Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Corporate Sustainability Has Failed: Digitizing Regeneration May Still Save Us, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The author proposes a focus on regeneration as a way for small carbon footprint firms (e.g., consulting, financial services firms) to make a positive sustainability impact. He highlights that service industry firms can proactively contribute to the regeneration of common pool resources, such as forests and lakes, which often become neglected or overused. What makes regeneration different compared to more traditional donations to a conservation nonprofit is the use of digital technology that enables an organization to lay claim to the eco­system benefits it generates through its support. The digitization of benefits claims provides a transparent accounting system for environmental …

B Corps’ Social Media Communications During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Through The Lens Of The Triple Bottom Line, Manveer Mann, Sang-Eun Byun, Whitney Ginder

Department of Marketing Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The COVID-19 pandemic and rising demand for transparency has heightened the importance of sustainability communications on social media to generate deeper stakeholder engagement. Although B Corporations (B Corps), businesses committed to the triple bottom line (TBL), could serve as a catalyst for sustainable development, little is known about how they communicate on social media during a crisis. Therefore, we examined social media communications of B Corps to (1) identify salient topics and themes, (2) analyze how these themes align with the TBL, and (3) evaluate social media performance against industry benchmarks. We focused on the apparel, footwear, and accessories (AFA) …

Regeneration First, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Ryan Knowles Merrill

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

30 years of "corporate sustainability" has left our earth in a dire state. Biodiversity loss, planetary fever, floods, wildfires, droughts, melting ice caps, dying corals… the list goes on. We need a new approach. I’m sure you heard about a carbon footprint. It is the sum of all the actions we take that have a negative impact on the planet. We consume electricity, we drive to work, we fly to our holiday destination, we waste food and plastic and so on. All these actions create a negative impact that can be expressed in CO2 equivalent. The more CO2 ends up …

Uri And Its Students: A Contract For The Provision Of A Safe Environment, Danielle Joan Beatrice

Senior Honors Projects

DANIELLE BEATRICE (English; Philosophy; Business) URI and Its Students: A Contract for the Provision of a Safe Environment

Sponsor: Judith Swift (Communication Studies, Coastal Institute)

When students begin to attend college, they expect to be consumed with busy schedules, heavy workloads, and an exciting social life. Students do not anticipate being in dangerous situations. However, this does not mean that such situations do not occur. Therefore, it is essential to teach students to be active participants in educating themselves and their peers regarding prevention and response to emergency situations. My Honors Project aims to increase the awareness of safety-related issues …

Good Deeds Done In Silence: Stakeholder Management And Quiet Giving By Chinese Firms, Heli Wang, Ming Jia, Zhe Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose a new mechanism explaining why companies may remain silent about their positive corporate behaviors, such as socially responsible activities. We examine such strategic silence in the context of corporate philanthropy. Building on and extending the literature on legitimacy and stakeholder management, we argue that when a firm mistreats primary stakeholders, it is more likely to keep quiet about its philanthropic acts to avoid backlash from stakeholders. We also propose that long-term orientation among stakeholders mitigates the positive relationship between mistreating primary stakeholders and quiet giving, which allows stakeholders to appreciate the long-term value of corporate philanthropy. Data from …

The “Value” Of A Public Benefit Corporation, Jill E. Fisch, Steven Davidoff Solomon

All Faculty Scholarship

We examine the “value” a PBC form provides for publicly-traded corporations. We analyze the structure of the PBC form and find that other than requiring a designated social purpose it does not differ significantly in siting control and direction with shareholders. We also examine the purpose statements in the charters of the most economically significant PBCs. We find that, independent of structural limitations on accountability, these purpose statements are, in most cases, too vague and aspirational to be legally significant, or even to serve as a reliable checks on PBC behavior. We theorize, and provide evidence, that without a legal …

A Capability-Based View Of Boards: A New Conceptual Framework For Board Governance, Patricia Klarner, Toru Yoshikawa, Michael Hiit

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A key role of board directors is to govern corporate strategy. Whereas prior research has provided insights into board roles and activities regarding board governance, the underlying capabilities required to govern effectively remain understudied. This article explores and explicates a capability-based view of board actions in which the specific capabilities that enable boards to govern strategic activities are identified. We specifically examine the conceptual foundations and different types of board capabilities, drawing on illustrative cases as well as information from interviews with board directors in the United States, Asia, and Europe. We then discuss several future research directions that can …

Stewardship 2021: The Centrality Of Institutional Investor Regulation To Restoring A Fair And Sustainable American Economy, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, which formed the basis for the luncheon keynote speech at the Rethinking Stewardship online conference presented by the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School and ECGI, the European Corporate Governance Institute, the essential, but not sufficient, role of regulation to promote more effective stewardship by institutional investors is discussed. To frame specific policy recommendations that align the responsibilities of institutional investors with the best interests of their human investors in sustainable wealth creation, environmental responsibility, the respectful treatment of stakeholders, and, in particular, the fair pay and treatment of …

