In the absence of credible information and corresponding positive feedback from stakeholders, firms have limited incentive to invest in CSR practices. This paper focuses on the under-exploited potential of initiatives designed to overcome the inhibiting effects of information asymmetries on the adoption of socially responsible behaviors. Mechanisms to address information asymmetries can accelerate the adoption of socially responsible practices by increasing the rewards firms receive for responsible behavior, and raise the cost of retaining less responsible behaviors by making them more visible to interested stakeholders.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) is a significant part of the U.S. equity market. Studies of the relationship between social performance and financialperformance have not considered the effect of business cycles, which is the main topic of this study. An SRI Fund of Funds is compared to the S&P 500 over two complete business cycles from 1991 to 2009. The SRI Fund of Funds had financial performance comparable to the S&P 500 during market contractions, but underperformed during market expansions. The factors associated with SRI returns are examined using both the Fama-French 3-Factor Model and the Carhart 4-Factor Model. Momentum appears to be of special importance during market expansions. The implications of these findings for the field of SRI are examined.

Everybody negotiates. But not everybody negotiates ethically. One driver of unethical negotiation behavior is power. Yet, we still haven’t discovered the principalmoderating and mediating influences between power and ethical negotiation behavior. In this pair of experimental studies we’re interested in finding out how resilience and moral identity affect an individual’s ethical behavior in both simple and complex negotiations when primed for power.

We review an argument that proposes two moralities—“everyday” moral norms and “adversarial” moral norms—are required for business contexts. We take issue with an implication of this idea, namely that competitive actions do not need to be in accord with “everyday” moral norms. After showing that the argument for two moralities in business does not succeed, we propose a distinction between two types of competitive actions: principled, those actions which comport with every day morality, and merely self-interested, those actions that do not comport with every day morality. The merits of this distinction are discussed.

Theory development surrounding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been ensconced in a rational economic logic, exploring both financial and ethicaljustifications (Basu & Palazzo, 2008; Margolis & Walsh, 2003). Venturing outside of this logic and viewing corporations as organizations from a positive organizational scholarship (POS) perspective provides an opportunity to broaden the exploration of CSR. Within POS, organizations are assumed to be driven by a need to contribute to human flourishing and well-being (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003). This viewpoint does not preclude the importance of organizational performance or survival, but rather provides a reorienting perspective to the study of organizations (Margolis & Walsh, 2003). In this paper, the concept of Virtuous CSR is proposed as part of a continuum of CSR theory ranging from strategic to virtuous. Virtuous CSR changes the lens through which organizations and CSR are studied. Specific attributes of Virtuous CSR are proposed.

This “paper” recalls the events that shaped the first international conference of the International Association for Business and Society. A number of surprises andfortunate circumstances determined the actual nature of our 1992 meeting in Leuven, Belgium. This description provides a brief overview of that conference’s planning and execution.

Against the background of various innovative business approaches developed in the last two decades that aim at directly targeting poor people as producers or consumers, this research looks at the potential of the private sector to contribute to poverty reduction in rural Ethiopia by providing improved seed to poor smallholder farmers. Smallholder productivity is very low and demand for improved seed is higher than supply in Ethiopia. An institutional economics framework is applied to analyze more than 40 expert interviews carried out in Ethiopia with stakeholders of business, government and NGOs. Results suggest that national institutions vitiate incentives for seed producers and cause transaction costs to be very high for Ethiopian seed companies. This hampers private sector development, which causes a lack of improved seed in the country. Institutional reforms are undertaken but are ambiguous in their effect on private sector development.

As the name indicates, we wanted to provide a forum for new and experienced IABS members to share current challenges and insights about teaching in our field. Within our participant group, many had taught in the field for more than two decades and had shared ideas with each other over these years at previous IABS meetings. We were happy to welcome and learn from several younger scholars as well, who brought their inspiration and enthusiasm to our discussion. There was no conceived or imposed structure for our session, in the true Open Mike format. We did try to follow up each idea and question that was raised with supportive reflections and relevant contributions.

In this paper, we investigate the factors that predict professionalization of organizational occupations in order to (1) predict how the CSR function might evolve inways that move it closer to a well-defined profession and (2) assess why moving toward professionalization might make the CSR function more effective within organizations. We use our historical analysis to make research propositions as to which elements of professionalization are most important in promoting ethical behavior. We also discuss whether we believe a path exists for the CSR function to move along the professionalization continuum from less established to well established in ways that promotes the function’s effectiveness.

This study examines the business models of highly successful Ponzi entrepreneurs. Results indicate that these entrepreneurs clearly articulate their customer value proposition, profit formula, key resources and processes that support their value proposition. Thus, Ponzi entrepreneurs appear quite adept at applying coreentrepreneurship concepts for illegal and unethical purposes. The results highlight the need to broaden the definition of “value creation” so it encompasses legal and ethical behavior in addition to the traditional and somewhat narrow economic use of the term. This study adds to the growing interest in measurement of business models (e.g., Zott et al., 2011) and it will hopefully foster more empirical research of illegal entrepreneurship.

