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Unpacking Stakeholders’ Complex Responses to Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 1752

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Sogang Business School, Sogang University, Seoul 04107, Korea
Interests: corporate social responsibility; corporate sustainability; ESG; business ethics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability (CST) have been increasingly recognized as a critical feature that differentiates firms from competitors in the market (Eccles et al., 2014; Porter & Kramer, 2006). By developing proper strategies and implementing specific practices for CSR and CST, firms are expected to gain legitimacy (Zheng et al., 2015) and favorable responses from various stakeholders (Barnett, 2007). Nonetheless, anecdotal and scholarly evidence indicate that stakeholders do not always show the same attitudes and responses to such actions. For instance, while well-branded eco-friendly products enjoy premium from consumers (e.g., Patagonia), they often elicit negative responses from consumers (e.g., H&M). Corporate disclosures for CSR and CST are not always hailed by stockholders (Lu et al., 2021). Employees tend to be proud of their organization’s actions for CSR and CST, but often express cynicism (Serrano Archimi et al., 2018). Communities normally welcome CSR and CST, but often showcase antagonistic behaviors against them (McLennan & Banks, 2018). These cases imply that scholars need to delve deeper into the inquiry when stakeholders are favorable to CSR and CST and when they are not. This Special Issue aims to deviate from a naïvely positive approach, and calls for more critical research works focusing on underexplored “boundary conditions” where/when/how/why stakeholders become more or less favourable to CSR and CST. This Special Issue seeks both conceptual and empirical works, including interdisciplinary and international studies, that may address topics including, but not limited to, the following:  

  • Top managers’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST;
  • Consumers’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST;
  • Investors’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST;
  • Employees’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST;
  • Suppliers’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST;
  • Communities’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST;
  • Host countries’ complex reactions to CSR and/or CST.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Young K. Chang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • corporate social responsibility
  • corporate sustainability
  • ESG
  • corporate philanthropy
  • corporate citizenship
  • stakeholders
  • stakeholder management
  • stakeholder response
  • boundary condition

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 754 KiB  
Article
You Say Tough, I Say Hope: An Effect of CEO Regulatory Focus on Corporate Social Performance under Challenging Market Conditions
by Seunghye Lee and Rami Jung
Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 5555; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065555 - 22 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1369
Abstract
This study explores the effect of CEO regulatory focus (i.e., promotion vs. prevention) on corporate social performance (CSP). Given that corporate social activities are an outcome-uncertain risky investment, we propose that CEOs with promotion focus (vs. prevention focus) would actively seek CSP, since [...] Read more.
This study explores the effect of CEO regulatory focus (i.e., promotion vs. prevention) on corporate social performance (CSP). Given that corporate social activities are an outcome-uncertain risky investment, we propose that CEOs with promotion focus (vs. prevention focus) would actively seek CSP, since promotion focus involves risk-taking propensity and prevention focus involves risk-avoiding behavior. We further propose that such a tendency should be more pronounced, especially when market conditions are uncertain. Using a panel sample of U.S. listed firms and conducting content analysis of CEO letters in annual reports, we found that only promotion-focused CEOs tend to promote CSP, and such a tendency is more salient in tough market conditions where firms face a lower level of munificence and a higher level of stakeholder expectation in the markets. We conclude that promotion-focused CEOs tend to seek hope even when situations are hopeless. Full article
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