Stakeholder Preservation Or Appropriation? The Influence Of Target Csr On Market Reactions To Acquisition Announcements, Li Tong, Heli Wang, Jun Xia

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines how target corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the economic gains for acquirers, as reflected in market reaction to acquisition announcement, from two distinct perspectives: stakeholder preservation versus stakeholder appropriation. The stakeholder preservation perspective suggests that positive market reaction to an acquisition stems from potential new value creation by honoring implicit contracts and maintaining good relationships with target stakeholders. By contrast, the stakeholder appropriation perspective posits that positive market reaction is primarily derived through wealth transfer to acquirers by defaulting on implicit contracts with target stakeholders. Using a dataset of acquisitions in the US, we find that target …

Corona Crisis And Inequality: Why Management Research Needs A Societal Turn, Hari Bapuji, Charmi Patel, Gokhan Ertug, David G. Allen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As the world struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the stark inequalities in our societies have been laid bare, and the interplay between organizations and societies has also become evident yet again. This crisis underscores the need for management scholars to take a societal turn and examine how organizational practices interact with societal economic inequality. To illustrate this approach, we discuss organizational practices – corporate social responsibility, work design, recruitment and selection, and compensation management – that can contribute to the normalization, reinforcement, and reduction of economic inequalities in society. We conclude by calling on scholars of inequality, as …

Navigating Corporate Social Responsibility, Benjamin Bates

Marriott Student Review

In this article, Ben Bates provides future business leaders with an introduction to the tools necessary to navigate difficult issues surrounding corporate social responsibility. HIs article outlines the two main theories on corporate social responsibility and discusses how business leaders can decide which theory to apply in a given situation.

Why We Need A Theory Of Stakeholder Governance - And Why This Is A Hard Problem, John Amis, Jay Barney, Joseph T. Mahoney, Heli Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate governance is an important topic for both scholars and practicing managers. To date, most work on this subject has focused on how to resolve potential conflicts of interest between a firm’s senior managers and its shareholders in how firms create and distribute economic value. Work on using governance to resolve possible conflicts between senior managers and shareholders has largely developed separately from governance questions focused on the broader relationships between a firm and its multiple stakeholders.This is ironic since some of the earliest work on agency theory conceptualized a firm as “a nexus for a set of contracting relationships …

Foreign Subsidiary Csr As A Buffer Against Parent Firm Reputation Risk, Nan Zhou, Heli Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the influence of parent firm reputation risk on the level of corporate social responsibility activities of foreign subsidiaries. We first argue that a strong reputation risk spillover occurs from parent firms to their foreign subsidiaries due to the high visibility of multinationals, the control of parent firms over their subsidiaries, and the liability of foreignness associated with foreign firms in host countries. Then, we argue that subsidiaries may resort to CSR in their host country to reduce the spillover effect. Thus, we hypothesize a positive relationship between parent firm reputation risk and foreign subsidiary CSR activities. Moreover, …

Family Ownership And Corporate Environmental Responsibility: The Contingent Effect Of Venture Capital And Institutional Environment, Zhu Zhu, Feifei Lu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As scholars and policy makers pay more attention to the environmental impact of economic activities, more focus has been placed on the corporate environmental responsibility (CER) of family firms, which accounts for the majority of businesses in both developed and developing countries. Using a sample of 4714 private enterprises across 23 provinces in China, the current study examines the effect of family ownership on CER investment, as well as the moderating effects of venture capital investment and local institutional development. Results show that concentrated family ownership leads to lower CER spending, however, when venture capital investment comes from developed markets, …

Covid-19 And Japanese Shareholder Activism: Brief Respite For Japan's Self-Healing Concrete, Toru Yoshikawa, Gavin Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Extrapolating from modern international understanding of corporate Japan’s distinct form of managerial capitalism, we elaborate on the growing momentum of shareholder activism in Japan leading up to the COVID-19 health crisis, so as to inform the subsequent discussion on the relevant primary considerations that belie the future direction of shareholder activism in Japan post-COVID-19. On an initial logical extrapolation, it appears probable that COVID-19 could mark the peak of Japanese activism. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the success of Japan’s managerial capitalism have also declined, which poses a question on to which direction Japanese corporate governance may be …

Political Ideology Of The Board And Ceo Dismissal Following Financial Misconduct, Uisung Park, Warren Boeker, David Gomulya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Why do some boards refuse to take serious action against CEOs who have committed financial misconduct? Past work has directed attention to the antecedents of misconduct while largely overlooking this question. The relatively few studies to examine it have typically revolved around the capacity of boards to take action, or their relationships to their CEOs. This study instead examines how the beliefs and values held by board members can influence their actions following financial misconduct. Focusing on political ideology, we argue and find that politically conservative boards are more likely to respond by dismissing the CEO than are liberal boards. …

