a multidimensional approach to the influence of environmental marketing and orientation on the firm s organizational performance since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions this situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities within this context environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues moreover environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a firm s competitiveness however the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms results has been inconclusive and contradictory in this study we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm s marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results data were obtained through a survey sent to spanish manufacturing firms the results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results moreover environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation thus this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm s competitiveness while reducing environmental impact

public information as a deterrent to environmental infractions past studies of the impact of publicly announced violations of environmental laws on the market value of the offending firms have yielded equivocal results a particularly troubling aspect of this research is whether the market imposes a reputation penalty for such violations this article uses the event study methodology to estimate the effect of announced environmental infractions on the market returns of the violators stockholders experienced significant negative abnormal returns in the event window cross sectional analysis showed these cumulative losses to be a function of firm size type of legal action and specific toxin the reputation component of abnormal returns was influenced by these factors as well

corporate socially responsible initiatives and their effects on consumption of green products corporate social responsibility csr research has focused often on the business returns of corporate social initiatives but less on their possible social returns we study an actual company consumer partnership csr initiative promoting ecologically correct and conscious consumption of bottled mineral water we conduct a survey on adult consumers to test the hypotheses that consumer skepticism toward the company consumer partnership csr initiative and the moral emotion of elevation mediate the relationship between company csr motives perceived by consumers and consumer behavioral responses following this csr initiative favorable consumer behavioral responses in turn relate positively to consumer support of other green products the results provide scholars and managers with means of improving their understanding and handling of company consumer partnership csr initiatives

the determinants of an environmentally responsive firm an empirical approach abstract our empirical results indicate that a firm s formulation of an environmental plan is positively influenced by customer pressure shareholder pressure government regulatory pressure and neighborhood and community group pressure but negatively influenced by other lobby group pressure sources and a firm s sales to asset ratio firms which view environmental issues as important in the next 5 years are also more likely to have a plan relative to the manufacturing sector firms in the natural resource sector are more likely to formulate environmental plans while firms in the service sector are less likely to have plans our results provide insight into how firms react to environmental issues they also offer policymakers a list of determinants which can be used either as an alternative or complement to environmental regulation

internal drivers and performance consequences of small firm green business strategy the moderating role of external forces growing detrimental effects on the bio physical environment have been responsible for a large number of small firms to adopt a more strategic stance toward exploiting green related opportunities this article aims to shed light on how internal company factors help to formulate a green business strategy among small manufacturing firms and how this in turn influences their competitive advantage and performance based on data received from 153 small cypriot manufacturers we propose and test a conceptual model anchored on the resource based view of the firm the findings underscore the critical role of both organizational resources and capabilities in pursuing a green business strategy the adoption of this strategy was more evident in the case of firms operating in more harmful as opposed to less harmful industries the implementation of a green business strategy was found to generate a positional competitive advantage with this association becoming stronger under conditions of high regulatory intensity high market dynamism high public concern and high competitive intensity it was also revealed that this competitive advantage is conducive to gaining heightened market and financial performance our study makes a fivefold contribution it injects a theoretical perspective into a relatively atheoretic field underlines the role of organizational resources capabilities as drivers of eco friendly initiatives highlights the often neglected strategic aspects of small firms ecological business activities stresses the contingent role of external forces in moderating the positive impact of small firm green business strategy on competitive advantage and focuses on the performance implications of the small firm s engagement in environmental operations

the potential impact of social accountability certification on marketing a short note social responsibility sa 8000 registration certification is a response by the business community to address consumer and investor perceptions of the importance of emerging global social issues such as child labor worker rights discrimination compensation etc as more u s and european firms outsource production to less developed nations social environmental and reputational issues have become more important sa8000 is a series of behavioral standards that represents a comprehensive and potentially global corporate social responsibility registration system that provides a standard of socially responsible treatment of workers this paper explores how sa8000 adoption may impact a firm s marketing activities

upgrading primary production a global commodity chain approach abstract global commodity chain gcc analysis has been concerned mainly with examining power relations in global manufacturing industries although it has been preoccupied increasingly by the question of how developing country dc producers can upgrade this paper extends gcc analysis to traditional primary commodities where international traders exercise the driving role and suggests a new agenda for their upgrading in dcs based upon public action

