Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Doing Good: Navigating The Csr Maze In India – Review Of Book By Meena Raghunathan, Ruchi Tewari, Aatman Shukla

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Comparing The Environmental And Social Factors Of Uk And Us Firms: A Case For Stringent Disclosure Regulation, Jasmine Pybas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Variation in “good” corporate behavior can be observed across countries. Corporate social re- sponsibility (CSR) can be measured with a quantifiable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) score, which was developed in part from investor demand. ESG scores are popular among investors to make sound, responsible investment decisions and corporations to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable business practices. In a comparison of environmental and social fac- tors of US and UK firms among three industries, the British outperform their American counter- parts. The degree of disclosure regulation by their respective financial authoritative bodies ac- counts for this discrepancy.

The Influence Of Regulatory Oversight On Environmental, Social, And Governance Ratings, John F. Torpey

Engaged Management ReView

Firm performance in the specific areas of environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and corporate governance (ESG) has become an important criterion that investors use in determining a firm’s value. This empirical investigation, based on stakeholder theory examines the relationship between regulatory oversight and third-party ESG ratings. Our research methodology involved quantitative, observational, and retrospective analyses. The study population consisted of 471 firms from two heavily regulated industry sectors—the utility and financial sectors—and from two less regulated sectors—the information technology and consumer discretionary sectors. We compiled the ESG ratings for the firms from two independent rating services. The quantitative evaluation included multiple …

Recipe For Good: Analyzing The Authenticity Of Csr Commitments Among The Leadership Of A Parent Company To Global Restaurant Brands., Lauren E. Reuss

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a form of private self-regulation conducted by businesses; CSR aims to contribute to societal goals of philanthropy, activism, and ethics by improving society, policy, and or the environment. Corporate social responsibility is becoming a greater aspect of modern business, but as it becomes part of the modern discourse, it is right to question whether its efforts are authentic to those driving these initiatives? This case study seeks to understand how the leadership within the parent company of a global foods brand depicts authenticity and communicates its social and environmental efforts to stakeholders. Building on existing …

Corporate America Gives Back: Exploring The Best Practices And Implemented Programs That Help Combat Food Insecurity In America, Emily Uvaney

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

As businesses of all types become more self-aware and responsive to consumers’ interests, they are quickly adapting their business models to include pillars of philanthropy. Philanthropic qualities are especially important in regards to the CPG industry (consumer packaged goods) since they often produce food products. Many consumers and analysts believe that CPGs have a moral obligation to cater to people with various types of dietary needs, restrictions, and preferences while also helping customers meet their nutritional minimums. Companies can aid consumers in a plethora of ways. Beneficial programs can include initiatives like fundraising, food drives, internal employee assistance programs, and …

Sustainability In Construction Practices As Emphasis On Environmental Investing In Esg Model Grows, Maddie Heal

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to emphasize the importance of growing investment on environmental initiatives in business ESG models in regard to sustainable practices in construction. The ESG acronym is known as the environmental, social, and governance efforts that businesses strive to incorporate in their models to increase the responsibility of operations.

Investors continue to seek out responsible businesses when choosing which ventures to pursue. The analysis of the current construction crisis, current investments in the right direction of Eco-friendly design regarding construction, and the threats and benefits incentivizing those investments elucidates the need to emphasize socially responsible investment …

Esg Investing: From Fad To Force, Erin Cullen

Senior Theses

ESG Investing is the application of environmental, social, and governance factors to identify material investment risks and growth opportunities. Though traditionally viewed as non-financial factors, this paper asserts that ESG factors are indeed financially material. This work first surveys the current state of ESG Investing, its shortcomings, and its success despite these inherent issues. Section II adds a new perspective to ESG research by examining the applications of ESG scores in portfolio management. The study conducts t-tests to answer whether the typical holdings of an ESG mutual fund are more sustainable than those of traditional funds. The paper then focuses …

Stakeholderism, Corporate Purpose, And Credible Commitment, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

