Corporate sustainability

About: Corporate sustainability is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3517 publications have been published within this topic receiving 94075 citations.

Scoring Firms’ Codes of Ethics: An Explorative Study of Quality Drivers

Abstract: Research in the field of management has increasingly focused on strategies and tools related to corporate sustainability. Of the tools examined, codes of ethics have been found to play a primary role. Many studies have investigated the content of such codes, as well as their capacity to condition the behaviour of people within organizations. However, few studies have considered the intrinsic quality of codes of ethics. This study aims to investigate the impact that specific factors—firm size, degree of internationalization and industry effect—can have on the quality of codes of ethics. Based on a sample of 248 listed Italian companies, the results of the empirical analysis show that the quality standard is particularly high in larger companies and in those firms operating in industries in which relationships established with critical stakeholders—and disclosure to those stakeholders—play a crucial role. These results have interesting implications for both researchers and practitioners.

Toward a Comprehensive Model of Organizational Evolution: Dynamic Capabilities for Innovation and Adaptation of the Enterprise Model

Abstract: Plain language summary This article argues that the rapid evolution of expectations and influence capacity by corporate stakeholders requires managers in MNCs not only to adapt operating activities, but to rethink the purpose and overarching goal of the business enterprise, adapting it from a shareholder-primacy to a multi-stakeholder enterprise model. This complex adaptation process, however, requires the development of a specific form of competence to be developed and honed, different in kind from the typical capabilities focused on organizational change. With the help of concrete examples of sustainability-driven change initiatives, we discuss how the two enterprise models differ and how the development of this new type of competence facilitates the transition from one to the other. Technical summary This article argues that the dynamic capabilities framework can be useful to study the evolutionary change processes that MNCs go through as they strive to innovate and adapt to societal pressures related to corporate sustainability. These pressures require MNCs to rethink and adapt core organizational elements and we argue that current dynamic capabilities theory is not sufficiently developed to explain these adaptive efforts. We suggest refining and extending theory in two directions: (1) distinguishing between behavioral, cognitive, and relational organizational elements as objects of the innovation, change, and learning dynamics; and (2) distinguishing between capabilities specific to generative variation and selection of innovative change and adaptation ideas from those specific to their diffusion and retention. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society

Corporate social responsibility, a strategy to create and consolidate sustainable businesses

Abstract: To highlight the strategic importance of CSR, this paper starts with a study of specialized literature in order to identify the role of these strategies in the creation and strengthening of sustainable business. Using Dunphy's model as a start point, we attempted to draft typologies for social responsibility strategies that support organizations in creating and strengthening sustainable business. An empirical study of the European automobile industry has sought to highlight the impact CSR strategies have on sustainable business. Selection and implementation of appropriate social responsibility strategies are important in achieving added value through the creation and strengthening of sustainable business.

Networked CSR Governance: A Whole Network Approach to Meta-Governance:

Abstract: Meta-governance is Earth system governance for dealing with the global commons. This article develops a whole network approach to meta-governance to explore the potential for collective action for sustainable development by a loosely coupled network of networks. Networked corporate social responsibility (CSR) governance has emerged around corporate sustainability and responsibility in the first years of the 21st century. Growing agreements and interactions among CSR initiatives suggest the development, structure, and governance of networked CSR governance as a network that can analytically be viewed as a whole and as a platform for learning about systemic change. Using the evolution of CSR initiatives from about 1990 to 2014, the authors differentiate four developmental stages: independent and fragmented multistakeholder networks as CSR governance, collaborative CSR governance, networked CSR governance, and integrated networked CSR governance. The authors then present a framework to analyze networked CSR ...