breaking into tradables urban form and urban function in a developing city many cities in developing economies particularly in africa are experiencing urbanization without industrialization this paper conceptualizes this in a framework in which a city can produce non tradable goods and if it is sufficiently competitive also internationally tradable goods potentially subject to increasing returns to scale a city is unlikely to produce tradables if it faces high urban and hinterland demand for non tradables or high costs of urban infrastructure and construction the paper shows that if there are increasing returns in tradable production there may be multiple equilibria the same initial conditions can support dichotomous outcomes with cities either in a low level non tradable only equilibrium or diversified in tradable and non tradable production the paper demonstrates the importance of history and expectations in determining outcomes essentially a city can be built in a manner that makes it difficult to attract tradable production this situation might be a consequence of low and self fulfilling expectations or history the predictions of the model are consistent with several observed features of african cities

corporate social responsibility in the international banking industry this article aims at providing a framework to assess corporate social responsibility with international banks currently it is mainly rating institutions like eiris and kld that provide information about firms social conduct and performance however this is costly information and it is not clear how the rating institutions arrive at their conclusion we develop a framework to assess the social responsibility of internationally operating banks we apply this framework to more than 30 institutions and find significant differences among individual banks countries and regions furthermore it appears that social responsibility of these banks has significantly improved between 2000 and 2005

the effect of clean water regulation on profitability testing the porter hypothesis previous theoretical research provides opposing arguments regarding the effect of environmental regulation on profitability this study provides empirical evidence on this debated effect by testing the strong version of the porter hypothesis we employ panel data analysis to examine the effect of water regulation as measured by permitted wastewater discharge limits on the profitability of publicly held firms operating within the chemical manufacturing industries we find that tighter water regulation meaningfully lowers profitability by reinterpreting profitability in terms of sales and costs the results demonstrate that tighter water regulation increases costs conditioned on a given level of sales

pollution prevention strategy a study of indian firms abstract strategy that targets pollution prevention shall be the first one among sustainability strategies to be implemented to achieve early cost advantages and mitigate litigation risk this article aims to isolate pollution prevention strategy pps from other similar sustainability strategies and provides an independent scope of pps a questionnaire based survey was conducted among 689 managers of 60 indian firms known for their orientation towards sustainability factorial analysis delivered five factors highlighting the composition of associated variables descriptive statistics was used to understand the relative importance of various aspects of pps and status of implementation of this strategy in indian firms the results show that firms are paying higher attention to structured waste management and the priority is early cost advantages hence prefer less investment prone processes modifications the initiatives are geared mainly due to short term advantages than top management commitment and pro activeness to comply with environmental regulations firms believe in developing expertise and deploying standard practices it is evident that firms specifically train employees for pps implantation but lags in empowerment of employees resources allocation cross functional team formations and rewards for the employees also pps strategy is implemented as stand alone strategy and lacks the integration with core corporate strategy the study adds to existing literature by segregating pps from other similar strategies like product stewardship and cleaner technology tested measure of pps shall help managers to assess their performance to achieve pollution prevention goals further the paper discusses some important managerial implications

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

green microfinance in europe microfinance institutions mfis are alternative financial providers offering financial services to people typically excluded from the standard banking sector while most mfis are active in developing countries there is also a young and developing microfinance sector in europe however very little literature exists on this mfi segment in this paper we analyze the environmental performance of 58 european mfis our results suggest that the size of the mfi investor concern for environmental performance and to a lesser extent donor interest are closely related to the institution s environmental performance moreover providing loans larger than microcredits is linked to better environmental performance this could suggest that the additional revenues generated from these loans also called cross subsidies could help mfis to strengthen their environmental bottom line finally no evidence suggests that profit status explains environmental performance

the role of corporate reputation and employees values in the uptake of energy efficiency in office buildings although office market actors in the united kingdom show a growing interest in energy efficiency the pace of takeup of energy efficient office features is slow previous studies have highlighted the roles of limited direct financial costs and benefits efficiency gaps and market barriers in limiting the rate of technology adoption this study provides further evidence on the importance of these factors but the primary contribution is focused on the role of corporate reputation and on the importance of individuals values in shaping corporate behaviour the paper presents a theoretical framework to explain environmental decision making in firms and we present qualitative evidence drawing from sixteen semi structured individual and group interviews with office market stakeholders in london glasgow and edinburgh the research finds that companies despite gradually becoming more energy conscious still regard energy costs as a negligible part of their business costs nevertheless an increasingly important driver is the reputational gain obtained by corporate businesses implementing sustainable practices all the interviewees agreed that the pace of change in the office market is slow and that only further policy interventions will accelerate it