One of the most significant recent phenomena in corporate governance is the embrace, by some of the most influential actors in the corporate community, of the view that corporations should be focused on furthering the interests of all corporate stakeholders as well as the broader society. This stakeholder vision of corporate purpose is not new. Instead, it has emerged in cycles throughout corporate law history. However, for much of that history—including recent history—the consensus has been that stakeholderism has not achieved dominance or otherwise significantly influenced corporate behavior. That honor is reserved for the corporate purpose theory that focuses on …

Repurposing The Corporation Through Stakeholder Markets, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is immensely popular. Rhetorically, nearly all public corporations have committed to it. But corporations don’t act responsibly. That is because no system exists by which their responsibility levels can be measured and rewarded or punished. Thousands of organizations worldwide are engaged in a cooperative effort to build such a system. After two decades of work, the system is almost entirely in place. It may become effective in the next two to three years. When it does, the system will continually measure and report publicly as many as a thousand audited data points on the CSR of …

Rse Et Pratiques Des Responsables De Communication: Cas Des Entreprises D'Agroalimentaire De Souss Massa Daraa, Hind Benouakrim, Fatima El Kandoussi

Dirassat

CSR corporate social responsibility and practices of communication managers: case study food companies of Souss Massa Draa

Increased pressure from civil society and the community financial, generated by the strong growth of ecological and societal problems has pushed companies to adopt more transparent and responsible modes of governance. This governance has resulted in actions and so-called responsible and citizen speeches. Accordingly, communication on Corporate Social Responsibility takes on, in this context, a particular strategic and operational dimension. To study it, we propose in this article to study the concept of CSR and that of communication on social responsibility. CSR on …

Should Corporations Have A Purpose?, Jill E. Fisch, Steven Davidoff Solomon

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate purpose is the hot topic in corporate governance. Critics are calling for corporations to shift their purpose away from shareholder value as a means of addressing climate change, equity and inclusion, and other social values. We argue that this debate has overlooked the critical predicate questions of whether a corporation should have a purpose at all and, if so, what role it serves.

We start by exploring and rejecting historical, doctrinal, and theoretical bases for corporate purpose. We challenge the premise that purpose can serve a useful function either as a legal constraint on managerial discretion or as a …

The Corporate Governance Machine, Dorothy S. Lund, Elizabeth Pollman

All Faculty Scholarship

The conventional view of corporate governance is that it is a neutral set of processes and practices that govern how a company is managed. We demonstrate that this view is profoundly mistaken: in the United States, corporate governance has become a “system” composed of an array of institutional players, with a powerful shareholderist orientation. Our original account of this “corporate governance machine” generates insights about the past, present, and future of corporate governance. As for the past, we show how the concept of corporate governance developed alongside the shareholder primacy movement. This relationship is reflected in the common refrain of …

Corporate Social Responsibility And Sustainable Finance: A Review Of The Literature, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to the incorporation of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations into corporate management, financial decision making, and investors’ portfolio decisions. Socially responsible firms are expected to internalize the externalities (e.g. pollution) they create, and are willing to be accountable to shareholders as well as a broader group of stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, local communities,…). Over the past two decades, various rating agencies developed firm-level measures of ESG performance, which are widely used in the literature. A problem for past and a challenge for future research is that these ratings show inconsistencies, which depend on the …

Go Green: Make Green, Sam Montague

Marriott Student Review

While cost might seem like an obstacle to some, adopting sustainable practices can turn out to be profitable for most companies. Recent research find positive correlation between business efforts and the consumer response, showcase direct benefits to the business, and provide suggestions to put the findings into practice.

