Stakeholder-defined corporate responsibility for a pre-credit-crunch financial service company: lessons for how good reputations are won and lost

This paper presents a study that identifies a stakeholder-defined concept of Corporate Responsibility (CR) in the context of a UK financial service organisation in the immediate pre-credit crunch era. From qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups with employees and customers, we identify, in a wide-ranging stakeholder-defined concept of CR, six themes that together imply two necessary conditions for a firm to be regarded as responsible— both corporate actions and character must be consonant with CR. This provides both empirical support for a notable, recent theoretical contribution by Godfrey (in Acad Manag Rev 30:777–798, 2005) and novel lessons for reputation management practice.

Student Thesis Level: Master’s Thesis in Business Administration Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) networking : A case study on why members join CSR network and why are they sharing their knowledge

Purpose – This research focuses on finding the reasons, why members from different sectors join a cross-sector/multi-stakeholder CSR network and what motivates them to share (or not to share) their knowledge of CSR and their best practices. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the largest cross-sector CSR network in Sweden. The sample base of 15 people was chosen to be able to represent a wider variety of members from each participating sectors. As well as the CEO of the intermediary organization was interviewed. The interviews were conducted via email and telephone. Findings – The findings include several reasons linked to the business case of CSR such as stakeholder pressure, competitive advantage, legitimacy and reputation as well as new reasons like the importance of CSR, and the access of further knowledge in the field. Further reasons are in line with members wanting to join a network, such as access to contact or having personal contacts. As to why members are sharing their CSR knowledge, the findings indicate to inspire others, to show CSR commitment, to be visible, it leads to business opportunity and the access of others knowledge, and because it was requested. Reasons for not sharing their knowledge would be the lack of opportunity, lack of time and the lack of experience to do so. Originality/value – The research contributes to existing studies, which focused on Corporate Social Responsibility and cross-sector networking as well as to inter-organizational knowledge sharing in the field of CSR.

Corporate accounting in Australia

"The third edition of Corporate Accounting in Australia presents a comprehensive and contemporary explanation of Australian corporate accounting. Previous editions of the book, published in 1998 and 2001, established the book's reputation for excellence, with its user-friendly approach, keenly appreciated by both students and lecturers. This edition retains the accessible writing style and logical chapter format and sequence of its forerunners, and has been revised to reflect current developments, particularly with regards to the international harmonisation of accounting standards."

Corporate governance, board responsibilities and financial performance : the National Bank of Australia

This paper examines board responsibilities and accountability by management and Board of Directors in relation to the National Australia Bank's (NABs) performance. The NAB, an international financial service provider within the top thirty most profitable banks in the world, is compared with the Australian major banks. The evidence suggests that NABs poor performance was consistent with a lack of accountability, poor corporate governance and board dysfunction associated with fraudulent currency trading and the subsequent AUD360 million foreign currency losses. The NAB's performance is investigated by utilising accounting-based measures of profitability and cost efficiency as proxies for performance. Following the foreign currency trading losses in 2004 the NAB under-performed the other major Australian banks in terms of profits, cost to income ratio and growth in assets. In terms of profitability and cost efficiency NAB had the lowest ROE and ROA with a 19.7% fall in net profit and the highest cost to income ratio of 5 7.4% of any of the five largest banks. This case study provides an Australian example of poor corporate governance and suggests that financial institutions and regulators can learn from the NAB's experience. Failure to have top-down accountability can have significant impact on over-all performance, profitability and reputation. In particular, it suggests that management and Boards need to review their risk management procedures and regulators need to be more pro-active in their prudential oversight of financial institutions.

Perceptions of investors and stockbrokers on corporate social responsibility : a stakeholder perspective from India

This paper aims to understand the perceptions of shareholders and brokers regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by Indian companies. The research, presented in this paper, employs stakeholder theory to examine the perceptions of investors and sharebrokers on CSR in the context of a fast growing country, India. The data has been collected by using semistructured survey instrument. The findings of the study highlight that the respondents in both categories of stakeholder groups agree that CSR-oriented companies enjoy higher levels of investor confidence, which is reflected in higher stock prices, and leads to enhanced reputation and corporate goodwill. The research demonstrates that Indian companies are in fact implementing CSR initiatives and that stakeholders have a considerable interest in such initiatives. Both the groups expect higher CSR disclosures from large corporations and multinational companies operating in India. Educational initiatives have received maximum attention from the both the groups of stakeholders followed by the environmental issues. Investors are least aware of healthcare and rural development initiatives possibly because of the relatively low penetration of Indian financial markets into the rural areas. This study demonstrates that the stakeholder theory is a useful tool for collecting and evaluating CSR data and explains that the stakeholder perception of CSR performance determines corporate initiatives to a certain level. The findings would help in building consensus on strengthening the implementation and establishing the future CSR framework in emerging economies and other parts of the world. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comparison and analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of the top five companies ranked on the 2013 CSR RepTrak