Management-Based Regulation, Cary Coglianese, Shana M. Starobin

All Faculty Scholarship

Environmental regulators have embraced management-based regulation as a flexible instrument for addressing a range of important problems often poorly addressed by other types of regulations. Under management-based regulation, regulated firms must engage in management-related activities oriented toward addressing targeted problems—such as planning and analysis to mitigate risk and the implementation of internal management systems geared towards continuous improvement. In contrast with more restrictive forms of regulation which can impose one-size-fits-all solutions, management-based regulation offers firms greater operational choice about how to solve regulatory problems, leveraging firms’ internal informational advantage to innovate and search for alternative measures to achieve the intended …

Impact Of Life-Cycle Costs Threshold Criteria In The Alternate Design Pavement Bidding Practices Of Public Transportation Agencies, Ilker Karaca, Douglas Gransberg, Ashley F. Buss

Ilker Karaca

This paper proposes a model that enables Department of Transportation (DOT) policy makers to quantify the expected volume of projects that will qualify for letting in their alternate design/alternate bid (ADAB) pavement bidding programs. Current guidance on alternate bidding recommends a fixed percentage as the life cycle cost (LCC) threshold criterion to determine whether pavement selection decisions should be made through ADAB bidding practices. The paper’s analysis shows that the fixed LCC threshold percentage approach may have considerable shortcomings. Instead, a dynamic threshold value is proposed that can subsequently be calibrated by agencies, based on the desired size of their …

How Do Board Ties Affect The Adoption Of New Practices? The Effects Of Managerial Interest And Hierarchical Power, Toru Yoshikawa, Jung Wook Shim, Chang Hyun Kim, Anja Tuschke

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Question/Issues: Most extant literature implicitly equates obtaining information through board interlocks to acting on the information. We investigate triggers that help to translate the information into action. In addition to exposure to the information by board interlocks, we suggest that the self-interest of the individuals who create these ties and hierarchical power of interlinked firms determines the likelihood of taking actions of adopting new practices. Research Findings/Insights: Using the action of adopting two distinctive governance practices, stock option pays or board reform, we find that sent ties and received ties affect the adoption decisions differently. Whereas sent ties reflect …

A Meticulous Food Safety Plan Today Avoids Handcuffs Tomorrow, Kim Bousquet

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In August 2010, thousands of people across the United States were poisoned by eating eggs unknowingly tainted with Salmonella enteritidis bacteria. Following a lengthy investigation, the owners of the facility where the outbreak began were sentenced to three months in prison. This is not a one-off case; poor food safety practices are responsible for several outbreaks and often end in incarceration. Filthy hen houses, diseased fruit storage, and negligent food processing may be the last thing we want to imagine, but these practices have much to teach today's food producers. This article first examines how poor food production practices can …

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla, John J. Stobbe Jr.

Honors Theses

This paper examines in depth one of the most innovative companies in recent years: Tesla. Redefining what it means to be an electric car, Tesla has produced impressive cars year after year. However, they’ve run into tremendous production issues and have still yet to make any significant profits. This strategic audit analyzes Tesla’s current place in the market and considers many perspectives to come to a proposed recommendation. This recommendation is to secure its market share and resolve production issues. This could be accomplished through sticking to only a few Tesla car models, then iterating year after year, and then …

Dare To Be Different? Conformity Versus Differentiation In Corporate Social Activities Of Chinese Firms And Market Responses, Yanlong Zhang, Heli Wang, Xiaoyu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Building on the literature on optimal distinctiveness, this study explores the effects of conformity and differentiation in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on the evaluations by security analysts and the responses of the financial market in general. We develop the argument that while conformity in CSR scope enhances analyst coverage, differentiation in CSR emphasis leads to more-favorable analyst recommendations and higher market value. This suggests that firms may be able to simultaneously conform in CSR scope and differentiate in CSR emphasis to achieve optimal distinctiveness. To further enhance our understanding of the variation in the relationship between conformity/differentiation and the …

Public Governance, Corporate Governance, And Firm Innovation: An Examination Of State-Owned Enterprises, Nan Jia, Kenneth G. Huang, Cyndi Man Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how corporate and public governance shape an important type moral hazard in innovation which is that agents pursuing the quantity of innovation at the expense of the novelty. We theorize that both better corporate governance tools that regulate agents (including better alignment of agents’ private incentives and stronger monitoring), and higher-quality public governance that regulates the principals of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reduce this moral hazard. Furthermore, we argue that higher-quality political governance enhances the functioning of better corporate governance tools in further reducing this moral hazard in innovation, thus creating interdependence. We test our theory in the context …

