Global financial crisis: implications for Chinese corporate governance

This paper analyses the role of corporate governance failures and weaknesses in the global financial crisis with reference to the evolution of post-crisis corporate governance arrangements in China. The current crisis presents China with an opportunity to analyse its governance problems, reflect on its weaknesses and implement a strategy to address areas which need attention. This paper opens with a description of China’s exposure to the current global financial crisis and continues to critically evaluate the effectiveness of a free market system on corporate governance. Bratton (2002) maintains that incentive structures that motivate the self-regulatory systems generate less powerful checks against abuse than scholars and practitioners have believed. The paper highlights the need for corporate regulatory bodies and policy makers to revise and re-develop financial services sector regulations. Finally, the paper discusses the need of ethics in organizations - an issue that is beyond legislation. In an increasingly interconnected global economy, it is imperative to increase our understanding of what constitutes an effective corporate governance system. The paper contributes to the corporate governance body of literature within the Chinese context by providing insights into the contributing factors to corporate governance failure that led to the global financial crisis. It also provides policy recommendations for China’s policy makers to seriously consider. The results suggest a need for the re-examination of corporate governance adequacy and the institutionalisation of business ethics.

Corporate social responsibility, mining and sustainable development in Namibia: critical reflections through a relational lens

For its advocates, corporate social responsibility (CSR) represents a powerful tool through which business and particularly multinationals can play a more direct role in global sustainable development. For its critics, however, CSR rarely goes beyond business as usual, and is often a cover for business practices with negative implications for communities and the environment. This paper explores the relationship between CSR and sustainable development in the context of mining in Namibia. Drawing upon extant literatures on the geographies of responsibility, and referencing in-country empirical case-study research, a critical relational lens is applied to consider their interaction both historically and in the present.

Evolving corporate social responsibility in China

With a unique cultural background and fast economic development, China’s adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become the center of discussion worldwide, and its successful implementation will have great significance for global sustainability. This paper aims to explore how CSR has given way to economic growth in China since the start of economic transition and its cultural, historical and political background, and how this has affected or been affected by the economic performance of firms. Thus, the recent calls for China to adopt CSR in its industries follow a period where the country arguably had one of the strongest implementations of CSR approaches in the world. This transition is considered in the context of a case study of a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) and a group of small private firms in the same industrial sector in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province over a time span of eight years. While the CSR of the SOE has been steadily decreasing along with the change of ownership structure, its economic performance did not improve as expected. On the other hand, with a steady improvement in economic performance, the small private firms are showing a great reluctance to engage in CSR. The results indicate that implementation of CSR in China needs both the manager’s ethical awareness and the change of institutional framework. The results also raise the question as to whether CSR is a universal concept with a desired means of implementation across the developed and developing world.

Building employee relationships through corporate social responsibility: the moderating role of social cynicism and reward for application

We explore the role of deeply held beliefs, known as social axioms, in the context of employee–organization relationships. Specifically, we examine how the beliefs identified as social cynicism and reward for application moderate the relationship between employees’ work-related experiences, perceptions of CSR, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward their firm. Utilizing a sample of 130 retail employees, we find that CSR affects more positively employees low on social cynicism and reduces distrust more so than with cynical employees. Employees exhibiting strong reward for application are less positively affected by CSR, whereas their experiences of other work-related factors are more likely to reduce distrust. Our findings suggest the need for a differentiated view of CSR in the context of employee studies and offer suggestions for future research and management practice.

Innovative approaches For enhancing the flow of funds into the Benefit Sharing Fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: an evaluation of options

This report assesses the implications and revenue-generating potential of options for reform of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in the context of the structure of the global seed industry and the emerging landscape of plant variety innovation for different crops. The implementation of these options would require modifications of Treaty and provisions of the Standard Material Transfer Agreements to alter the nature of payment obligations related to different categories of products, the payment rates under different options and the coverage of crops in Annex-I to the Treaty.

Political culture and corporate homicide liability in the UK and Europe

This chapter outlines recent developments in the emergence within Europe of systems of criminal law designed to hold corporate bodies liable where they cause the deaths of workers or members of the public. These changes point to the emergence of a new, more punitive, legal culture in relation to corporate crime. At the same time, however, there is evidence to suggest that this punitive culture is not uniform; different national jurisdictions reflect it to differing degrees. The chapter explores the degree to which the UK’s willingness to criminalise work-related deaths is mirrored elsewhere in Europe, and identifies some factors that might account for variations in this regard. In particular, attention is paid to the influence that social and political culture have on practices in this area. It is written as part of a research handbook on corporate crime in Europe, so has an eye on a more generalist audience in some regards.