mainstreaming green product innovation why and how companies integrate environmental sustainability green product innovation has been recognized as one of the key factors to achieve growth environmental sustainability and a better quality of life understanding green product innovation as a result of interaction between innovation and sustainability has become a strategic priority for theory and practice this article investigates green product innovation by means of a multiple case study analysis of 12 small to medium size manufacturing companies based in italy and canada first we propose a conceptual framework that presents three key environmental dimensions of green product innovation such as energy minimization materials reduction and pollution prevention as identified in the life cycle phases of products based on insights gained from in depth interviews we discuss firms motivations to develop green products environmental policies and targets for products different dimensions of green product innovation and challenges faced during developing and marketing of green products results from the study are then synthesized and integrated in a toolbox that sheds light on various aspects of green product innovation and provides solutions to challenges and risks that are faced by firms finally implications for managers academia and public policy makers are discussed

branch plants and the evolving spatial division of labour a study of material linkage change in the northern region of england phelps n a 1993 branch plants and the evolving spatial division of labour a study of material linkage change in the northern region of england reg studies 27 87 101 recent literature has suggested that manufacturing industry including that in peripheral regions is becoming more locally embedded as a result of processes of externalization and localized linkage formation this paper explores the hypothesis that branch plants have in terms of spatial patterns of material linkages become more locally embedded as a result of recent industrial restructuring evidence from a survey of manufacturing establishments in the northern region of england is used to explore hypotheses regarding the contribution of new greenfield investments and in situ restructuring to aggregate changes in spatial patterns of linkages the results suggests that despite processes of externalization northern region branch plants continue to be poorly integrated into the regional economy consequently it is argued that the cont

a resource based perspective on corporate environmental performance and profitability drawing on the resource based view of the firm we posited that environmental performance and economic performance are positively linked and that industry growth moderates the relationship with the returns to environmental performance higher in high growth industries we tested these hypotheses with an analysis of 243 finns over two years using independently developed environmental ratings results indicate that it pays to be green and that this relationship strengthens with industry growth we conclude by highlighting the study s academic and managerial implications making special reference to the social issues in management literature

corporate environmental responsibility in polluting industries does religion matter using a sample of chinese listed firms in polluting industries for the period of 2008 2010 we empirically investigate whether and how buddhism china s most influential religion affects corporate environmental responsibility cer in this study we measure buddhist variables as the number of buddhist monasteries within a certain radius around chinese listed firms registered addresses in addition we hand collect corporate environmental disclosure scores based on the global reporting initiative gri sustainability reporting guidelines using hand collected buddhism data and corporate environmental disclosure scores we provide strong and robust evidence that buddhism is significantly positively associated with cer this finding is consistent with the following view buddhism can serve as social norms to evoke the consciousness of social responsibility and thereof strengthen cer our findings also reveal that the positive association between buddhism and cer is attenuated for firms with higher law enforcement index the results are robust to various measures of buddhism and a variety of sensitivity tests

the harm of symbolic actions and green washing corporate actions and communications on environmental performance and their financial implications we examine over 100 top performing canadian firms in visibly polluting industries as we seek to answer four research questions what specific environmental issues are firms addressing how do these issues differ between industries are both symbolic and substantive actions financially beneficial does green washing measured as the difference between symbolic and substantive action and or green highlighting measured as the combined effect of symbolic and substantive actions pay we find that substantive actions of environmental issues green walk neither harm nor benefit firms financially but symbolic actions green talk are negatively related to financial performance we also find that green washing discrepancy between green talk and green walk has a negative effect on financial performance and green highlighting concentrated efforts of the talk and walk has no effect on financial performance in this article we provide explanations of our findings and put forth future research directions

