Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259373.pdf

Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage

This paper comprehensively examined the linkages between systems of High Performance Work Practices and firm performance. Results based on a national sample of nearly one thousand firms indicate that these practices have an economically and statistically significant impact on both intermediate outcomes (turnover and productivity) and short- and long-term measures of corporate financial performance. Support for the predictions that the impact of High Performance Work Practices is in part contingent on their interrelationships and links with competitive strategy was limited.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1803666_code1640113.pdf?abstractid=1803666&mirid=5&type=2

The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Turnover, Productivity, and Corporate Financial Performance

This study comprehensively evaluated the links between systems of High Performance Work Practices and firm performance. Results based on a national sample of nearly one thousand firms indicate that these practices have an economically and statistically significant impact on both intermediate employee outcomes (turnover and productivity) and short- and long-term measures of corporate financial performance. Support for predictions that the impact of High Performance Work Practices on firm performance is in part contingent on their interrelationships and links with competitive strategy was limited. The impact of human resource management (HRM) policies and prac

/pdf/the-impact-of-human-resource-management-practices-on-hesrlz2jwc.pdf

The Impact Of Human Resource Management Practices On Turnover, Productivity, And Corporate Financial Performance

Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little generalizable knowledge about CSP and CFP is built on shaky grounds. Providing a methodologically more rigorous review than previous efforts, we conduct a meta-analysis of 52 studies (which represent the population of prior quantitative inquiry) yielding a total sample size of 33,878 observations. The meta-analytic findings suggest that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association. For example, CSP appears to be more highly correlated with accounting-based measures of CFP than with market-based ...

/pdf/corporate-social-and-financial-performance-a-meta-analysis-21bp3gts9c.pdf

Corporate Social and Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis

We outline a supply and demand model of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on this framework, we hypothesize that a firm's level of CSR will depend on its size, level of diversification, research and development, advertising, government sales, consumer income, labor market conditions, and stage in the industry life cycle. From these hypotheses, we conclude that there is an “ideal” level of CSR, which managers can determine via cost-benefit analysis, and that there is a neutral relationship between CSR and financial performance.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/259398.pdf

Corporate Social Responsibility: a Theory of the Firm Perspective

Welcome to the inaugural double issue of the Corporate Reputation Review. At a time when disciplines are fragmenting into ever-more specialized domains, we are pleased to announce the creation of an integrative medium for research and practice about reputation management. Indeed, the primary purpose of the Review is to provide a forum for research-based discussions about corporate reputations. We expect these conversations to reflect the diversity of academic disciplines that are actively contributing to knowledge in this area, whether grounded in strategic management, organization theory, economics, marketing, communications, accounting, or finance. As such, the Review will assemble emerging scholarship about an area that is proving to be of considerable interest to scholars with widely divergent orientations. In this way, we hope to encourage a closer examination of corporate reputations and thereby stimulate the growth of knowledge about the complex socially constructed environments in which companies operate. We also intend the Corporate Reputation Review to address the proliferating demands by practitioners for answers to questions about how reputations affect competitive positioning, about how to examine and value corporate reputations, about how to build, maintain, and defend those reputations (Hall, 1992). Many professionals have a vested interest in developing answers to these questions, be they chief executive officers or strategic planners, brand managers or identity specialists, accountants or financiers, heads of public relations, community relations, investor relations, customer relations, or employee relations. In their everyday life, each is deeply involved in managing a company’s reputational assets. Yet all too few can identify and provide well-reasoned and defensible answers to questions about corporate reputation and reputational dynamics. A key purpose of the Corporate Reputation Review, then, is to help remedy that lack. Through conceptual articles, empirical research, case studies of best practice, and occasional book reviews, we hope to draw on the expertise of leading researchers and practitioners concerned with corporate identity and identification, the strategic management of stakeholders, corporate branding, the valuation of intangibles, communication, crisis management, and the socioeconomic analysis of competition.

/pdf/the-reputational-landscape-3k7nvbfdh1.pdf

The Reputational Landscape

Work in the corporate environment requires students to accurately assess internal and external corporate communication needs and frame strategic responses that are appropriate to multiple contexts and audiences. Students also need to understand the role of the corporation within our contemporary global society as well as the way in which communication helps shape, maintain and ultimately transform various aspects of corporate identity, culture and vision.

What is corporate communication

Strategic planning and human resource management

This paper examines the relationship between individual and structural explanations of attributions of power across two domains: administrative decisions and technical decisions. An assessment is made of the relative importance of member level variates against contextual variates as determinants of perceived power. The results suggest that contextual effects are far stronger than member level variates. Among member level characteristics, an incumbent's formal status is found to be a primary determinant of his perceived administrative power, while his expertise is a better predictor of his perceived technical power. The formal structure outweighs the interaction network as a context for understanding attributions of power.

Attributions of Power Across a Social Network

In December 1996, the authors designed a questionnaire survey and sent it to the Chief Executive Officers of the 1,000 largest international companies in the USA and United Kingdom. A total of 139 usable responses were returned to us in January, 1997 — a 14 per cent response rate. The questionnaires were filled out by either the CEO, or a member of the senior management team responsible for reputational matters. The responding companies were not significantly different from the larger sample in both size and reputational standing. Among the respondents were such industry leaders as American Express, BBC, Ford, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Johnson and Johnson, Royal Dutch/Shell, Sainsbury and Xerox. The purpose of the questionnaire was to examine how leading companies conceive and manage their reputation management practices. We solicited answers to questions in three categories: 1 Constituent Relationships: How leading companies relate to their constituents; the standards against which they design their practices; 2 Reputation-Building Practices: What kinds of strategies and systems leading companies rely on to build reputation and relate to their key constituents; 3 Organizational Issues: How companies organize themselves to manage reputation; do they have a reputation-building strategy, and who is responsible for it?

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpalgrave.crr.1540044.pdf

Charles J. Fombrun

Papers

The Reputational Landscape

What is corporate communication

Strategic planning and human resource management

Attributions of Power Across a Social Network

Reputation Management in Global 1000 Firms: A Benchmarking Study