This paper discusses both the content of a global business and society curriculum, as well as comments on course delivery. Lucien Dhooge discusses the content of his global business ethics course in three parts, including the cases he uses and has developed in health policy, safety, and human rights. Bruce Klaw addresses the unique way his course addresses the issue of global corruption, as well as how the presence of international students may enrich the course, and how study abroad might be improved. Anne Barraquier focuses on the hurdles posed to business ethics instructors in teaching both in and about China, as well as the challenges in teaching students from China. John Holcomb discusses how various frameworks of public policy and ethical analysis might be applied inteaching a global business and society course, and various content items such as competition and environmental policies, corporate governance, and crisis management.

This paper presents the results of an empirical study examining whether business students’ restorative justice skills, specifically empathy and perspective taking, can be improved. Data were collected at the beginning and the end of the semester. The results showed no change in empathy but a significant increase in perspective taking ability for both undergraduate and graduate students.

21st century business graduates need to be well equipped with skillsets that enable them to apply their commercial knowledge in organisations where profit maximisation is not the sole purpose. However, business students continue to be taught classic commercial business principles that predominately value profit and performance, resulting in a significant skill shortage for businesses embracing ethical responsibility, social justice and environment issues. The aim of this project is to blueprint a cutting-edge commerce degree that fills this skill shortage by developing an Integrated Business Education Model with extensive literature review and consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. Using the Integrated Business Education Model a traditional commerce degree curriculum will be re-designed and piloted in a business school. Findings and implementation materials will be disseminated to all Australian business schools. Eventually, graduates of this contemporary commerce degree will be skilled to contribute and grow in any form of hybrid organisation.

Hybrid business models are an emerging phenomenon that employs market tactics to address social and environmental issues. The B Corp model is one form of a hybrid model. It is a for-profit, socially obligated, corporate form of business, with traditional corporate characteristics but also with societal commitments. Thispaper reports on the experiences of fourteen early adopters of the B Corp model in Australia. The primary aim of the B Corps can be summarised as profit with a purpose – making profits to create positive social and/or environmental impacts. The key motivation for certifying as a B Corp was the alignment of values and a formal validation of the companies’ business philosophy and approach. Success was not gauged by maximising profits for owners/shareholders, but the impacts the businesses are making. Profits are a means to achieve positive social and environmental contributions.

This article explores how social enterprises, as hybrid organisations that combine social benefit and commercial logics, manage these logics internally. Utilising data collected through a case study of six social enterprises operating within the Australian education and training industry, we show that social enterprises mayadopt a number of practices through which to manage their contrasting logics. These include challenging conceptualisations of profit internally, implementing participatory and integrated models of decision-making, as well as creating performance standards that account for multiple objectives. These findings provide insight into how other organisations may reconcile contrasting demands arising from the need to reconcile multiple logics, whilst also further developing our knowledge about how social enterprises operate internally.

A central claim within the sustainable development literature is that realizing sustainable outcomes requires a move away from a conceptualization of the environment as a separate, bounded, independently given entity. In this paper, the conceptualization of the environment within bestselling strategy textbooks in the UK and Australia in 2011 is reviewed. A focus on strategy textbooks is taken as it is argued that corporate strategists are key actors in the realization of sustainable outcomes. Thus the constructs those individuals may learn from texts are potentially key to their ability to realize sustainable outcomes. The findings show that the constructs in the textbooks offer a sclerotic, dehumanized view of the environment that is partitioned into external and internal categories by an organizational boundary. Thus if strategy textbooks are tools to help corporate strategists learn strategy, who will then enable sustainable development, changes are required.

This paper explores patterns in professional narratives over a period of six years. The purpose of this study was to explore patterns in narratives of change agents and discuss how narratives of sustainability develop over time. Narrative inquiry plays a role in bringing about inclusive environments by talking and writing about experience. In this study, stories were examined for insight into social organization within the workplace, and what motivates and sustains professional identity. Over the period of time narratives were collected for this study, there was an increase in the themes associated with sustainability leadership for the participants who were in senior and middle management roles. The senior management group shared a greater number of narratives associated withsustainability leadership than the middle management participants. Further consideration is given to how the workplace culture impacts on shared narratives.

Organisations are increasingly asked to respond to local environmental issues, however, due to competing interests, initiatives they can often be viewed with skepticism and mistrust. Research on organisationally led initiatives to respond positively to environmental issues is lacking. Using qualitative methodology, this case explores the drivers of a successful sustainable water allocation strategy in the town of Griffith NSW, part of the Murray Darling Basin, facilitated by the local irrigation authority. Data indicated that community engagement in planning and scoping was important in fostering support and project success. Equity in engagement, and facilitation via a combined top-down/bottom-up management style, increased trust. Understanding of the needs of each stakeholder group generated better engagement in the project, regardless of project outcomes, indicating that authentic consultation was a significant factor. This research suggests that given the appropriate stimulus, communities can ‘emerge’ their own sustainability.

The need for including sustainability in higher education curricula and defining the role of higher education institutions in teaching for sustainability has been much discussed in literature. A rather new career has emerged with the advancement of sustainability change programs in organizations. Which key capabilities constitute a good sustainability manager and how best to educate them is yet to be defined. Based on the recent developments in the field there is a need to define this new career; including the competency requirements and the current roles in sustainability leadership. The current research is based on a qualitative inquiry involving ten sustainability managers of publicly listed companies in Turkey. A competency map is used for guiding the questions. The findings address the issues on the role of business schools on education for sustainable development. It defines sustainability management as a new career path for future graduates.