Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how and what drives corporate social responsibility (CSR) in host communities of mining companies in developing countries.

Design/methodology/approach

To address this knowledge gap, this paper used Ghana as a test case and conducted 24 in-depth interviews with participants drawn from mining host communities.

Findings

The paper discovered that while CSR is broadly understood and encompasses six thematic categories in the mining host communities, there are emphases on philanthropic and environmental responsibilities. Contrary to the evidence found in other studies, this paper discovered that CSR rhetoric plays a more positive/significant role than so far explored in CSR research, as it incentivizes the host communities to push for the fulfilment of their CSR expectations and/or CSR initiatives proposed by mining companies.

Research limitations/implications

Quantitative studies are needed to strengthen the findings from the present paper.

Practical implications

Because developing countries share similar socio-economic and geo-political realities, the findings of this paper may be applicable not only for CSR advocates, but also for policy-makers in developing countries.

Originality/value

The paper provides new inputs from a developing country perspective to the current debate about the CSR performance of the extractive industry. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to validate previous research in ethical branding by testing a conceptual framework on corporate branding using "the conscientious dimension".

Design/methodology/approach: This article tests a framework for conscientious corporate brands (CCBs) by investigating environmental and climate change issues as well as internal and external corporate codes of ethics as CCB dimensions. The empirical context is based upon South African business-to-business relationships.

Findings: The findings indicate that four distinctive conscientious corporate brand dimensions exist.

Research limitations/implications: This current study contributes to the better understanding of and more knowledge on conscientious corporate brand values. Opportunities for future research are provided as the study has explored new aspects of corporate branding.

Practical implications: This study offers managerial implications particularly for practitioners located in emerging markets such as South Africa.

Originality/value: This study validates the multidimensional nature of CCBs. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to test a Triple Bottom Line (TBL)-construct as well as to describe the TBL-reasons for implementing sustainable business practices in companies and their business networks. This study explores how linking these seemingly disparate pillars of sustainability may be facilitated through a TBL construct. The notion of sustainable business practices has been evolving and is increasingly understood to encompass considerations of economic viability, as well as environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

Design/methodology/approach – The research is quantitative in nature, exploring and analysing how companies in different Norwegian industries implement and manage sustainable business practices based on TBL. The survey results are reported here.

Findings – The relevance of TBL to different aspects of sustainable business practices is outlined. The study generally supports the view that a heightened propensity for sustainable business practices ensures that organisations are better equipped for meeting the challenge of integrating TBL in companies and their business networks.

Research limitations/implications – The study tested a construct of TBL in the context of sustainable business practices. It may be incorporated in further research in relation to other constructs. Suggestions for further research are proposed.

Practical implications – Useful for practitioners to get insights into TBL-reasons for implementing business-sustainable practices in companies and their business networks. It may also be valuable to assess the general status of business-sustainable practices in a company and their business networks.

Originality/value – Linking two traditionally separate and encapsulated areas of research, namely, the area of business sustainable practices and the area of TBL. The current study has contributed to a TBL-construct in relation to other constructs in measurement and structural models. It has also contributed to provide insights of priority into the main reasons to implement the elements of TBL within companies and their business networks. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare and validate firms’ internal and external stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices across business settings. It aims to assess the validity and reliability of a stakeholder framework appearing in previous studies.

Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a questionnaire survey and a cross-industry sample consisting of the largest firms in corporate Sweden. Multivariate analysis tests the stakeholder framework. Each of the 294 key informants was initially identified and contacted by telephone, generating a response rate of 36.5 per cent.

Findings: The tested stakeholder framework appears valid and reliable across countries to assess the internal stakeholders of focal firms, as well as their up- and downstream, market and societal stakeholders. This study provides additional empirical support to categorize firms’ stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices.

Research limitations/implications: This study validates previous findings in terms of Swedish firms’ considerations of internal and external stakeholders in sustainable business practices in relation to one similar country (Norway) and one different country (Spain). The study also shows how the three countries perceive the focal company and societal stakeholders differently. Practical implications: The tested framework sheds light on focal firms’ stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices and elucidates the extent to which firms’ account for their internal and external stakeholders in sustainable business practices.

