Sustainable development has been framed as a social issue to which corporations must pay attention because it offers both opportunities and challenges.Although scholars in the environmental strategy field have found that the integration of business and sustainable development can result in competitive advantage, international business scholars argue that it does not increase industrial performance. To integrate these research streams, this paper builds upon the institutional theory attempt to understand strategic options of major multinational corporations (MNCs) that are experiencing sustainable development pressures. This paper also examines the resourcebased view of the firm to understand different patterns of distinctive capabilities that may explain differences in corporate strategies among MNCs experiencing similar institutional pressures. We argue that normative and coercive isomorphism does not occur at the global level because sustainable development is largely a stakeholder-driven issue rather than a broad social issue. However, mimetic isomorphism has explanatorypotential, but since it implies the use of complex and intangible resources, mimetic processes are slow and rare.

I examine the evolution of trade organizations in the southwest from their early manifestation to their present configurations with a particular focus on Trading Posts as socio-cultural and economic exchange organizations. At their inception as general stores they served displaced and remote populations, while at their peak they were social, cultural, and economic hubs connecting various ethnic groups. More recently, they have become non-profit and profit entities, both on- and off-reservation, and tribal government organizations, some of which still incorporate notions of socially responsible business.

A recent literature applies economic reasoning to restrict corporate social responsibility (CSR) to profitable opportunities. The underlying theory of the firmassumes widespread public company ownership and a net positive contribution to social welfare in relatively unfettered markets. This modern economic approach posits strict fiduciary responsibility of agents. Management, in this fiduciary role, should have no CSR discretion beyond the requirements of minimalist laws and customary ethics. Any profitable CSR option can be undertaken. Any unprofitable CSR action is defined as discretionary altruism prohibited to fiduciary agents and recommended against for shareowners acting through the corporate form. The modern economic position shifts all unprofitable social issues into the sphere of public policy—which is then influenced by business on the basis of economic self-interest. There are two points of relaxation in this position. First, a firm may need to practice prudential altruism to forestall more costly action by governments and stakeholders. Second, management must consider productivity effects of employee sentiments about social issues and stakeholders.

Although the theory of moral development is widely used in business ethics research to measure the quality of an ethical decision, there have been ongoingconcerns about certain aspects of the theory. These concerns include questions about the distinctness and sequentiality of the stages, the logic for claiming that the higher levels are morally superior, and the ability of the theory to incorporate the universality of the dominant ethical theories and the particularism of the ethics of care. This paper suggests that many of these concerns can be addressed through recent research, most importantly through the application of the Lectical Assessment System (LAS) (Dawson, 2002, 2003; Dawson, Xie, & Wilson, 2003).

Loyalty, whether moral duty or dangerous attachment, is a cognitive phenomenon — an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual. In this article, weconsider loyalty from a psychological contract perspective – that is, as an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Viewing loyalty in this way helps clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. We present a threetiered framework for conceptualizing loyalty which also helps explain apparently intractable paradoxes of loyalty.

Assume that a not-for-profit receives a sizable donation and names a building after the donor. What should the not-for-profit do, when, at a later date, the donorbecomes tainted because of a scandal? This paper outlines a typology of donors and donations, and using stakeholder theory and resource dependency identifies three external factors (cognitive dissonance, multiple stakeholders, and recency) and three organizational factors (economic need, funding guidelines, and commitment) that would entice a NFP to adopt any one of three strategies: return the money and delete the donor’s name; keep the money but delete the donor’s name; or keep the money and the donor’s name on the building.

This paper addresses a gap in knowledge concerning heterogeneity in stakeholder expectations of Corporate Responsibility. Past research concentrates onprioritising stakeholders in groups, such as groups of employees, customers, investors, suppliers, etc. It has, however, been suggested that stakeholders do not consist of homogenous groups, but differ according to individual needs and expectations. A latent class model is proposed as a method to investigate heterogeneity within stakeholder groups and to identify homogenous subpopulations within stakeholder groups who share similar expectations of Corporate Responsibility. Latent Class Analysis is a relatively new method being used for segmentation purposes, applied mainly by research in Sociology and the Social Sciences. The contribution is thus twofold: to identify subgroups of stakeholders with reference to their attitudes to Corporate Responsibility and the application of a research technique not widely used in the Corporate Responsibility field before.

This paper has outlined the theoretical framework for constructing a survey instrument designed to elicit attitudes that contribute to perceived legitimacy of corporate environmental sustainability policies or initiatives. It posits six attitudinal components of legitimacy that can be influenced independently, and that combine to yield an overall attitude regarding the legitimacy of sustainability as a factor in managerial decision-making. It discusses how a survey instrument could be developed to measure these attitudinal components, and suggests practical and pedagogical applications.

The recent global financial crisis and economic recession has generated renewed inquiry into and debate over optimal regulation of financial sectors. One such topic of interest concerns how to define, monitor, and regulate the responsibilities of private equity investors. Waves of private equity acquisitions have occurred since the 1980s. The more negative aspects of private equity investment are now under renewed scrutiny. The topic has wide scope, including the recent GM and Chrysler situations. A recent lawsuit by Mervyn’s LLC, a retail department chain operating mostly in California, filed against its private equity owners highlights some of the complex issues in this topic area. The paper examines the Mervyn’s situation based on public information; and places the lawsuit in the broader scope of the topic area. The paper examines the Chrysler situation based on public information; and reports the changes in Chrysler ownership.

