The Antecedents of Corporate Social and Environmental Irresponsibility

Abstract

This study combines internal and external perspectives to examine the antecedents of corporate social and environmental irresponsibility. In terms of internal factors, we focus on the extent to which a firm incorporates corporate social responsibility (CSR) into its business strategy and the level of firm-specific R&D investment. With respect to external factors, we focus on market cost pressure and local government corruption. We developed hypotheses and tested them using original survey data of 295 Chinese firms covering four years. The results show that incorporating corporate social responsibility into business strategy and investing in R&D both predict less socially or environmentally irresponsible behavior by a firm. In contrast, cost pressures and government corruption correlate with an increased likelihood of irresponsible social and environmental behavior by firms.

Türk Yüklenici Firmaların Çevresel Performanslarının Analizi

“…Firmalar doğru yapılandırılmış, etkin bir ölçme ve öz-denetim sisteminin var olması durumunda çevresel performanslarını daha hızlı iyileştirebilmektedir [19,20]. Chih vd.…”

“…Çevresel performansın öneminin anlaşılmasına paralel olarak Türk inşaat sektöründe faaliyet gösteren çeşitli meslek örgütleri ve ulusal araştırma kuruluşları da yüklenici firmaları çevresel performanslarını iyileştirmeye teşvik etmiştir [14,15,16,17,18]. Firmalar doğru yapılandırılmış, etkin bir ölçme ve öz-denetim sistemi ile çevresel performanslarını daha hızlı iyileştirebilmektedir [19,20]. Firmanın faaliyet alanına, içinde bulunduğu çevreye ve amaçlarına uygun sistem ve göstergeler kullanılması, firmanın uygun hedeflere doğru yönlendirilmesi ve performans ölçümünün hedefine ulaşabilmesi bakımından son derece önemlidir [21].…”

Does involvement in corporate social irresponsibility affect the linguistic features of corporate social responsibility reports?

“…Rather, we believe that the failure to respect a negative duty (i.e., doing no harm) cannot be compensated by a positive duty or action in favour of the affected (or other) constituencies (i.e., doing good). Thus, following prior research (e.g., Fiaschi, Giuliani, & Nieri, 2015, 2017Strike, Gao, & Bansal, 2006;Surroca, Tribo, & Zahra, 2013;Wu, 2014), we treat CSIR and CSR as two conceptually and empirically distinct constructs. sometimes criticised for allowing firms to show only the good side of their activities (Morsing, 2017) in a bid to gain and maintain external legitimacy (Bansal & Kistruck, 2006;Dhaliwal, Li, Tsang, & Yang, 2011;Nikolaeva & Bicho, 2011).…”

Socially Irresponsible Corporations and Choices of Consumers: Altruism, Retaliation, or Demand for Reparation?

“…Enterprises have been criticized for irresponsible behaviors such as contaminating the environment, exploiting labor, cheating consumers, and causing damage to suppliers . Wu (2014) reported that cost pressure and government corruption are two major factors affecting the possibility of enterprises practicing socially irresponsible behaviors. In other words, enterprises lose customers when they increase the price of a product, and this compels them to reduce their costs (i.e., reduce the personnel cost or jerry-build products) to maintain the price; such cost reduction can stimulate additional irresponsible behaviors.…”

“…Taneja et al (2011) categorized CSR research into five major types. Type one discussed the meaning, definition, and model of CSR (Carroll, 1979(Carroll, , 1999(Carroll, , 2010Dahlsrud, 2008;Van Marrewijk, 2003); type two identified factors determining CSR (Lange & Washburn, 2012;Wu, 2014); type three analyzed actions of CSR (Oberseder, Schlegelmilch, & Murphy, 2013;Babiak & Trendafilova, 2011;Bravo, Matute, & Pina, 2012); type four identified the effects of CSR on stakeholders and financial performance (Chih et al, 2014;Lombart & Louis, 2014;Lu, Chau, Wang, & Pan, 2014;Oberseder et al, 2013); type five explored the measurement tools of corporate social performance (Giannarakis, Litinas, & Theotokas, 2011;Turker, 2009;Wood, 2010;Wagner, Bicen, & Hall, 2008). Extensive research has been conducted on CSR; however, little research has addressed the concerns of CSR (i.e., CSiR), which is a major gap in consumer behavior research.…”