Corporate social responsibility strategy, sustainable product attributes, and export performance

Abstract

The current article is one of the first studies to address the role of corporate social responsibility strategy (CSRS) in the development of performance-oriented sustainable product attributes (SPA) mix in manufacturing firms. We specifically analyze whether the extent of SPA development by the firm's CSRS matches SPA contribution in export performance or do firms need to adapt CSRS to develop a performance-oriented SPA mix. The empirical analysis uses a panel dataset of 433 manufacturing firms from the United States during 2002-2017. The findings reveal the difference between SPA's outcome (contribution) and SPA development in firms. Further analysis of disaggregated SPA explains the reasoning behind this difference because the firm's CSRS' emphasis on developing distinct attributes of SPA tends to mismatch the proportionate contribution of distinct attributes of SPA in export performance. Our study contributes to SPA, CSRS, and export performance literature by establishing the differences in performance contribution and development of aggregated and disaggregated SPA in manufacturing firms.

Stakeholder engagement, Csr development and Sdgs compliance: A systematic review from 2015 to 2021

“…Covid‐19 has represented a significant challenge for companies, which, for the most part, have had to adapt due to the changing conditions generated by the pandemic in a short period of time (Kraus et al, 2020). It is essential that companies define strategies that allow them to adapt to changing realities and that provide them with sustainable differentiation from other competitors (Orviz Martínez et al, 2021; Ullah et al, 2021).…”

Sustainable product attributes and firm performance: The moderating role of marketing resource intensity

“…Scholars have been studying sustainable product (e.g., Severo et al, 2017), eco‐product (e.g., Rashid et al, 2021), green product (e.g., Chang, 2016, 2018; Dangelico, 2016; Dangelico et al, 2017; Qiu et al, 2020; Song et al, 2018), and environmental product (e.g., Amores‐Salvadó et al, 2014; Choi & Yi, 2018; Kammerer, 2009) terminologies, interchangeably. Pacheco et al (2018) stated that there are trivial differences in these terminologies and are synonymous in meaning.…”

“…study follows theBocquet et al (2017),Duque-Grisales et al (2020),Rahman et al (2020), andUllah et al (2021) studies to control for firm size, globalization, brand equity, human capital, (generic) product differentiation, leverage, and capital intensity.These studies have identified the potential role of stated variables in the environmental product innovation-firm performance setting.The role of firm size, globalization, (generic) product differentiation, brand equity, and human capital in the firm profitability is an established fact. Manufacturing firms are capital intensive firms, thus require a high capital expenditure in fixed assets to produce goods or services(Lee & Xiao, 2011) to contribute to firms' financial performance.…”

Local embeddedness, and corporate social performance: The mediating role of social innovation orientation

“…The corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature suggests that whiles every company requires to be financially sound; it should increasingly behave in socially responsible ways and consider the interests of stakeholders. Considering the interests of stakeholders (e.g., communities, employees, and environmental groups) in every organization, the issue of corporate social performance (CSP) is critical for firms to achieve (Tran & Adomako, 2021; Ullah et al, 2021). For example, customers' demand for environmentally friendly and sustainable products has pushed many firms to embark on CSR initiatives such as products with sustainable attributes (Tran & Adomako, 2021).…”

“…It has been suggested that integrating CSR initiatives into a firm's strategy enhances its market competitiveness (Ullah et al, 2021), financial performance (McWilliams & Siegel, 2000; Torugsa et al, 2012), and legitimacy (Zheng et al, 2015). On the other hand, scholars have explored the drivers of CSP including stakeholders (Brower & Mahajan, 2013; Helmig et al, 2016), CEO pay structure (Deckop et al, 2006; McGuire et al, 2019), and social capital (Tran & Adomako, 2021).…”