This paper presents an analytical model for examining corporate approaches to human rights. On the basis of an exploratory case study of the activities of Total and Premier Oil in Myanmar, it is argued that companies have three basic strategies to address human rights issues: (1) direct strategies, (2) government strategies, and (3) partnership strategies. It is suggested that the choice between the strategies depends on a number of company and issue characteristics.

This paper describes the work of Ian Macneil, a legal scholar advocating the use of a relational contract framework to analyze exchange relations. We present an overview of Macneil’s theory, followed by a brief comparison of his theory to four theories used by business scholars. We conclude that Macneil’s framework potentially serves as an umbrella under which other theories can be utilized to better describe behavior and the choices made.

This paper investigates the influence of organizational visibility, firm size and industry on corporate philanthropic expenditures within a sample of over 300 UK corporations. The study disentangles the relationships between philanthropy, firm visibility, size, and industry, in more detail than has been attempted in earlier studies. The study provides strong evidence that organizational visibility, a variable absent from most analysis of firm philanthropy and social responsiveness, plays a significant role in shaping firm behaviour.

This paper shows how an innovative business project constructs the meaning of corporate citizenship by reconstructing the institution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Denmark. The analysis, relying on new institutional theory, shows that the innovative business group altered the established institution of CSR as they adopted and integrated selected institutions from abroad. The findings suggest that social construction is an effective and overlooked mode of self-regulation, particularly in a voluntary CSR context.

This paper investigates whether, in theoretical terms, corporations can be citizens. The argument is based on the observation that the debate on CC has only paid little attention to the actual notion of citizenship. In the few cases where it has been, authors have either largely left the concept of CC unquestioned, or applied rather unidimensional and decontextualized notions of citizenship to the corporate sphere. The paper opens with a discussion of the nature and role of metaphors for business and of the contestable nature of the political concepts sometimes applied to business. Turning to the citizenship question, it considers corporations as citizens through a fourdimensional framework of citizenship offered by Stokes (2002).

An institutional perspective on the system of corporate governance is needed to assess corporate social performance (CSP). Neo-institutional thinking offers a way to study the empirical implications of CSP’s normative core. The interaction between business and society is taking place in the system of corporate governance. Assuming that the system of corporate governance is a preference setting structure in which normative notions and instrumental objectives meet, CSP can be assessed.

This study examines the link between the extent of long-term institutional ownership in corporate stock and firm social performance. The empirical analysis highlights the heterogeneity of long-term investors and distinguishes between funds that are internally and externally managed, between private and public sector funds and between types of funds that face different institutional pressures.

The large body of empirical evidence on the corporate social performance (CSP) - financial performance (FP) relationship can be summarized as contradictory, ranging from positive through neutral and inconciusive/mixed to negative. Yet one study found and inversed-U-relationship, this finding remained under researched, although this finding is fairly explicable form a scarcity perspective. As controlling for scarcity when studying corporate performance is very difficult, we propose a laboratory experiment based on bargaining game theory. Game theory seems a promising methodology, as it is by definition concerned with systematically gathering and analyzing data within a setting of interaction, whereas decision makers continuously consider the interests of others. The objective of this paper is to create discussion on using game theory as a research methodology in the “corporate social performance” field of research.

This paper examines the motivations for business involvement with the Arts via interviews with arts organisations and businesses. It then examines these motivations in the light of existing theories for corporate philanthropy. The research finds that four dominant issues emerge - marketing, reputation, staff involvement and community involvement. All but two firms start from a business motivation, which may be either marketing led or licence to operate. The paper concludes by arguing that in this field there is no evidence of philanthropy, the giving may be strategic but it is not philanthropic.

We examine the conditions under which corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects create value for the firm. Specifically, we measure and examine the impact of centrality, specificity, proactivity, visibility, and voluntarism on value creation among multinational corporations (MNCs) in Mexico. We find that only centrality and voluntarism are related to value creation. In the case of voluntarism, the relationship is inverse. We draw conclusions from these findings about the nature of CSR activity by MNCs in Mexico.