the importance of nongovernmental organizations ngos in global governance and value creation an international business research agenda the emergence of organized civil society and of nongovernmental organizations ngos as organizational manifestations of broader social movements has dramatically altered the global political economic landscape the increasing global reach of ngos challenges established international business ib research and highlights opportunities for broadening and adapting extant paradigms in the field in this article we introduce the concept of ngos and contrast them with their private sector firm and public sector government counterparts within the context of ib we discuss factors giving rise to ngos as important organizational entities that participate in global value creation and governance and identify limits to their efficacy and viability we identify important questions raised by incorporating ngos into our conceptualization of global context and we challenge three basic tenets of ib theory the definition and dynamics of an institutional field the relevance centrality of a firm government i e two sector bargaining model and the pre eminence of the firm as the global organization of interest within the field we conclude by offering suggested research directions that should serve as catalysts for this new and potentially rich area of future ib research

strategic corporate social responsibility and economic performance this article proposes a novel corporate social responsibility csr index based on a data envelopment analysis dea model acknowledging the argument that companies might favour those csr dimensions that provide strategic competitive advantages we argue that the index can capture companies strategic approach to csr furthermore our findings reveal a neutral relationship between this strategic csr index and economic performance as measured by return on assets roa and tobin s q when controlling for firm unobserved heterogeneity and past economic performance by contrast an equally weighted index of the same csr indicators is found to be negatively related with roa which reinforces our claim that this specific dea based index is a measure of strategic csr

the globalisation of technology what remains of the product cycle model this paper reexamines two hypotheses associated with earlier versions of the product cycle model the first hypothesis that innovations are almost always located in the home country of the parent company is rejected on the basis of evidence drawn from one hundred years of u s patent office data the second hypothesis that the international dispersion of activity is led by technology leaders is historically valid however over the last twenty years technology leaders have been ahead instead in the globalization of technology that is in developing internal international networks to exploit the locationally differentiated potential of foreign centers of excellence c 1995 academic press inc copyright 1995 by oxford university press

virtuous nexus between corporate social performance and financial performance a study of construction enterprises in china abstract although business and society are thought in a vicious relationship for diminishing trust among stakeholders a few studies indicate the existence of a reciprocal nexus between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance known as the virtuous cycle despite of some empirical studies in developed countries little research has been conducted concerning the assumption in emerging markets where large companies have more responsibilities to create positive and sustainable shared values this paper aims to explore the nexus between social performance and financial performance of chinese companies for their global influential social and environmental impacts together with increasing awareness of corporate social responsibility csr a two step longitudinal design including cross lagged correlation analyses and longitudinal path analyses is applied to examine the overall and decomposed links it is found the virtuous cycle does exist in the overall and in most decomposed links within the context of large construction companies in china these findings are beneficial for interested policy makers corporate managers and the public to create shared value on csr and therefore contribute to csr improvements analysis results indicate a one year time lag to be appropriate for examining the lead lag relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance the research also inspires a potential generalisation of the virtuous cycle by similarly examining it in other industries or other countries with diverse csr contexts

environmental innovations and profitability how does it pay to be green an empirical analysis on the german innovation survey much of the empirical literature analysing the relation between environmental innovation and competitiveness has focused on the question whether it pays to be green we differentiate between different types of environmental innovations which will be disentangled in those aiming at reducing the negative externalities and those allowing for efficiency increases and cost savings what we analyze is at first the extent to which these two typologies have impacts on firms profitability with opposite signs and secondly whether the motivations driving the adoption of those innovations make the difference in terms of economic gains we find empirical evidence that both the typology of environmental innovation and the driver of their adoption affect the sign of the relationship between competitiveness and environmental performance the empirical strategy is based on a sample of german firms and makes use of a merge of two waves of the mannheim innovation panel in 2011 and 2009 that allow overcoming some endogeneity issues which may arise in a cross section setting

effect of announcements of withdrawal from south africa on stockholder wealth in this study we analyzed investor reaction to corporate announcements of withdrawal from south africa to determine whether such announcements increased or reduced firms market value we also exa

putting responsible finance to work for citi microfinance this paper develops an ethical framework for responsible finance and then applies it to citigroup citi a major financial actor in the microfinance sector to see whether it meets with such obligations the framework consists of two categories of responsibility the first category is the special social responsibility of financial institutions and the second is the fundamental principles of ethical behavior in financial services from citigroup s microfinance model scope of business and multiple roles in the market the company seems to be fulfilling its responsibility in inclusive finance however judged in term of the principles of integrity objectivity fairness professionalism and diligence it falls short of its ethical responsibility in view of this shortcoming citigroup should recall its obligation to avoid conflicts of interest to provide responsible advice to protect clients from over indebtedness and most importantly to act with integrity

