size to continue to empirically explore the barriers of prrm this study helps policy makers in emerging countries in general and malaysia in particular in setting appropriate policies and strategies to improve product returns and recovery of manufacturing firms

a dynamic option value for institutional change marketable property rights in the sahel in this article we use dynamic programming methods to create an option value measure of the value of the institutional innovation of marketable property rights this measure has two properties that are important to understanding institutional change it is truly dynamic and it allows for agent heterogeneity in the case of west africa we find that the collapse of customary risk management institutions is a vital part of the demand for marketability rights as agents struggle to smooth income and consumption in its wake we find that the social efficiency implications of this demand for institutional innovation are ambiguous

why have measures of earnings quality changed over time the properties of earnings have changed dramatically over the past 40 years prior studies interpret this trend as a decline in earnings quality but disagree on whether it results from changes in the real economy or changes in accounting standards i find that each new cohort of listed firms exhibits lower earnings quality than its predecessors mainly because of higher intangible intensity i conclude that the trend of decline in earnings quality is due more to changes in the sample of firms than to changes in generally accepted accounting principles gaap or in the earnings quality of previously listed firms

the construct validity of the kinder lydenberg domini social performance ratings data carroll 1991 encouraged researchers in social issues management sim to continue to measure corporate social performance csp from a variety of different perspectives utilizing a variety of different measures in addition wolfe and aupperle 1991 and others have asserted that there is no single best way to measure csp and that multiple measures and perspectives help develop the field however pfeffer 1993 suggest that a lack of consistent measurement has constrained organization studies and by implication the field of social issues management in its development as a field it may be in the best interest of social issues management researchers to try to development a common body of measures and data recently kinder lydenberg and domini co kld a social choice investment advisory firm has made available their social performance database the kld data have potential to become a widely accepted set of csp measures the purpose of this paper is to present a construct validity study comparing the kld data to other measures of csp

corporate social responsibility product differentiation strategy and export performance this article argues that corporate social responsibility csr may contribute to product differentiation in export markets and thus improve export performance we test this argument by observing a period of decreasing export competitiveness in a leading emerging economy brazil using a large scale survey design with 252 questionnaires completed by medium and large sized brazilian exporters we used structural equations modelling to test our hypotheses the results suggest that csr product differentiation predicts export performance better than product quality differentiation and almost as well as product innovation differentiation multi group analysis further revealed that the positive and significant effect of csr product differentiation on export performance is likely to be contingent on the number and type developing vs developed of countries that are targeted our study contributes to the literature on csr and export performance by developing and empirically validating a model that explains under which conditions csr based product differentiation may lead to improved export performance

participation in rural land rental markets in sub saharan africa who benefits and by how much evidence from malawi and zambia we use nationally representative household level panel survey data in two neighboring countries in southern africa zambia and malawi to characterize the current status of rural land rental market participation by smallholder farmers and their subsequent welfare impacts rural rental market participation is much higher in densely populated malawi than in lower density zambia reflecting the role of land scarcity in driving rental market development consistent with previous literature we find evidence that rental markets contribute to efficiency gains within the smallholder sector by facilitating the transfer of land from less able to more able producers on average in both countries furthermore we find that rental markets serve to re allocate land from relatively land rich to land poor households we examine the impacts of participation on a number of welfare outcomes and find evidence for generally positive returns to renting in land in both countries on average however our analysis also indicates that the returns to renting in land vary strongly with scale of production tenants who produce more have larger returns to renting in and many of the smaller producers who rent in do so at an economic loss the impacts of renting out i e participating in markets as landlords are decidedly more mixed with overall negative returns to landlords in malawi and negligible returns to landlords in zambia the findings in this article highlight the need for researchers and policymakers in sub saharan africa to stay attuned to how land rental market participation and its impacts evolve in the near future

time to change your investment model we demonstrate empirically that the gains from predicting corporate earnings or consensus hits and misses an activity at the core of most investment methodologies have been shrinking fast over the past 30 years we identify the main reasons for this loss of earnings relevance and propose an improved alternative to current investment methodologies one that focuses on the strategic assets of the enterprise and their contribution to maintaining the company s competitive edge we demonstrate this investment methodology using subscription based companies