Corporate Social Responsibility And Corporate Financial Performance: An Examination Into Fortune 500 And Djsi Firms Within Consumer-Facing Industries, Samantha Lee

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the relationship between a firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) in nine consumer-facing industries classified by the Fortune 500. Unlike prior research on the matter, the firms investigated in this study consist only of firms on both the Fortune 500 for the year 2018 and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) between the years 2005-2018 in order to define a clear measurement of CSR. In order to gauge investor and market sentiment, CFP is measured primarily by the firm’s stock performance in comparison to the S&P 500 as a basis. The results …

Making Sustainability Disclosure Sustainable, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Sustainability is receiving increasing attention from issuers, investors and regulators. The desire to understand issuer sustainability practices and their relationship to economic performance has resulted in a proliferation of sustainability disclosure regimes and standards. The range of approaches to disclosure, however, limit the comparability and reliability of the information disclosed. The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has solicited comment on whether to require expanded sustainability disclosures in issuer’s periodic financial reporting, and investors have communicated broad-based support for such expanded disclosures, but, to date, the SEC has not required general sustainability disclosure.

This Article argues that claims about the relationship …

The Geography Of Csr, David K. Ding, Christo Ferreira, Udomsak Wongchoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We regress socio-economic indicators against firm level CSR scores using a sample of over 26,000 firm year observations from 1991 through 2009. We find that a firm's CSR profile is linked to the socio-economic conditions of the firm's geographic headquarters (HQ) location. The study documents that the legal, cultural, economic, and demographic differences across geography significantly explain the variation in CSR means between metropolitan statistical areas, states, and regions. We also find that the relation between CSR and firm performance is conditional on socio-economic factors, which highlight the endogeneity concerns inherent in CSR studies. Lastly, we show that firms that …

Stages Of Corporate Sustainability: Integrating The Strong Sustainability Worldview, Nancy E. Landrum

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Businesses are increasingly adopting sustainability, yet the environment continues to decline. This research responds to Dyllick and Muff’s assertion that this paradox is caused by a constricted understanding of the meaning of corporate sustainability, lack of inclusion of constructs from related streams of literature, and failure to integrate micro and macro perspectives of sustainability. The current research addresses these concerns through an integration of 22 microand macro-level models of stages of development from literature in corporate sustainability, corporate social responsibility, environmental management, and sustainable development. This integration results in a new unified model of stages of corporate sustainability that broadens …

Cross-Country Evidence On The Role Of Independent Media In Constraining Corporate Tax Aggressiveness, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of firms from 32 countries, we study the relation between media independence and corporate tax aggressiveness. We measure media independence by the extent of private ownership and competition in the media industry. Using an indicator variable for tax aggressiveness when the firm’s corporate tax avoidance measure is within the top quartile of each country-industry combination, we find strong evidence that media independence is associated with a lower likelihood of tax aggressiveness, after controlling for other institutional determinants, including home-country tax system characteristics. We also find that the effect of media independence is more pronounced when the …

The Internal Effects Of Corporate Social Responsibility On Firm Performance, Lindsay Harris

Senior Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to identify the internal effects of corporate social responsibility on firm performance. It also examines the definition of corporate social responsibility and two varying theories about the topic. This thesis explores the human resource, quality and financial aspects of firm performance and how those aspects of a company are affected by adopting significant corporate social responsibility programs. This research seeks to answer the claim that corporate social responsibility programs do not have a positive effect on the actual performance of an organization. It will examine the effect of CSR on employee attitudes, moral and …

Maximizing Shareholder Wealth And Stakeholder Value Through Benefit Corporations: Doing Good And Doing Well, Arlene J. Nicholas, Samuel A. Sacco

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

Benefit Corporations must create a "general public benefit," and answer to shareholders while decisions based on society or environment, rather than solely on profit, are legally protected (Alpern, 2015). The Benefit Corporation's legal and performance standards help ensure market growth, valuation, impact, and integrity (Neubauer, 2016). This paper examines the evolution of Benefit Corporations and some of the legal differences between traditional for-profit corporations including related court cases. The authors provide a business rationale in support of conscientious for-profit organizations. How a company can become a Benefit Corporation and the value added will be discussed.