Abuses And Penalties Of A Corporate Tax Inversion, James G.S. Yang, Leonard J. Lauricella Professor, Frank J. Aquilino

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

There is a serious problem in international taxation today. Many United States (U.S.) multinational corporations have moved abroad to take advantage of a lower tax rate in a foreign country. As a consequence, the tax base in the U.S. has been seriously eroded. This practice is known as “corporate tax inversion”. This paper discusses the abuses and penalties of this phenomenon. It is rooted in some deficiencies in the U.S. tax law. This paper points out that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. It imposes tax on worldwide income. It permits deferral of tax on …

Island Invasion: The Silent Crisis In Hawaii, Sophia Janssen

Pomona Senior Theses

Keeping out invasive species may, upon first review, seem like a trivial environmental cry from ecologists and deep environmentalists; a belated wish to return to an undeveloped world where nature was pristine. However invasive species create problems that impact all of us and can have far more severe consequences than changing a stunning landscape. These problems are heightened in islands like Hawaii, where the fragile ecosystems have developed over centuries of evolution and adaptation. The introduction of a disease-carrying mosquito can put the people of Hawaii at risk to many vector-born illnesses and create an epidemic, taking human life. The …

Apertura Comercial De Colombia En La Alianza Del Pacífico: Un Análisis Con Base En Los Niveles De Producción Extractiva Y De Convergencia Tecnológica En El Periodo 1990-2016, Laura Nayely Rojas Beltrán, Diego Leonardo López Gómez

Economía

La dependencia económica y comercial hacia los recursos naturales por parte de los países en desarrollo ha estado marcada históricamente por hitos del comercio internacional que han terminado por profundizar dicha dependencia al entorpecer el desarrollo y crecimiento de la economía en caminada en otros sectores. En este sentido, el objetivo de esta investigación es analizar la apertura comercial de la Alianza del Pacífico, especialmente de Colombia, para el periodo 1990-2016, con base en la descripción de la dependencia hacia la industria extractiva y la influencia de la convergencia tecnológica en sus economías, discutiendo las razones por las cuales estos …

Pobreza Multidimensional En El Pacífico Colombiano 2010 - 2016, Lizeth Dayana Manzano Murillo, Laura Antonia Maturana Cifuentes

Economía

La pobreza es un fenómeno presente en muchos países de mundo, y un problema prioritario en las políticas de desarrollo económico y social, por lo que se hace pertinente estudiarla de manera rigurosa, analizando sus determinantes, y sus vínculos con los diferentes factores socioeconómicos de la población. Como bien se sabe, el Pacífico Colombiano es la región más pobre del país; cuenta con el menor ingreso per cápita, y elevadas tasas de pobreza monetaria y multidimensional. El objetivo de esta monografía de grado es analizar la pobreza en el Pacífico Colombiano, considerando la aproximación multidimensional, implementando de manera detallada la …

Efectos De La Crisis De Hidrocarburos En Las Migraciones Desde Los Países De La Can Entre 2003 – 2015, María Alejandra Zafra Murcia, Sergio Andrés Rojas Sarmiento

Negocios y Relaciones Internacionales

Los países de la Comunidad Andina de Naciones se caracterizan por la alta producción de hidrocarburos dentro de su territorio. A raíz de las crisis económicas se presentan consecuencias en ámbitos tanto laborales como sociales, por lo que la presente investigación buscó analizar cuáles fueron los efectos de la crisis de hidrocarburos sobre las migraciones en los países de la CAN. Por lo tanto, se realizó una caracterización de la crisis de hidrocarburos que afectó a los países de la CAN, se describió el proceso migratorio entre el año 2003 y el 2015 en los países de la CAN y, …

Reflective Practice Series: Selected Instructional Models Using Synchronous Video Conferencing Software, Martin W. Sivula

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

With the vast array of resources available to instructors, one would think that instruction and teaching would yield success for all learners. Now, well into the 21^st century has much changed in the classroom? Certainly, movable desks and chairs, advanced audio and visual equipment, and a plethora of all types of technologies which might be able to enhance training and education. Over the last several decades research on individualized instruction, cognitive science, educational psychology, and multimedia instruction (to name a few) have permeated the literature on instruction. With all the research and the vast array of studies on improving …

How Does Interpersonal Justice Affect Outside Directors’ Governance Behavior? A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Esther B. Del Brio, Rosa M. Hernandez-Maestro, Toru Yoshikawa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business

We examine the impact of interpersonal justice among outside directors on the board and between a director and the CEO regarding the director’s monitoring and resource provision behaviors in different cultural contexts. We argue that directors from individualistic countries are more influenced by CEO interpersonal justice while directors from collectivistic countries are more affected by the board interpersonal justice. Our main effect results indicate that interpersonal justice with board members is positively related to both monitoring and resource provision by a director, while CEO interpersonal justice is related only to resource provision. Our results also show different effects on the …