In the 1970s, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was discussed by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman in his article “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” (Friedman, 1970). His view on CSR was contemptuous as he referred to it as “hypocritical window-dressing” a reflection of the view of Corporate America on CSR back then. For a long time short-term maximization of shareholder value was the only maxim for top management across industries and companies. Over the last decade, CSR has become a more important and relevant factor of a company’s reputation, shifting the discussion from whether CSR is necessary to how best CSR commitments should be done (Smith, 2003). Inevitably, companies do have an environmental, social and economic impact, thereby imposing social costs on current and future generations. In 2013, 50 of the world biggest companies have been responsible for 73 percent of the total carbon dioxide (CO2) emission (Global 500 Climate Change Report 2013). Post et al. (2002) refer to these social costs as a company’s need to retain its “license to operate”. In the late 1990s, CSR reporting was nearly unknown, which drastically changed during the last decade. Allen White, co-founder of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), said that CSR reporting”… has evolved from the extraordinary to the exceptional to the expected” (Confino, 2013). In confirmation of this, virtually all of the world’s largest 250 companies report on CSR (93%) and reporting by now appears to be business standard (KPMG, 2013). CSR reports are a medium for transparency which may lead to an improved company reputation (Noked, 2013; Thorne et al, 2008; Wilburn and Wilburn, 2013). In addition, it may be used as part of an ongoing shareholder relations campaign, which may prevent shareholders from submitting Environmental and Social (E&S)1 proposals (Noked, 2013), based on an Ernst & Young report 1 The top five E&S proposal topic areas in 2013 were: 1. Political spending/ lobbying; 2. Environmental sustainability; 3. Corporate diversity/ EEO; 4.Labor/ human rights and 5. Animal testing/ animal welfare. Three groups of environmental sustainability proposal topics of sub-category number two (environmental sustainability) 6 2013, representing the largest category of shareholder proposals submitted. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) even goes as far as to claim that CSR reports are “…becoming critical to a company’s credibility, transparency and endurance.” (PwC, 2013).

Corporate Social Media: How Two-Way Disclosure Channels Influence Investors

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Corporate social responsibility and organizational commitment:the moderating role of individuals’ attitudes to CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) becomes ever more important for organizations. In times of corporate scandals and more governmental regulation on the one hand and a foreseeable shortage of highly qualified employees on the other, CSR is both a means to serve the wider society and to attract employees with a positive reputation and image. The aim of the present study was to determine whether CSR activities as perceived by employees indeed lead to more employee affective commitment and whether this would be moderated by employee differences in importance of CSR. The study differentiated two forms of CSR, namely corporate social responsibility directed towards individual employees (CSR-E) and directed towards the wider society (CSR-S). We surveyed 89 employees and found evidence for the predicted moderation and for both forms of CSR such that CSR-E and CSR-S and affective commitment were only positively related for those employees who evaluated CSR as important. Implications for recruitment and future research are discussed.

Secondary stakeholders as agents of influence: Three essays on political risk, reputation, and multinational performance

Organizational researchers have recently taken an interest in the ways in which social movements, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other secondary stakeholders attempt to influence corporate behavior. Scholars, however, have yet to carefully probe the link between secondary stakeholder legal action and target firm stock market performance. This is puzzling given the sharp rise in NGO-initiated civil lawsuits against corporations in recent years for alleged overseas human rights abuses and environmental misconduct. Furthermore, few studies have considered how such lawsuits impact a target firm’s intangible assets, namely its image and reputation. Structured in the form of three essays, this dissertation examined the antecedents and consequences of secondary stakeholder legal activism in both conceptual and empirical settings. ^ Essay One argued that conventional approaches to understanding political risk fail to account for the reputational risks to multinational enterprises (MNEs) posed by transnational networks of human rights NGOs employing litigation-based strategies. It offered a new framework for understanding this emerging challenge to multinational corporate activity. Essay Two empirically tested the relationship between the filing of human rights-related civil lawsuits and corporate stock market performance using an event study methodology and regression analysis. The statistical analysis performed showed that target firms experience a significant decline in share price upon filing and that both industry and nature of the lawsuit are significantly and negatively related to shareholder wealth. Essay Three drew upon social movement and social identity theories to develop and test a set of hypotheses on how secondary stakeholder groups select their targets for human rights-related civil lawsuits. The results of a logistic regression model offered support for the proposition that MNE targets are chosen based on both interest and identity factors. The results of these essays suggest that legal action initiated by secondary stakeholder groups is a new and salient threat to multinational business and that firms doing business in countries with weak political institutions should factor this into corporate planning and take steps to mitigate their exposure to such risks.^

Corporate Social Responsibility no sector bancário

Vivemos num mundo globalizado onde as exigências são diversas e constantemente presentes. É impossível analisar a área social, económica ou ambiental de forma isolada. A visão que relaciona o mundo empresarial com a sociedade e que lhe reconhece obrigações e responsabilidades para com a mesma não é nova e tem vindo a obter uma importância e visibilidade crescentes. O conceito corporate social responsibility (CSR) tem sido objecto de grande enfoque, sobretudo desde os anos cinquenta do século passado. Todavia, este conceito não tem permanecido inalterado com o passar do tempo. Desde a referida década até à actualidade verifica-se um desenvolvimento notório da definição de CSR, das suas vertentes, do binómio mundo empresarial e social e de alguns conceitos conexos como sejam corporate citizenship, business ethics e sustainability. Actualmente a maioria da doutrina que versa sobre o tema aceita, de forma pacífica, que o mundo empresarial não se pode fechar sobre si próprio pretendendo alcançar ganhos e visibilidade demitindo-se da responsabilidade para com a sociedade onde se encontra inserido. Compreende-se que a interligação entre a esfera económica, social e ambiental permite às empresas diversos benefícios, nomeadamente a viabilização de projectos a longo prazo, prestígio, notoriedade e a vantagem competitiva face às suas concorrentes. O objectivo do presente trabalho é demonstrar a evolução do conceito de CSR, nas suas várias vertentes, o impacto e os benefícios decorrentes das actuações empresarias compatíveis com este conceito e verificar, no que ao sector bancário respeita, se os clientes destas instituições conhecem os projectos sociais, pelas mesmas desenvolvidos e se a realização destes projectos possuem impacto na relação cliente/banco.