This paper extends Global Business Citizenship theory by exploring how to apply GBC to two important areas of impact that firms have: environmental sustainability and human rights/employee practices. We identify the basic principles that may apply in these areas of global concern and illustrate the application processes and challenges in their implementation. We pay particular attention to the countervailing forces and barriers that must be dealt with in order for the organization to embrace the GBC model.

In their 2002 paper introducing the concept of global business citizenship (GBC), Logsdon & Wood contrast GBC with the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship (CC). In this project, we were interested in learning whether the international standards and codes being developed in a variety of settings were more likely to illustrate CSR, CC, or GBC. Five well-known global standards of corporate conduct were content-analyzed: the Global Sullivan Principles, The Caux Round Table Principles for Business, SA8000, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the Global Compact. The analysis was based on information available on the Internet provided by the institutions responsible for the standards. The focus of this study was on the identification of characteristics of the concepts of CSR, CC, and GBC in the five global standards.

Modem approaches take corporate governance as a form of poieisis, emphasizing codes, structures and processes. For Aristotle, corporate governance is a form of praxis, where the virtues of the ruler are more important.

Corporate philanthropy is different than other forms of corporate social behavior because it is discretionary while economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities are clearly mandatory. This paper summarizes empirical research on corporate philanthropy through the lens of discretionary behavior. Research has shown how the CEO’s discretion in decision making, due to such factors as personal values or corporate governance structures, is related to firm donations. More recent studies are investigating the role of organizational slack (i.e., discretionary resources) in charitable giving. The authors conclude by calling for future research on environmental constraints (environmental munificence and dynamism, business exposure) and corporate philanthropy, given that such environmental constraints would apparently affect discretionary behavior.

This paper proposes an alternative approach to incorporating corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability in business practice. An alternative business model is proposed that draws on the economics of sustainability rather than using neoclassical economic theory as the underlying economic model, thus incorporating principles of CSR and sustainability at the heart of the business model.

The author proposes a progressive theory of corporate citizenship responsibilities. The theory explicitly functions as a conceptual safeguard against certain arguably suspect aspects of the new citizenship practices construct. A key rationale for the new notion of corporate citizenship is that it will prove more managerially practical and less controversial than the allegedly defective corporate social responsibility construct it succeeds. This paper urges skepticism concerning such practicality and defect arguments. Enron’s misconduct illustrates the case for caution in this regard.

This paper deals with the topic of measurement of Corporate Social Performance. It is an area that has been neglected. We propose the use of what we term Corporate Social Profiling as a methodology for measuring CSP.

Naming rights agreements (NRAs), especially for stadiums and arenas (SNRAs), have become an integral part of sports, commerce, and government in North America over the last twenty years. While the intentions of SNRAs may be laudable, the results suggest that such agreements may be a misuse of corporate funds that results in poor corporate social performance (CSP) for the majority of stakeholders. We propose that NRAs may be a leading indicator of corporate economic and social performance for organizations, and that SNRAs carry a high degree of risk.

This symposium is based on an edited book of the same name due out in the Fall of 2003 from JAI Press. All of the contributions in this volume relate closely to the theme of the conference on the emergence and evolution of institutions in business and society. Our purpose with the symposium was to showcase some of this new research concerning the increasing strategic importance of environmental concerns within the multinational firm, and to explore the implications of corporate environmental strategy on public policy.

We surveyed business students in the U. S. (n-256) and Chile (n=3IO). The survey included measures drawn from studies of pro-environmental behavior using Schwartz's norm activation theory (Schwartz, 1977), the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), and a values-beliefs-norms model created by Stem, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano, and Katof (1999). Our results show Chilean business students as more altruistic than business students in the Untied States and the Chilean students felt stronger pressures from their peers to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. Chilean business students also expressed higher levels of awareness of environmental problems, a greater sense of obligation to protect the environment, a stronger willingness to limit property rights, and stronger intentions to engage in pro-environmental behavior.