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Close the Gap: Corporate Environmental Responsibility and the New Challenges for Companies in the Green Transition Era

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 (13 September 2023) | Viewed by 9247

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Economics, Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 81043 Capua, Italy
Interests: corporate social responsibility; environmental responsibility; stakeholder engagement; socially responsible investing; socially responsible banking

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Guest Editor
Department of Economic and Legal Studies, Pegaso University, Piazza Trieste e Trento, 48, 80132 Naples, Italy
Interests: corporate social responsibility; corporate governance; environmental responsibility; stakeholder engagement

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Guest Editor
Department of Economics, Università degli Studi della Campania, Luigi Vanvitelli, 81043 Capua, Italy
Interests: corporate social responsibility; social and environmental responsibility; crowdfunding; socially responsible investing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites contributions investigating the drivers and effects of Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) within businesses. The global pandemic has renewed the relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility as a leading driver for the achievement of sustainable economies. Concurrently, environmental emergencies have attracted the attention of policymakers and academics. The extreme, negative environmental events that have recently occurred in several parts of the world are clearly signalling that the environmental issue has quickly transformed into a source of systemic risk (UN & PWC, 2021). According to the UN 2021 report, the pandemic and climate crises represent a significant threat to achieving the SDGs by 2030.

In this scenario, the environmental issues posed by climate change increasingly impact business practices and strategies. Indeed, due to the pressure exerted by global societies, companies are evaluated more than ever in terms of financial markets based on their environmental performance. Despite our knowledge on strategic drivers and the effects of CER increasing in the last few years, as we proceed toward green transition, new challenges arise for business. Specifically, in line with the shift from a shareholders to a stakeholders perspective, companies are expected to contribute to environmental protection with a set of practices aimed to reduce emission and natural resource depletion, and to promote green product innovation. Hence, the future requires organizations to intensify green efforts in order to reduce their carbon footprint in society.

This Special Issue aims to publish original research, both theoretical and empirical, contributing to our understanding of the risks, challenges, impacts and benefits of CER engagement by businesses. We invite researchers and professionals from universities, enterprises, and governmental units to share new ideas, trends, and experiences relative to the CER engagement. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • CER as a competitive strategy. The call welcomes contributions investigating issues such as strategic approaches to CER; eco-product innovation; CER governance modes: in house, collaboration, outsourcing/donation; CER supply chain; monitoring tools of CER performance.
  • The link between Corporate Governance (CG) and CER. The call solicits contributions dealing with the impact of CG on CER engagement. Specific topics may include the link between CG and the CER on SMEs, to investigate whether and to what extent the ownership characteristics can shape CER engagement. Moreover, further topics may be related to the link between CG and CER engagement when institutional investors and governmental participation are present.
  • Socially Responsible Human Resources Management (SRHRM). Coherently with the concept of SRHRM, this call urges for deeper analysis related to HR motivation, green intellectual capital, organizational culture and productivity. Moreover, other topics might intercept the link between CER and the selection and retention of best HR.
  • Financing CER. The call invites research dealing with financing models of corporate environmental investments, in addition to the link between CER and the cost of debt (banks and bond markets), the cost of equity and the use of novel ways to collect financial resources (e.g., crowdfunding, green bond).
  • CER and Company value. The call invites contributions dealing with the effect of CER engagement on busines market value and operative performance, including the potential role of CER in the mitigation of effects from extraordinary negative events (e.g., COVID-19) and the impact of CER controversies.
  • Contextual factors affecting CER engagement. Are welcome contributions investigating the role of national and supranational plans (e.g., Next Generation EU; Recovery and Resilience Facility EU) on the CER engagement, as well as macro-level CER drivers such as infrastructure and training and development.

Prof. Dr. Francesco Gangi
Prof. Dr. Eugenio D’Angelo
Dr. Lucia Michela Daniele
Guest Editors

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 environmental engagement
  • sustainability
  • sustainable development goals
  • green transition

