Muhammad Atif

Bio: Muhammad Atif is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Corporate social responsibility & Stakeholder management. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 4 citations.

(Re) discovering the business purpose: A discursive approach to CSR and stakeholder management

Abstract: This study aims to focus on the purpose and legitimacy of business, notably, the organizational purpose, the conventional view that the purpose of business is to optimize the returns to shareholders, and the emerging view that organizations serve multiple purposes including economic returns.,This study applies Habermas’s discourse ethics to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder management (SHM) and argues that discourse ethics is a balanced philosophical approach, which can effectively address the limitations of CSR and SHM.,The analysis demonstrates that discourse ethics is a distinctive philosophical approach to ethical theory and has high relevance to the field of CSR and SHM.,The discursive approach to CSR and SHM is unique because it allows assimilating various ethical situations – from pragmatic to normative – under one theoretical framework. The potential of the proposed approach is illustrated through a thorough discussion of its application to CSR and SHM.

Perceived firm ethicality and brand loyalty: the mediating role of corporate social responsibility and perceived green marketing

Abstract: This study aims to establish the link between business ethics and brand loyalty and to investigate the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as green marketing.,Using the purposive sampling technique, data were obtained from 622 middle-income city dwellers who shop at leading retail malls. Data were analyzed with partial least square–structural equation model.,The study found a positive and significant relationship between business ethics, CSR, green marketing and business loyalty. Both CSR and green marketing mediate between perceived firm ethicality and brand loyalty.,This research was done based on general knowledge of business ethics, CSR and green marketing from the consumers’ perspective. Future studies can avoid this limitation.,By ensuring ethical codes, CSR and green marketing, firms can contribute to promoting the SDGs, and at the same time, achieving customer loyalty. Brand loyalty is further enhanced if customers see a firm to be practicing CSR.,The SDGs of sustainable production patterns, climate change and its impacts, and sustainably using water resources must become the focus of companies as they ultimately yield loyalty. Policymakers and society can design a policy to facilitate adoption of better ethical behavior and green marketing by firms as a way of promoting SDGs.,To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to test the mediation effect of green marketing and CSR on how ethical behavior leads to brand loyalty. It is also one of the few papers to examine how SDGs can be promoted by businesses as stakeholders.

Seeking Mutual Understanding. A Discourse Theoretical Analysis of the WTO Dispute Settlement System

Abstract: The Dispute Settlement System (DSS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a mechanism to settle international trade controversies by means of adversarial procedures. In this paper we aim to address the following question: why is the DSS adversarial in kind and articulated through such sophisticated procedures? We shall combine studies in the fields of politics, law and economics through philosophical analysis to look for a systemic answer to this question in the inherent qualities of the procedures through which the DSS is articulated. Specifically, we shall resort to Jurgen Habermas’s discourse theory, as a hermeneutic device to disentangle the different kinds of “action orientations” DS procedures may have (compromise, consensus and understanding). We shall identify the reasons of the specific characterisation given to the DSS in the purposeful connections between its procedural features, the general aims pursued by the WTO and the disputes emerging within it.

Extended contextual validation of stakeholder approach to firm technology adoption: moderating and mediating relationships in an innovation eco-system

Abstract: Purpose The need for context-specific adoption models led to the development of the firm technology adoption model (F-TAM) model. Among small to medium-scale enterprises (SMEs); however, firm-level factors were rather insignificant in engendering SME level adoption of technological innovation. This study aims to examine the effect of firm size and other moderating and mediating factors on the relationships between personal, firm, societal and technological factors proposed in the stakeholder-oriented F-TAM among SMEs. Design/methodology/approach A research instrument was developed, reviewed by experts, and pilot tested with a sample of 25 respondents. Data were purposively collected from four hundred (400) SMEs and analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings The study discovered that employees, societal and technological factors moderate the relationship between firm factors of adoption and firm adoption. Without these moderating effects, firm factors of adoption would have been insignificant at the SMEs’ level of organizational technology adoption. The study further discovered that firm size, as well as risk propensity, also affect the relationships proposed in the model. Research limitations/implications Data was collected on voluntary adoption from the most cosmopolitan area of a developing country. It, therefore, needs further contextual validation across the country and different countries. Practical implications The engagement of innovations in firms must be planned with employees and society as major stakeholders. Originality/value The significance of this finding is the study’s emphasis on an eco-system approach for examining the phenomenon of innovation adoption. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the effect of firm characteristics on is proposed eco-system of stakeholders.

Analyzing the effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Green Innovation Performance in the Spanish wine industry: A structural equation modeling analysis

Abstract: The present research analyses how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices affect Green Innovation Performance (GIP) in the Spanish wine industry. To this end, a conceptual model is proposed and contrasted through a quantitative approach based on structural equation modeling with data collected from 202 Spanish wineries between September 2021 and January 2022. The results of the research indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between CSR and GIP. In addition, Green Intellectual Capital (GIC) and Knowledge Management (KM) partially mediate the relationship between these two variables, playing a key role in the environmental management of wineries. The present research therefore contributes to the literature in several ways. First, the study advances the understanding of CSR in the Spanish wine industry, as well as its relationship with GIP. Second, the research aims to fill a gap in the literature by studying GIC and KM as mediating variables in this link, given that, to our knowledge, there are no previous studies that have analyzed mediating variables in the CSR–GIP relationship. Third, to the best of our knowledge, the proposed model has not been previously addressed in the academic literature, which represents an advance in scientific knowledge. [EconLit citations: L66, 03, M1].