reviewing the business case for corporate social responsibility new evidence and analysis this study complements previous empirical research on the business case for corporate social responsibility csr by employing hitherto unused data on corporate social performance csp and proposing statistical analyses to account for bi directional causality between social and financial performance by allowing for differences in the importance of single components of csp between industries the data in this study overcome certain limitations of the databases used in earlier studies the econometrics employed offer a rigorous way of addressing the problem of endogeneity due to simultaneous causality although the study s results provide no evidence that there is a generic or universal business case for csr they indicate that there is a strong link between single stakeholder related issues of csr and financial performance however the analysis does not establish causality within these relationships

enlightened shareholder maximization is this strategy achievable the role of a corporation is often debated as a mutually exclusive choice between economic responsibility to shareholders and social responsibility to society an evolving viewpoint embraces an integrated approach focused on long term value creation for shareholders which benefits other stakeholders maximizing long term shareholder value as a corporate objective can be compatible with stakeholder theory when an enlightened shareholder maximization strategy is embraced firms implementing an enlightened shareholder maximization strategy are expected to make decisions and use resources which achieve long term value creating outcomes however critics of enlightened shareholder maximization as a corporate goal contend this strategy conflicts with maximizing shareholder value this study explores whether firms which embrace a balanced enlightened shareholder maximization strategy indeed create long term value which does not sacrifice shareholder wealth

the roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in the context of population growth and land use intensification in africa this article reviews the past and potential future roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in sub saharan africa ssa as responses to population growth in the process of land use intensification and livelihood transformation the farm size distribution and the existence of an inverse relationship ir between farm size and land productivity in ssa and the implications of this relationship for efficiency and equity are investigated more secure property rights and removal of restrictions on land markets have the potential to create both efficiency and equity benefits but there are high risks of elite capture of large land areas with inefficient and inequitable outcomes this situation is the case not only in land abundant areas but also in urban and peri urban areas where increasingly larger proportions of people will make their living increasing population pressure in densely populated rural areas contributes to more rapid rural urban migration and creating alternative livelihood opportunities for the migrating youth population is essential to achieving economic development with social stability

cash holdings and labor heterogeneity the role of skilled labor firms differ in their dependence on skilled labor and face labor adjustment costs that increase with their workers skill level we show that firms with a higher share of skilled workers and thus less flexibility to adjust their labor demand in response to cash flow shocks hold more precautionary cash the effect of labor skills on cash holdings is more pronounced for financially constrained firms and varies with exogenous differences in firing and hiring costs we address endogeneity concerns by using subsamples of firms with reasonably similar characteristics propensity score matching and a quasi experimental shock to labor markets

managerial attention and worker performance we present a novel theory of the employment relationship a manager can invest in attention technology to recognize good worker performance the technology may break and is costly to replace we show that as time passes without recognition the worker s belief about the manager s technology worsens and his effort declines the manager responds by investing but this investment is insufficient to stop the decline in effort and eventually becomes decreasing the relationship therefore continues deteriorating and a return to high performance becomes increasingly unlikely these deteriorating dynamics do not arise when recognition is of bad performance or independent of effort

seasonal food crises and policy responses a narrative account of three food security crises in malawi summary this paper examines seasonal food price crises in malawi in the 2000s malawi experienced three episodes in which seasonal maize prices rose in 2001 02 2004 05 and 2007 09 by 354 218 and 395 respectively these extreme price spikes resulted from a sequential interaction of economic and political events a repeated pattern of cause inapt response and adverse outcome is identified the relative neglect in vulnerability analysis of staple food price movements as lead indicators of impending food crises is emphasized and implications are drawn for price stabilisation public private coordination and social protection policies

predicting stakeholder orientation in the multinational enterprise a mid range theory as the reach of corporations increasingly extends across borders a key research question is whether overseas subsidiaries adopt a shareholder centric orientation centered on maximizing shareholder wealth or a stakeholder centric orientation centered on creating value for a broader range of stakeholders existing theories addressing the corporate level of analysis focus on forces exogenous to the firm local resource pressures and institutional norms using a combination of induction and fuzzy set analysis i draw on documentary evidence and 298 interviews with managers and stakeholders to build theory about the conditions that shape subsidiaries stakeholder orientations two major findings emerge first although theory emphasizes external stakeholders control over resources internal control through the corporate parent can crowd out the voices of local stakeholders second although institutional theory proposes isomorphism with local norms and standards some corporations are subject to scrutiny by global stakeholders and their subsidiaries face higher requirements for social engagement than their peers these findings are the foundation of a mid range theory that combines conventional explanations focused on environmental factors and an internal stakeholder perspective based around the roles of the parent corporation as owner and resource provider to predict stakeholder orientation