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 2347 KiB  
Article
Construction of Frugal Innovation Path in the Context of Digital Transformation: A Study Based on NCA and QCA
by Xiaoyu Qu, Xutian Qin and Xiaopeng Wang
Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2158; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032158 - 23 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3090
Abstract
With the continuous advancement of digital globalization, enterprises need to seek development opportunities in the context of diversification and resource shortage. Frugal innovation provides a new way for enterprises to realize social value and create a win-win situation. Based on 113 enterprises’ survey [...] Read more.
With the continuous advancement of digital globalization, enterprises need to seek development opportunities in the context of diversification and resource shortage. Frugal innovation provides a new way for enterprises to realize social value and create a win-win situation. Based on 113 enterprises’ survey data, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) are used to explore the multiple concurrency factors and causality mechanisms of digital transformation, organizational resilience, learning from failure and design thinking for frugal innovation. It is found that: (1) Digital transformation, organizational resilience, internal learning from failure, external learning from failure and design thinking cannot effectively stimulate frugal innovation alone, and linkage matching of multiple antecedents is needed to promote frugal innovation. (2) There are three paths to producing high frugal innovation, namely, external learning from failure and design thinking driving under digital transformation learning from failure driving under design thinking guidance, organizational resilience driving under digital transformation. (3) There are two paths to produce non-high frugal innovation, which are asymmetrical with high frugal innovation path. Our results are helpful for the study of digital transformation and frugal innovation at the enterprise level. In addition, our research results also provide practical solutions and a theoretical basis for enterprises to carry out frugal innovation activities under the new economic normal. Full article
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33 pages, 1596 KiB  
Article
It’s Just Not Sexy: How Managerial Assumptions Adversely Affect Corporate Sustainability Engagement and Sustainable Technology Adoption
by Helge Alsdorf
Sustainability 2022, 14(22), 15222; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142215222 - 16 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1816
Abstract
The negative effects of the global climate disruption are becoming increasingly severe, and they are putting pressure on companies to behave in a more environmentally friendly manner. Although some have started to (ecologically) innovate and acquire sustainable resources and capabilities, some seem to [...] Read more.
The negative effects of the global climate disruption are becoming increasingly severe, and they are putting pressure on companies to behave in a more environmentally friendly manner. Although some have started to (ecologically) innovate and acquire sustainable resources and capabilities, some seem to be only reluctantly adopting sustainability. In this paper, we report on two consecutive qualitative studies in which we investigated this divergence. In the first—which involved 25 interviewed sustainability managers from a diverse set of German companies—we found that: (i) sustainability was perceived as unattractive and not innovative; (ii) the benefits of sustainable technologies only seemed to be beneficial in the long term, and in non-traditional dimensions; (iii) Green IT/IS usage often only focuses on end-of-the-pipe measures. In the second study, we discussed these findings with four representatives from two very large German companies, and we concluded that—to become sustainable and make meaningful use of sustainable (IT/IS) technologies—they require external incentives from core interest groups, such as legislators and investors. This study contributes to the current body of knowledge regarding corporate environmental responsibility, and it may be of assistance to practitioners, as it highlights the drivers and potential hindrances of sustainable innovation adoption. Full article
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17 pages, 462 KiB  
Article
The Impact of Green Innovation on Enterprise Performance: The Regulatory Role of Government Grants
by Hanyuan Liang, Guangliang Li, Weikun Zhang and Zhe Chen
Sustainability 2022, 14(20), 13550; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013550 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3227
Abstract
Green innovation has become an essential pathway to quality manufacturing development. This paper takes green innovation as a starting point to explore the impact of green innovation on enterprise performance and the regulatory effect of government grants, including fiscal subsidies and preferential taxation. [...] Read more.
Green innovation has become an essential pathway to quality manufacturing development. This paper takes green innovation as a starting point to explore the impact of green innovation on enterprise performance and the regulatory effect of government grants, including fiscal subsidies and preferential taxation. An empirical study based on panel data of manufacturing firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2011 to 2019 shows that green innovation contributes to improved enterprise performance. This paper studies the moderating impacts of financial subsidies and tax incentives using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Model with consideration for the two-way fixed effects. The model adopts Tobin’s Q value as the explained variable and focuses on analyzing the influence mechanism of green innovation, financial subsidies, and tax incentives. Both fiscal subsidies and preferential taxation can strengthen the relationship between green innovation and enterprise performance, with the incentive effect of preferential tax being more pronounced when the two policies are pursued in parallel. In general, the regulatory impact of preferential taxation is more pronounced in high-tech manufacturing, while that of fiscal subsidies is in traditional manufacturing. Therefore, this study aims to provide reference suggestions for enterprises and governments to focus on green innovation and rationalize the use of government grants to improve enterprise performance. Full article
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