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

sustainable energy systems and company performance does the implementation of sustainable energy systems improve companies financial performance abstract the main aim of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of sustainable energy systems improves corporate financial performance to this end we obtained data from a sample of 574 multinational companies from 36 countries in the 2008 2013 period on this data we implement a dynamic system panel data method our findings show that the adoption of sustainable energy systems allows firms to improve their short term corporate financial performance while not leading them to reduce their corporate financial performance in the long term specifically our results indicate that an increase in energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources do not significantly affect corporate financial performance neither does the integration of energy efficiency systems and renewable energy sources have any significant influence on corporate financial performance while the level of implementation of sustainable energy management systems has a significant effect on short term but not long term corporate financial performance furthermore other control variables such as research and development expenditure and year are also relevant in explaining firms financial performance the adoption of sustainable energy systems helps to improve corporate financial performance in the short term but has no affect in the long term this might be because the monitoring of energy efficiency using key performance indicators allows firms to detect and correct failures in the production process and hence improve short term financial performance however this measure does not generate competitive advantages for firms and therefore has no effect on long term corporate financial performance from a scientific perspective of energy this paper contributes to the literature by providing a detailed explanation of how the adoption of sustainable energy systems proposed by peura 2013 influences corporate financial performance on the basis of new empirical evidence these explanations provide a strong rationale for improving the efficient use of energy and harvesting low hanging fruits in the short term from a managerial perspective policymakers should encourage firms to align sustainable energy systems with their core business strategy by developing green technologies that allow them to acquire rare and valuable capabilities and abilities which generate competitive advantage and therefore allow firms to increase their long term corporate financial performance

the manufacturing sector s environmental motives a game theoretic analysis what motivates manufacturing companies to make costly investments in producing in an environmentally clean manner the traditional argument is that such behaviour is value reducing and that therefore firms must be forced by regulation to invest in green production processes a counter argument is that firms have an incentive to make environmental investments in an attempt to attract green consumers and investors hence gaining competitive advantage over their rivals in this paper we employ a game theoretic approach that demonstrates that competing firms incentives to make voluntary investments in environmental clean up are affected by the size of the investment costs and the extent of consumer and investor green awareness we argue that an increase in green behaviour can be induced by a combination of governmental subsidies for firms that invest in environmentally clean production processes together with an education program that promotes green awareness amongst consumers investors and the managers themselves

fdi agoa and manufactured exports by a landlocked least developed african economy lesotho lesotho a resource poor country located inside south africa is now africa s largest exporter of apparel to the us its performance very unusual for africa relies heavily on asian investors and trade privileges this article traces the origins of fdi in lesotho and the determinants of its export competitiveness showing that apparel production suffers from low productivity poor skills and weak local links its prospects after agoa the african growth and opportunities act remain uncertain unless the government addresses these structural problems lesotho holds important lessons for industrial development in africa going beyond creating a good investment environment

renewing expectations about africa s cities built with great expectations to connect africa with growing global trade in the nineteenth century many of africa s cities today have economies that are predominantly local not regional or global in their reach at the same time africa s cities are experiencing rapid population growth with the urban population predicted to exceed 1 billion by 2040 why have africa s urban economies not been able to keep pace with their burgeoning populations and get into the production of regionally and globally tradable goods and services and what should policy makers focus on to renew expectations about africa s cities this paper makes the case that as long as african cities lack functioning land markets and regulations and early coordinated infrastructure investments they will remain local cities closed to regional and global markets trapped into producing only locally traded goods and services and limited in their economic growth

should access to credit be a right discussion on financial ethics increasingly includes the problem of exclusion of the poorer segments of society from the financial system and access to credit this paper explores the ethical dimensions surrounding the concept of a human right to credit if access to credit is directly instrumental to economic development poverty reduction and the improved welfare of all citizens then one can proclaim as nobel prize laureate m yunus has done that it is a moral necessity to establish credit as a right arguments both supporting and opposing the concept of a right to credit are presented while there may be general agreement that access to financial services may provide a pathway out of poverty granting a universal right could induce perverse effects such as overindebtedness bearing in mind the ultimate goal of proponents of this right as well as the potential harmful consequences this paper offers a new perspective on the question of access to credit based on a goal right system

