“How does Sustainability Leadership Affect Firm Performance? The Choices Associated with Appointing a Chief Officer of Corporate Social Responsibility”

Recent years have seen a significant increase in stakeholder pressure on firms to be not only economically sustainable but also from an environmental and social perspective. Besides operational changes in practices and products companies have reacted toward this increased pressure from a strategic p...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Wiengarten, Frank (Author) ; Lo, Chris K. Y. (Author) ; Lam, Jessie Y. K. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2017
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2017, Volume: 140, Issue: 3, Pages: 477-493
Further subjects:B Corporate social responsibility
B Top management team
B Financial Performance
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Recent years have seen a significant increase in stakeholder pressure on firms to be not only economically sustainable but also from an environmental and social perspective. Besides operational changes in practices and products companies have reacted toward this increased pressure from a strategic perspective through structural changes of their top management team (TMT). A recent addition to the TMT has been the appointment of the chief officer of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this paper, we take a behavioral perspective and investigate how the employment of a chief officer of CSR to the TMT impact on firm performance. Specifically, we explore how certain characteristics of the newly appointed chief executive of CSR impact on a firm’s financial performance. We collected secondary, longitudinal data of listed companies in the United States. Results indicate that appointing a chief executive of CSR does under certain conditions and characteristics result in financial performance benefits. Furthermore, the greatest financial performance benefits can be achieved if the appointee is female and has a CSR functional background.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2666-5