Family ownership and/or involvement in the business have rarely been adopted as a discriminating variable in organizations and the natural environment or sustainability research. Family firms introduce a dynamic that is different from professionally run firms. This paper develops a theoretical framework to show that family firms whose dominant family coalition shares a vision of sustainability will be more likely to develop and deploy their organizational capabilities for a sustainability strategy. In family firms with a shared vision of sustainability, familiness, localness, long-term orientation, and family identity will have a positive mediating effect on the deployment of organizational capabilities for a proactive sustainability strategy.

Little has been published about the drivers, factors and challenges involved in the business practice of creating corporate sustainability performance within a company. This working paper describes research that employed an in-depth, grounded-theory case study approach to explore the issue within two EU-based utility companies. From the analysis of interviews, project meeting observations and a survey with in-house delivery experts, a key preliminary output of this research has been the creation of a Force-Factor Corporate Sustainability Performance Framework that categorises the main driver and inhibitor elements a dynamic, explanatory model. This can serve as a useful platform for further academic and practitioner-based research, as well as describing key levers and obstacles to establishing a progressive performance in corporate sustainability.

Across Europe, micro firms (SMEs with up to 10 employees) account for the vast majority of business activities. Supporting micro firms in the transition towards sustainability is essential: many small steps will result in a big leap. To this scope knowledge is needed on the specific challenges encountered by micro firms in the region they operate in. The research presented here offers a contribution to this knowledge. It explores the perception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), its rewards and difficulties by micro firms in Frisia, Groningen and Drenthe - the three Northern provinces of The Netherlands.

This paper proposes that issues evaluation can be conducted by a framework which integrates the concept of a legitimacy gap with expectational gaps (factual, conformance, and ideal gaps). Using this framework, this paper empirically demonstrates the existence of expectational gaps in the context of the forest products industry by means of a quantitative survey. Results indicate that significant expectational gaps exist. This framework may have relevance for both issues management and legitimacy scholars.

This research seeks to extend the literature of trust by examining whether the amount of trust that employees have in their supervisors is contingent upon the ethical system of belief utilized by their immediate supervisors. To help answer this question, it is hypothesized that employees have a greater degree of trust in immediate supervisors practicing the deontological ethical system of belief than in those practicing the teleological ethical system of belief. This study begins the search for the moral frameworks that are the antecedents of trust in immediate supervisors. The results indicate that practicing a deontological approach to ethics may stimulate a greater degree of employee trust in immediate supervisors than a teleological approach; therefore, the ethical system of belief held by immediate supervisors affects his or her employees.

Different stages of the product and industry life cycle has been argued to be an important factor in shaping firms’ strategic actions, as the life cycle influence the firms’ sales, profit, product innovation, marketing mix and differentiation strategies. Drawing on the theory of industry life cycle (ILC), this article examines how the ILC influences firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the context of global procurement transactions. The findings suggest that mature industries have much greater levels of responsible procurement (RP) processes, compared to rapid growing and declining industries. The authors conclude that CSR in procurement transactions is a trait of changes in the strategic behaviour of firms, as they progress from the ILC stage of growth to maturity and decline, rather than being a by-product of supply chain sophistication, which also develops along the ILC.

There is a lack of research on why certain international accountability standards (IAS) are more prone than others to being decoupled from organizational practices. Applying a neo-institutional theory perspective to IAS we theorize that the structural dimensions of the standards themselves can increase the likelihood of organizations adopting IAS standards in form but not in function.

The paper describes the development of a model for representing the ethical climate of a business community. It describes the steps followed in identifying the model’s components and in validating the model’s structure through use of expert panels. The expert panel validation methodology has yielded a weighting scheme for use in the model’s eventual operationalization, whose derivation, together with the analysis performed on qualitative discoveries of the process, is described. The model’s development is part of a larger research project that is intended to result in a validated instrument for measuring and comparing ethical climates of different business communities and for assessing longitudinal progress of individual business communities. The project’s ultimate goal is to provide an index measure that can also serve as a “report card” assessment tool at a level of analysis, which has not yet been addressed in the literature – that of the business community.

Previously, Rodriguez & LeMaster (2007) recommended that the SEC issue a “CSR Seal of Approval” for companies that voluntarily disclose their corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. That work lacks the strength of third or fourth-party accreditation. This paper recommends that the SEC issue an accreditation grade of A, B, B-, or C to provide strength to the “CSR Seal of Approval” and to help companies indicate the quality of company CSR programs. By issuing an accredited “CSR Seal of Approval,” all stakeholders benefit because companies can incorporate CSR into their strategies and achieve recognition for their CSR projects. The premise of the accreditation concept support the original authors notion of letting CSR remain voluntary and not legislated; thus, all companies (small, medium, large, foreign or domestic) maintain competitive advantage by not incurring additional regulated costs.

Global climate change has very significant implications for the theory and practice of global justice. Climate change, whether generated by natural processes or human activities, generates uneven distribution of negative and net impacts across individuals, groups, and countries. Sources of climate change due to human activities, and also capacity to respond to climate change, are similarly unevenly distributed. Distributions of sources, impacts, and capacity are likely quite different from one another. In this context, justice concerns who should bear the final real burden of climate change and of actions to mitigate, halt, and reverse climate change. This final real burden is interdependent with global poverty.

This paper presents a comparison of two management models. The first is a prominent Chinese model used in management and encouraged by both traditional cultural practices and modern political statements, often using the term “harmonious relationships.” The second is the stakeholder management model, familiar to most Western management scholars.