Originality/value: This study contributes to the development of valid and reliable stakeholder theory across contexts and through time. In particular, it contributes to the development of a valid and reliable framework to categorize firms’ stakeholder considerations in sustainable business practices. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the measures put in place by the largest public sector organizations in Sweden in order to communicate the ethos of their codes of ethics to their employees. Design/methodology/approach - This paper is based upon a longitudinal survey approach. Findings - In the public sector organizations of Sweden the use of regulations and staff support is rather modest in respect to the inculcation of codes of ethics artefacts into the organisations. This longitudinal approach indicates an overall increase across the examined areas in the usage of measures to support the ethos of public sector codes of ethics. Research limitations/implications - The artefacts to support the ethos inherent in public sector codes of ethics are rarely explored in the literature. This paper helps to fill this gap with the present longitudinal approach. Practical implications - One could speculate that society at large and its public sector organizations may have been influenced not only by the scandalous happenings of recent years in Swedish business, but also by the impact of an Anglo-Saxon style of "corporatisation", whereby public authorities take on the form of a corporation or business brought on by globalisation. Originality/value - The present paper may be used as a point of reference for further research efforts. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The topic of this paper focuses on proactive versus reactive business ethics performance in the marketplace. The internal perception of a corporation and the external perception of the same corporation are used as generic determinants of business ethics performance. In turn, they are underpinned by evolutionary and contextual issues in the marketplace. The authors provide a generic conceptual framework of proactive and reactive business ethics performance. Case illustrations underpin the positives and negatives of proactive and reactive business ethics in the marketplace. A profile analysis process of proactive and reactive business ethics performance is also outlined. The gap between the internal and external perceptions of a corporation's actions becomes crucial to achieve successful business ethics performance in the marketplace. Therefore, a corporation's current business ethics performance should always be regarded as an on-the-spot-account that is either proactive or reactive. An important insight of this research is that business ethics performance requires the ongoing re-connection with reality by corporations. © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

This article summarizes and aggregates the results of a study conducted of the largest 100 public sector organizations derived from three categories in Sweden. These categories of organizations comprise 40 entities of government, 40 municipalities, and 20 county councils. The objective was to describe the determinants of codes of ethics in Swedish public sector organizations. This research reports on the responses of 27 organizations that possessed a code of ethics. The principal contribution is a 4P-model of seven internal and external determinants in public sector codes of ethics. The identified determinants relate to four principal sectors of a society, namely: public community sector, private corporate sector, private citizen sector, and political/policy conduct sector.

Purpose

– Research has so far not approached the contents of corporate code of ethics from a strategic classification point of view. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a framework of classification and empirical illustration to provide insights into the strategic approaches of corporate code of ethics content within and across contextual business environments.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper summarizes the content analysis of code prescription and the intensity of codification in the contents of 78 corporate codes of ethics in Australia.

Findings

– The paper finds that, generally, the studied corporate codes of ethics in Australia are of standardized and replicated strategic approaches. In particular, customized and individualized strategic approaches are far from penetrating the ethos of corporate codes of ethics content.

Research limitations/implications

– The research is limited to Australian codes of ethics. Suggestions for further research are provided in terms of the search for best practice of customized and individualized corporate codes of ethics content across countries.

Practical implications

– The framework contributes to an identification of four strategic approaches of corporate codes of ethics content, namely standardized, replicated, individualized and customized.

Originality/value

– The principal contribution of this paper is a generic framework to identify strategic approaches of corporate codes of ethics content. The framework is derived from two generic dimensions: the context of application and the application of content. The timing of application is also a crucial generic dimension to the success or failure of codes of ethics content. Empirical illustrations based upon corporate codes of ethics in Australia's top companies underpin the topic explored. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to describe and compare similarities as well as differences in the organizational engagement with ethics between private sector companies and public sector entities.

Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted in order to examine the organizational engagement with ethics in the largest private sector companies and the largest public sector entities in Sweden. Two adapted questionnaires were developed for each sector. The outcome of this research procedure is reported in this paper.

Findings – There are both minor and major differences between the private sector and public sectors, where the private sector companies overall tend to be more engaged with ethics than the public sector entities in areas such as: ethical bodies, ethical tools, internal and external ethical usage, and ethical support measures and ethical performance measures.

Research limitations/implications – This paper makes a contribution to theory as it outlines findings for the benefit of other researchers working in private and/or public sectors in the field. A suggestion for further research is to examine the organizational engagement with ethics in other countries/cultures that differ from the ones in this research effort performed in the private and public sectors of Sweden.

Practical implications – The research may be of managerial interest as it provides a grounded framework of areas to be considered in the examination of organizational engagement with ethics in both private sector companies and public sector entities. It may be used as a benchmark by either sector.

Originality/value – It reports a research effort to develop and describe a cross-sector comparison of the organizational engagement with ethics between private sector companies and public sector entities of Sweden. A framework is also introduced and illustrated. It also makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field as it is based upon a dual sample that provides insight into cross-sector organizational engagement with ethics.