Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 14, 2003

Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting

A Game Theoretical Laboratory Experiment as a Methodology for Researching Corporate Social Performance

The large body of empirical evidence on the corporate social performance (CSP) - financial performance (FP) relationship can be summarized as contradictory, ranging from positive through neutral and inconciusive/mixed to negative. Yet one study found and inversed-U-relationship, this finding remained under researched, although this finding is fairly explicable form a scarcity perspective. As controlling for scarcity when studying corporate performance is very difficult, we propose a laboratory experiment based on bargaining game theory. Game theory seems a promising methodology, as it is by definition concerned with systematically gathering and analyzing data within a setting of interaction, whereas decision makers continuously consider the interests of others. The objective of this paper is to create discussion on using game theory as a research methodology in the “corporate social performance” field of research.