board gender diversity and corporate response to sustainability initiatives evidence from the carbon disclosure project this paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders demands for increased public reporting about climate change related risks we rely on the carbon disclosure project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm s carbon footprint based on a sample of publicly listed canadian firms over the period 2008 2014 we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards we also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity these findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management

market reactions to corporate environmental performance related events a meta analytic consolidation of the empirical evidence research on the relationship between corporate environmental performance cep and corporate financial performance cfp has consistently grown and is gaining widespread attention given the vast body of cep cfp studies recently scholars have begun to take stock of the cumulative results however no study so far has meta analyzed the findings yielded by event studies assessing the stock market reactions to corporate environmental performance related events cep related events this paper sets out to close this gap by synthesizing previous empirical results regarding the stock market impact of positive and negative cep related events results indicate a positive relationship across studies in terms of positive market reactions to positive events and negative reactions to negative events furthermore the findings show that the market reactions are stronger for negative events than for positive events i e asymmetry in the stock market reaction finally this study examines whether methodological artifacts i e differences in the study designs may explain the differences in the findings of the analyzed event studies

behavioural and material determinants of production relations in agriculture in this essay we develop a framework for analysing the major institutions governing the production and exchange of output and the primary factors of production in rural areas the analysis incorporates general considerations of risk and information constraints jointly with the principal material attributes of agriculture and of agricultural production factors the framework is used to analyse barriers to the existence of the major intertemporal and factor markets it is applied specifically to land scarce environments for which it provides an internally consistent explanation for many of the well documented institutional features of such settings in addition the analysis provides new implications for among other phenomena the inter relationships among ownership holdings operational scale family size and factor productivity for the scarcity of animal rental markets and use of animals as collateral for the renting out of land by small landowners and for the existence of plantations for certain crops

why firms should not always maximize profits though corporate social responsibility csr is on the agenda of most major corporations corporate executives still largely support the view that corporations should maximize the returns to their owners there are two lines of defence for this position one is the friedmanian view that maximizing owner returns is the social responsibility of corporations the other is a position voiced by many executives that csr and profits go together this article argues that the first position is ethically untenable while the latter is not supported by empirical evidence the implication is that there may be good reason for firms to deviate from a maxim of profit maximization

how do you measure a technological revolution it is hardly news that we are in the midst of rapid economic change the advances in infor mation and communication technology ict in the life and other sciences and their profusion of innovative products from the newest electronic devices to the latest drugs and treatments are ample evidence equally pervasive are new busi ness models in services big box retail online banking on demand media and the explosion in social networking and new business practices ushered in by the internet telework virtual meetings job boards given the magnitude of the changes brought on by these innovations it is useful to step back and ask what does eco nomic analysis have to say about the sources and mechanisms of these shifts and revolutions and what economic metrics are available to measure their overall size and impact the received theory of economic growth is the natural candidate for this job it came of age in the 1950s and 1960s with the neoclassi cal models and emergence of aggregate growth accounting the latter has become the work horse of empirical macroeconomic growth analysis and the basis for official productiv ity statistics put out by the bureau of labor statistics bls since 1983 a technological revolution appears in this framework as an increase in the fruits of innovation as measured by the shift in an aggregate production function termed multifactor productivity or mfp and possibly as an increase in the aggregate saving rate as reflected in an increased rate of capital formation mfp is an exogenous phenomenon

land pressures the evolution of farming systems and development strategies in africa a synthesis abstract evidence assembled in this special issue of food policy shows that rising rural population densities in parts of africa are profoundly affecting farming systems and the region s economies in ways that are underappreciated in current discourse on african development issues this study synthesizes how people markets and governments are responding to rising land pressures in africa drawing on key findings from the various contributions in this special issue the papers herein revisit the issue of boserupian agricultural intensification as an important response to land constraints but they also go further than boserup and her followers to explore broader responses to land constraints including non farm diversification migration and reduced fertility rates agricultural and rural development strategies in the region will need to more fully anticipate the implications of africa s rapidly changing land and demographic situation and the immense challenges that mounting land pressures pose in the context of current evidence of unsustainable agricultural intensification a rapidly rising labor force associated with the region s current demographic conditions and limited nonfarm job creation these challenges are manageable but will require explicit policy actions to address the unique development challenges in densely populated rural areas

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