The Impact Of Csr Efforts On Firm Performance In The Energy Sector, Robert Lloyd

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the financial performance for publicly-traded firms operating in the energy sector. The energy sector has a unique role to play in global CSR efforts because of the size of the firms within that industry, their impact on the environment, and the operational risks that come with energy production. Previous research has been conducted on the relationship between CSR engagement and financial performance in various contexts, but this research has shown mixed outcomes – in some cases there is a positive relationship between CSR and …

The Pr Of Csr For The Casino Industry: A Review Of Challenging Corporate Social Responsibility: Lessons For Public Relations From The Casino Industry, Andrew B. Gustafson

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

This is a review of Jessalynn Strauss' recent book, Challenging Corporate Social Responsibility: Lessons for Public Relations from the Casino Industry. Through an analysis of Casino’s CSR practices, Strauss raises some serious concerns about this alignment between CSR and PR, and provides reasons to doubt whether SCR done for strategic bottom line interests rather than purely ethical reasons will consistently accomplish what the casinos set out to achieve.

Pitfalls Of Over-Legalization: When The Law Crowds Out And Spills Over, Mark Kawakami

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

While some academics argue that enforcing voluntary corporate codes of conduct with private law backed sanctions can improve the working conditions of marginalized workers in the global supply chain, there are various risks associated with this "legalization" process. Relying on evidence from the fields of sociology, psychology, and evolutionary anthropology, this contribution will discuss how external incentives like threats of legal sanctions can actually be detrimental to the intrinsic motivations of companies that want to be socially responsible. This paper will also analyze how the crowding out effect and the spillover effect that come with legalizing otherwise voluntary norms could …

Global Diversity & Inclusion At Microsoft, Joe Lawless

MICCSR Case Studies

This case discusses diversity and inclusion initiatives at Microsoft, as well as criticisms of the state of industry efforts to increase diversity in the tech sector. Students are asked to develop ideas that leverage current efforts at Microsoft and come up with new ideas that should be considered.

Corporate Power Is Corporate Purpose I: Evidence From My Hometown, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper is the first in a series considering a rather tired argument in corporate governance circles, that corporate laws that give only rights to stockholders somehow implicitly empower directors to regard other constituencies as equal ends in governance. By continuing to suggest that corporate boards themselves are empowered to treat the best interests of other corporate constituencies as ends in themselves, no less important than stockholders, scholars and commentators obscure the need for legal protections for other constituencies and for other legal reforms that give these constituencies the means to more effectively protect themselves.

Using recent events in the …

Corporate Social Responsibility: Implications For Businesses Operating In The United States And The European Union, Kaitlyn Sapp

Honors Scholar Theses

The expectations of what businesses should be responsible for has changed more and more as the consumer consciousness has evolved. For many businesses, especially those in the United States, change in their approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is necessary in order to satisfy customers and stay competitive. This paper will discuss and compare the history and current practice of CSR between the United States and the European Union. I find that since the European Union has a history of holding companies to higher CSR standards, European-based companies have an advantage in various consumer markets with growing consciousness. Meanwhile, companies …

2016 Csr Planning At Pemco Insurance, Joe Lawless

MICCSR Case Studies

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Innovation At Rei, Joe Lawless

MICCSR Case Studies

Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) was founded in the 1930’s as a co-op for climbers to acquire quality gear. As a major (US) retailer of outdoor equipment and gear, REI has been a leader in sustainability with everything from their products and packaging design, retail building efficiency and contributions to environmental conservation and outdoor recreation. This mini-case offers students an opportunity to explore the “Catalyzing Experiences” section of REI’s new sustainability integration initiative. Looking at the new sharing economy and innovative business models will challenge students to develop creative solutions to the consumption-based economic model of traditional retailers.

Corporate Social Responsibility Of Multinational Corporations, Lok Yiu Chan

Global Honors Theses

Corporate social responsibilities (CSR) are becoming increasingly important in today’s business world. Companies should care about their stakeholders’ interests but at the same time, they should place more emphasis on other areas apart from solely profits making. Most people used to think that businesses are taking advantages from consumers. Nonetheless, nowadays stakeholders are not only concern about profits; they are more interested in company regarding various economic, environmental, ethical, governance, and social aspects, since these factors significantly affect the fate of the company in long term. Research has proven that there is a competitive advantage for corporations that have a …