the impact of environmental management on firm performance environmental management has the potential to play a pivotal role in the financial performance of the firm many individuals suggest that profitability is hurt by the higher production costs of environmental management initiatives while others cite anecdotal evidence of increased profitability a theoretical model is proposed that links strong environmental management to improved perceived future financial performance as measured by stock market performance the linkage to firm performance is tested empirically using financial event methodology and archival data of firm level environmental and financial performance significant positive returns were measured for strong environmental management as indicated by environmental performance awards and significant negative returns were measured for weak environmental management as indicated by environmental crises the implicit financial market valuation of these events also was estimated cross sectional analysis of the environmental award events revealed differences for first time awards and between industries first time award announcements were associated with greater increases in market valuation although smaller increases were observed for firms in environmentally dirty industries possibly indicative of market skepticism this linkage between environmental management and financial performance can be used by both researchers and practitioners as one measure of the benefits experienced by industry leaders and as one criterion against which to measure investment alternatives

complementary resources and capabilities for an ethical and environmental management a qual quan study managers commitment to contribute to sustainable development holds the key to their long term business success and may be a source of competitive advantage the managerial perception of business ethics is influenced by the level of moral development and personal characteristics of managers these perceptions are also shaped by forces existing in the environment of the firm including available resources societal expectations sector and regulations the resource based perspective can thus contribute to the analysis of ethical issues offering important insights on how they can influence the environmental strategy of the firm the findings of this study show that firm resources have a strong influence on business managers ethical attitudes in addition the application of resource based rationales to ethical issues can be justified in the following several ways it influences a managerial perception of natural environment as a competitive opportunity it requires investments of financial and human resources flexibility and speed in the adaptation to environmental changes and it creates new resource based opportunities through changes in prevention pollution technology policy process and market forces

determinants of the performance of microfinance institutions a systematic review microfinance institutions mfis generally aim at improving the access of the poor to financial services while at the same time being financially sustainable but what do we know about how mfis reach and combine these two goals we carry out a systematic review of close to 170 papers discussing the determinants of the financial and social performance of mfis the review shows that the most important determinants addressed in the literature are mfi characteristics size age and type of organization their funding sources the quality of organizational governance and the mfis external context such as macro economic institutional and political conditions the evidence on these issues is rather mixed moreover the direction of the relationship between these drivers and mfi performance depends on the context particularly the country specific context finally there is a lack of consensus in the literature on the measurement of financial and social performance due to the complexity of the concept we argue that social performance should only be assessed by using a multidimensional perspective this can be done either by applying recent and holistic social performance measures such as the spi4 or at least by using a combination of proxies such as outreach gender and rural measures

competing for capital the diffusion of bilateral investment treaties 1960 2000 over the past forty five years bilateral investment treaties bits have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment the proliferation of bits during the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal these intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors including protection of contractual rights and the right to international arbitration in the event of an investment dispute how can we explain the widespread adoption of bits we argue that the spread of bits is driven by international competition among potential host countries typically developing countries for foreign direct investment we propose a set of hypotheses that derive from such an explanation and develop a set of empirical tests that rely on network measures of economic competition as well as more indirect evidence of competitive pressures on the host to sign bits the evidence suggests that potential hosts are more likely to sign bits when their competitors have done so we find some evidence that coercion and learning play a role but less support for cultural explanations based on emulation our main finding is that the diffusion of bits is associated with competitive economic pressures among developing countries to capture a share of foreign investment we are agnostic at this point about the benefits of this competition for development for useful comments on earlier drafts of this article we thank bill bernhard bear braumoeller frank dobbin robert franzese jeffry frieden geoffrey garrett tom ginsburg jude hays lisa martin bob pahre mark ramsayer steven ratner susan rose ackerman and john sides for research assistance we thank elizabeth burden raechel groom and alexander noonan

