Month of January, 2008

Over the past two years, students at Kozmisnki University, small Polish university, have shown more than 100 businesses in eleven countries how they can save an estimated total of over $2 million by minimizing waste – a first step toward sustainability. The driving force behind this achievement is a new introductory course about sustainability, which requires students to think about the problems and costs associated with waste, the spiralling cost of raw materials, problems associated with resource deficits etc.

The purpose of this research is to attempt to gain a deeper understanding on small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and point out some of the most serious barriers for small Spanish companies to implement such kind of strategic approach and connect it with its day-to-day operations.

This research aims to uncover the difference between large firms and SMEs operating in Ireland with regard to their understanding of CSR, the type of CSR activities undertaken and the management of CSR. In addition, this research analyses the barriers and opportunities experienced by SMEs when undertaking CSR.

This paper sets out to investigate the effect of differences in national cultures on the social and environmental performance of companies around the world.

This paper aims to offer the Italian Banking Association’s view on corporate social
responsibility (CSR) as the strategic management of a firm that is multistakeholder-oriented and that is
careful to produce value for all those with whom the firm has relationships and daily interchange.

This paper aims to investigate the increased mass-marketing in the fair trade industry to
provide a robust analysis of the industry, participants and growth for use both as a starting-point for
researchers in this field and as a case study for readers with an interest in any ethical trading initiative.

In the research project ‘‘Good practices of stakeholder view’’ three firms in the Swiss
telecommunications industry were analysed in order to compare their stakeholder involvement. This
paper seeks to illustrate how these three firms, namely Swisscom, Sunrise, and Orange, dealt with a
particular problem all of them faced: the deployment of antennas for mobile telephony that in some
cases was strongly opposed by the population. Thereby, the ‘‘Telco’’ firms were challenged as societal
institutions and had to defend their licence to operate. The three firms chose different strategies to deal
with the problem.

The purpose of this article is to present how innovations in the social action program of a
Spanish savings bank produce strategic changes in the organization

The purpose of the paper is to describe and conceptualize a Due Diligence procedure addressing social and environmental factors.

The pressure on companies to position themselves as responsible corporate citizens has been identified as a key driver of the increase in collaborative relationships between corporations and non-profit organizations, with innovation and learning recognized as benefits to the firms from such relationships. This paper attempts to identify factors that can foster (or impede) the identification and development of firm-related innovations that result from engagement with non-profit stakeholders.

This paper seeks to explore the interplay between corporate social responsibility and innovation and questions the premise, often underlying EU communications, that the two agendas are in general mutually supportive. In order to accommodate a closer fit the paper argues for a dynamic reinterpretation of CSR.

The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed review of how to design and test a
framework for assessing the impact of corporate responsibility on firm value.

This paper aims to examine the strategic implications of stakeholder engagement in
emerging economies.

The strategic management of corporate sustainability tends to be approached from one
theoretical perspective in academic research and publications in mainstream journals simultaneously. In
corporate practice, however, a sustainability issue has different dimensions that cannot be captured if
only one such lens is taken. The purpose of this article is to develop a more integrated perspective,
embedded in a stakeholder view.

The purpose of this article is to establish a strategic management framework that supports
the integration of corporate social responsibility principles and stakeholder approaches into mainstream
business strategy.

This special issue of this journal follows from the EABIS 5th Annual Colloquium on
‘‘Corporate sustainability, strategic management and the stakeholder view of the firm’’. The
conference was hosted and organized by EABIS Founding Partner SDA Bocconi School of
Management, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, from11 to 12 September 2006. The purpose of
the colloquium was to investigate ways to link corporate responsibility to strategic
management by exploring ‘‘a strategic approach to stakeholder management’’.

Although social entrepreneurial organizations have begun to receive more scholarly
attention, we still know relatively little about how they are able to create both social and
economic value. This paper presents a comparative case analysis of three social
entrepreneurial organizations,

This paper demonstrates that entrepreneurs who have created innovative
organizations and service provision models are contributing to sustainable development.
The processes, structures and outcomes of their initiatives are contrasted with more
traditional efforts

In many developing countries those living in poverty are unable to participate in markets due to the weakness or complete absence of supportive institutions. This study examines in microcosm such an institutional void and illustrates the activities of an entrepreneurial actor in rural Bangladesh aimed at addressing it.

This study evaluates whether social entrepreneurs have found ways to contriute directly to achieving established sustainable development and whether they are able to operate in the least developed coutries.

According to the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development [2005],
“indicators for monitoring progress towards sustainable development are needed in
order to assist decision-makers and policy-makers at all levels and to increase focus on
sustainable development.

The increasing engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) potentially indicates an attempt to “re-embed” the economy in a wider societal context, following a period of neoliberal market exposure, deregulation, and separation of commercial and societal concerns. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between this new social embedding of the economy and older traditions of social embeddedness, such as the welfare state, neocorporatist arrangements, and other socio-political and labour market arrangements.

Watch the Introduction by Günter Verheugen, Vice President and Commissioner for Enterprise & Industry, EU Commission

The RESPONSE project has been created and funded by the EU Commission's D.G. Research to develop knowledge and understanding on the degree of alignment between companies and their stakeholders about what corporate social responsibility consists of within its specific context.

Prof. Jeremy Moon and Dr. Dirk Matten of ICCSR wrote the article Corporate Social Responsibility Education in Europe for Journal of Business Ethics, based on the results of a survey carried out with EABIS. They suggest that whilst there is some activity on the area, there are questions and approaches to integrate CSR into business school curricula and there are considerable uncertainties and definitions on CSR in Europe (April 2004).

The material presented here can be used in tandem with the Practitioners Report on the Changing Role of Government in CR, to provide students with an analytical framework to better understand the role of government in CR, and material upon which to base discussions and further analysis.

According to the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development [2005], “indicators for monitoring progress towards sustainable development are needed in order to assist decision-makers and policy-makers at all levels and to increase focus on sustainable development. Beyond the commonly used economic indicators of wellbeing, however, social, environmental and institutional indicators have to be taken into account as well to arrive at a broader, more complete picture of societal development”. During the last fifteen years many projects were developed at national and international levels in order to monitor the overall degree of development, including social justice and cohesion, achieved by the different countries.

The increasing engagement in CSR potentially indicates the attempt to "re-embed" the economy in a wider societal context, following the period of neoliberal market exposure, deregulation and separation of commercial and societal concerns. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between this new social embedding of the economy and older tradiions of social embeddedness, such as the welfare state, neocorporatist arrangements, and other socio-political and labour market arrangements.

The government’s role in promoting corporate responsibility: a comparative analysis of Italy and UK from the relational state perspective

The primary focus of this report is to explore how an organisation can enhance the understanding and practice of responsible leadership by developing managers that have the competencies for integrating social and environmental considerations into business decision making processes.

The scope of this work has been informed by the research priorities established by members of the European Academy of Business in Society (EABIS) which identified leadership and learning to be two of the seven major themes of the changing role of business in society. The research study builds on work undertaken by Ashridge and EABIS in support of the creation of the UK’s CSR Academy (www.csracademy.org.uk) by developing a broader perspective on the issues.