A study of corporate social responsibility disclosure practices in Saudi Arabia

This paper analyses changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting practices among Saudi listed companies in the past three years. Using content analysis methodology of annual reports, a sample of 174 annual reports representing 58 Saudi listed companies from different sectors were analysed to investigate the extent of the level of CSR disclosure in the years 2010 to 2012. Our paper focuses on trends of CSR information in the four categories: Environment; Employee; Community and Customer. In developing countries, the CSR disclosure studies are limited and in the case of Saudi Arabia. Overall a significant increase in CSR reporting was observed over that period despite the fact that private-sector companies are still in the early stages of awareness as far as integrating CSR activities into their corporate policies and strategies is concerned.

Toward a view of complementarity trust and policy influence effects of corporate social responsibility and corporate political activity

The extant literature argues that nonmarket strategies can establish, sustain, or enhance a firm’s competitive advantage. Less clear is how and why effective nonmarket strategies influence a firm’s competitiveness. Moreover, the extant literature tends to examine the two building blocks of nonmarket strategy—corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate political activity (CPA)—separately. In this article, we extend trust to the nonmarket environment. We analyze how CSR and CPA complement each other to create strong trust between firms and the polity, and how they consequently influence government policy. We show the mediating role of trust in policy influence, and argue that CSR and CPA should be aligned for the successful influence of salient government policy.

Corporate responsibility research: past – present – future

The concept of corporate responsibility (CR) has moved a long way over the past six decades, since Bowen’s book titled Social Responsibilities of the Businessman marked a modern era of business and society research. In this article, we trace the development of business and society literature to provide contextual background to contemporary studies of CR. As well as looking backward, however, we also project forward arguing that fundamental changes in the current business environment are likely to propel CR to new heights in the future. In particular, we explore the mechanisms by which CR affects stakeholder behavior and suggest ways in which scholars and practitioners may want to apply advances from psychology to link CR strategy to human motivation and the notion of balance in organizations and society.

Corporate governance in Fiji’s Native Land Trust Board

This article examines corporate governance in one of Fiji’s largest trust organisations, the Native Land Trust Board. The principal-agent framework is utilised to analyse the governance issue in this study. An examination of the annual reports and final accounts over the last three decades indicates that poor governance practices by the agent have resulted in the Board not delivering maximum returns to its principal, the landowners.

Change escalation processes and complex adaptive systems: from incremental reconfigurations to discontinuous restructuring

This study examines when “incremental” change is likely to trigger “discontinuous” change, using the lens of complex adaptive systems theory. Going beyond the simulations and case studies through which complex adaptive systems have been approached so far, we study the relationship between incremental organizational reconfigurations and discontinuous organizational restructurings using a large-scale database of U.S. Fortune 50 industrial corporations. We develop two types of escalation process in organizations: accumulation and perturbation. Under ordinary conditions, it is perturbation rather than the accumulation that is more likely to trigger subsequent discontinuous change. Consistent with complex adaptive systems theory, organizations are more sensitive to both accumulation and perturbation in conditions of heightened disequilibrium. Contrary to expectations, highly interconnected organizations are not more liable to discontinuous change. We conclude with implications for further research, especially the need to attend to the potential role of managerial design and coping when transferring complex adaptive systems theory from natural systems to organizational systems.

The drivers of corporate climate change strategies and public policy: a new resource-based view perspective

Effective public policy to mitigate climate change footprints should build on data-driven analysis of firm-level strategies. This article’s conceptual approach augments the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and identifies investments in four firm-level resource domains (Governance, Information management, Systems, and Technology [GISTe]) to develop capabilities in climate change impact mitigation. The authors denote the resulting framework as the GISTe model, which frames their analysis and public policy recommendations. This research uses the 2008 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database, with high-quality information on firm-level climate change strategies for 552 companies from North America and Europe. In contrast to the widely accepted myth that European firms are performing better than North American ones, the authors find a different result. Many firms, whether European or North American, do not just “talk” about climate change impact mitigation, but actually do “walk the talk.” European firms appear to be better than their North American counterparts in “walk I,” denoting attention to governance, information management, and systems. But when it comes down to “walk II,” meaning actual Technology-related investments, North American firms’ performance is equal or superior to that of the European companies. The authors formulate public policy recommendations to accelerate firm-level, sector-level, and cluster-level implementation of climate change strategies.