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

broken chain agoa and foreign direct investment in the kenyan clothing industry drawing upon survey and interview research covering 23 of an estimated total of 35 clothing manufacturing establishments operating in kenya as well as interviews with the policy community this paper examines the local economic development impacts associated with the recent agoa prompted re birth of the clothing industry in kenya just after its recent high watermark in 2003 it provides evidence of the characteristics of these manufacturing establishments as well as evidence of the multiple and interconnected failures on the part of government parent companies agents and customers to promote the longer term sustainability of the industry as such it provides further case study evidence of africa s uniquely problematic incorporation into global commodity chains

whether top executives turnover influences environmental responsibility from the perspective of environmental information disclosure we have empirically examined the relationship between top executives turnover and the corporate environmental responsibility by identifying the influence of ten specific turnover reasons resulting in the chairman s departure and two important types of chairman s succession using a sample of 782 manufacturing listed companies across 3 years in china we find that the corporate environmental responsibility is negatively associated with the involuntary and negative turnover i e dismissal health and death and forced resignation and positively associated with improving corporate governance and not associated with the normal turnover i e retirement and contract expiration and the types of chairman s succession i e independence and internal or external promotion our study significantly contributes to research in environmental disclosure by revealing the relationship between chairman s turnover and the corporate environmental responsibility a feasible way is suggested to regulators and other stakeholders in monitoring or assessing the possible abnormality of environmental responsibility when firms experience involuntary and negative chairman s turnover in the emerging economies

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

urbanization in developing economies the assessment urbanization is an inherent part of economic development yet its success in delivering jobs productivity and liveability varies widely this issue of the oxford review of economic policy compares the experience of different countries and analyses the causes of their different performance cities are policy intensive requiring public provision of infrastructure regulation and coordination this in turn requires authorizing environments with a sufficiently broad span of control and correspondingly powerful checks and balances to prevent abuse

the failed africanization of commerce and industry in kenya abstract in the 1970s a number of authors challenged the dependency perspective with respect to kenya they maintained that a viable domestic capital class nurtured by state sponsorship had emerged since independence this article questions the revisionist interpretation of state business relations in kenya kenya does possess a dynamic entrepreneurial sector led mainly by kenyan indians government efforts to aid african entrepreneurs or to establish a vigorous state capitalist sector have been ineffective this is evident from surveys of the state enterprise sector private manufacturing and commerce revisionist authors tended to overestimate the capacity of kenyan state agencies to implement policy goals and they neglected the political context of africanization as an instrument of ethnic patronage for state leaders

the potential of environmental regulation to change managerial perception environmental management competitiveness and financial performance abstract this research presents an overview of where the gaps in the literature exist in relation to the link between environmental regulation and proactive environmental management and competitiveness and incorporates them in a whole model different papers have highlighted only partial aspects of these relationships specifically this research evaluates the relationship between managerial perception and the different styles of environmental regulations command and control versus voluntary norms the mediator role of environmental management in the link between environmental regulations and competitiveness the effect of competitiveness on financial performance and the two way relationship between proactive environmental management and financial performance finally this paper uses statistical evidence to test and estimate causal relationships through a structural equation modelling of 208 firms affected by ippc law in spain there is a lack of systematic statistical evidence on this topic in the literature which mainly focuses on case studies the results show that when environmental regulation stems from command and control legislation its influence on managerial perception and proactive environmental management is not significant however when environmental regulation stems from voluntary norms its effects are positive moreover investment in proactive environmental management contributes to increasing the competitiveness of the firm cost and differentiation competitive advantage have a positive impact on financial performance finally the link between proactive environmental management and financial performance may follow different paths 1 neither direct nor single because it can depend on competitive advantage and 2 direct because there is a significant two way relationship between these variables proactive environmental management influences financial performance and financial performance influences proactive environmental management

environmental marketing a source of reputational competitive and financial advantage corporate reputation is an intangible asset that is related to marketing and financial performance the social economic and global environment of the 1990 shas resulted in environmental performance becoming an increasingly important component of a company sreputation this paper explores the relationship between reputation environmental performance and financial performance and looks at the contingencies that impact environmental policy making

industrialization trajectories in madagascar s export apparel industry ownership embeddedness markets and upgrading summary the paper shows the importance of ownership as a conceptual category within global value chain gvc analysis through analyzing firm types based on their gvc linkage market access and ownership profile in madagascar s apparel export industry the central argument is that ownership leading to variances in embeddedness matters ownership characteristics of supplier firms shape the ability to shift between different end markets respond to lead firm requirements and pursue upgrading with madagascar s exclusion from agoa benefits this has enabled locally embedded european french diaspora owned firms and regionally embedded mauritian owned firms to shift market channels and upgrade while asian owned firms largely exited the industry

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