In this article we present an analysis of the massive delegitimation process which led to the demise of Arthur Andersen, once a most respected model among the “Big Five” accounting firms. Using a conceptual model developed in a previous study, we review the various elements of the firm's downfall, and conclude with a new model of organizational “de-legitimation”.

We propose an exploratory study of how the ethic of care stakeholder model is and can be realized in a corporate environment by focusing corporate environmental responsibility. The ethic of care stakeholder model counters the traditional approach that relies on “managing” stakeholders in priority order, turning instead to a cooperative coexistence with stakeholders in a shared, ecologically sustainable community founded on an ethic of care.

This study presents an empirical field analysis of the organizational conditions underlying the deregulatory turmoil in the United States electricity sector during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Set in a regional electric utility, this work examines the operational, cultural, and stakeholder dilemmas arising within this representative industrial organization during the shift from a regulated environment to one dominated by the dictates of “free market” economics.

In this paper, I formulate a theory to explain the occurrence of qualitatively distinct types of firm-stakeholder relationships. It proceeds by distinguishing between components of firms’ relational activities and relating those distinct activities to separate components of stakeholder salience attributes. Institutional explanations are offered to explain how salience components of legitimacy and urgency may be associated with different types of firm-stakeholder activities than is power. Limitations of the theory are examined, especially recognizing that stakeholder governance mechanisms external to the firm may often condition similarly managers' attitudes as well as firm-level culture, and action.

Among his many other accomplishments, Sir Horace Plunkett was the founder of the Irish cooperative organization movement, and 2004 marks the centenary of the publication of his landmark work Ireland in the New Century (Plunkett, 1904). Unfortunately, as influential as Plunkett was at the turn of the twentieth century, he is largely forgotten today. Yet, Plunkett's ideas on cooperative organizations as instruments of both commercial success and social good may serve to remind business and society scholars that alternative models of business organization have long existed and have been, from time to time, successful. His philosophy of cooperative organization further suggests that "stakeholder theory" was a practice long before it was anything approaching theory.

The Stakeholder View of the corporation holds that the capacity of a business enterprise is to generate long-term value which depends on critical stakeholders (Post, Preston, and Sachs, 2002: 51). This paper proposes a learning framework to explain why and how firms adopt a broader stakeholder orientation or why they don't. Preliminary, comparative case studies show first empirical evidence that the framework works in longitudinally capturing the development of stakeholder management in practice

This study offers an alternative to the predominant stockholder view by considering the stakeholder theory of the firm advanced by Freeman (1984). Stakeholder theory has a central focus on ethics in corporate governance, and is normative at its core as it tells top managers what they should do from an ethical standpoint with attention given to the various stakeholder groups of the firm, and not just the stockholders. Within the framework of stakeholder theory, this study will consider top managers moral values based on the importance they give to justice, trust, and commitment in their dealings with stakeholders. The overriding belief of this study is that the greater attention a manager gives to each of these areas in dealing with their stakeholder groups, the better their firm will perform financially.

The teaching of business ethics is almost inherently pluralistic, but little evidence of explicitly pluralistic approaches exists in teaching materials besides the available decision-making frameworks. In this paper we argue that the field needs to acknowledge and adopt pluralism as the standard pedagogical approach, whether the individual teacher uses a philosophical approach or a more applied approach, to best serve students and society.

This is an exploratory study of corporate social performance in firms with family members in executive, governance, or strong ownership positions. Family firmsdominate the economy in most countries, including the United States, and families are thought to be more concerned with personal wealth creation and risk avoidance than social performance. Although such firms have been shown to have superior financial performance, I found no evidence of superior (or inferior) social performance among family firms in the S&P 500. In a departure from the methodological norm in business and society, I used KLD data as dependent variables instead of independent variables. I was able to predict KLD scores from firm size, industry, and strategy variables, but family firm status rarely played a role.

Voluntary management standards have recently become a new form of industrial coordination. Once an organization implements a management practice, theorganization may then voluntarily apply for a third party certification to demonstrate compliance with a certain standard. Based on the principles of institutional theory, various scholars have analyzed how various elements of the institutional environment influence the adoption of these new management standards. However, missing in the literature, is the analysis of how the combination of different institutional pressures shape (e.g. accelerate or decelerate) adoption patterns. This paper addresses this question by analyzing the adoption of the environmental management standard ISO 14001 among automotive suppliers located in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

This study draws on stakeholder management theory and the resource-based view of the firm to determine the factors affecting a facility’s decision to implementenvironmental management systems and practices. Four levels of environmental commitment to the natural environment are proposed including whether a facility has an EMS, whether a facility has a person responsible for environmental issues, whether a facility is ISO 14001 certified and the comprehensiveness of a facility’s EMS as measured by the number of practices undertaken. We empirically test these hypotheses using manufacturing facility-level data from Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway and the USA.

This paper examines the linguistic strategies used by tobacco industry executives in public speeches made pre and post two important events in tobacco industry history to assess the trust building efforts of Philip Morris.

This paper demonstrates the role of the governance system and the governance structure in corporate social performance (CSP). By building on a longitudinal study in Dutch finance, it extends the CSP-model of Wood. The extension enables us to study the impact of the institutional environment and the characteristics of a governance structure on CSP. Furthermore, the study confirms Wood’s assumption that anticipating managers are critical in CSP. However, if stakeholders desire structural influence, the governance structure and the governance system offer important opportunities.

This paper examines the influences on differential behaviors of multinational enterprises (MNEs) with respect to the adoption and implementation of voluntary codes of conduct in their host country operating environments. Both external institutional and internal leadership and organizational culture factors are offered as those conditions that are expected to predict the respective ability and willingness of firms to conduct their operations in socially responsible ways. A framework for furthering research in this area is developed.

The trend toward increased levels of business interconnectedness in the value chain has clouded the issue of responsibility for business practices. Firms havehistorically denied responsibility for many questionable practices by suggesting that such acts were committed somewhere else in the value chain and that, because they are separated by an arm’s length transaction, they are not responsible. Emerging evidence suggests that in light of the interconnected and networked business environment, the arm’s length defense is growing less effective. We discuss the practical realities that firms are facing in the highly networked environment and offer examples of each. We also offer practical guidance about each example within a total responsibility management framework.

This paper investigates an under-researched relationship, that between corporate social performance (CSP) and geographical diversification. Drawingupon the institutional and stakeholder perspectives and utilising data on a sample of large UK firms, we develop a set of empirical models of CSP, and findevidence of a significant contemporaneous positive relationship between the two for some types of social performance and in some regions of the world. Overall,we provide evidence that firms shape their social performance strategies to their geographical profile.

Given the difficulties in Business & Society research to establish causality, one of the crucial tasks in the sciences, a Quasi-Experimental Approach (QEA) is suggested as a research design suitable to a variety of questions in the field. Triangulation is also suggested as a complement to the QEA way to tease out plausible alternative explanations. A recently published study is used as an illustrative example.

Economic growth requires a focus on building the assets of the poor, a strategic approach that is considerably broader than developing the poor only asconsumers and workers. The long-term sustainability of business and society will be enhanced if corporate investments that impact on poverty alleviation are far reaching, multi-faceted, and built through multi-sector partnerships. Emerging evidence indicates that corporations are increasingly involved on two important fronts: directly investing in ways that reduce poverty, and advocating for public policy investments to build the assets of the poor. Corporate involvement in asset policy can be understood as a new manifestation of corporate/business citizenship.