International Journal of Management Reviews

In this review, the primary subject is the ‘business case’ for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business case refers to the underlying arguments or rationales supporting or documenting why the business community should accept and advance the CSR ‘cause’. The business case is concerned with the primary question: What do the business community and organizations get out of CSR? That is, how do they benefit tangibly from engaging in CSR policies, activities and practices? The business case refers to the bottom‐line financial and other reasons for businesses pursuing CSR strategies and policies. In developing this business case, the paper first provides some historical background and perspective. In addition, it provides a brief discussion of the evolving understandings of CSR and some of the long‐established, traditional arguments that have been made both for and against the idea of business assuming any responsibility to society beyond profit‐seeking and maximizing its own financial well‐being. Finally, the paper addresses the business case in more detail. The goal is to describe and summarize what the business case means and to review some of the concepts, research and practice that have come to characterize this developing idea.

The notion of dynamic capabilities complements the premise of the resource‐based view of the firm, and has injected new vigour into empirical research in the last decade. Nonetheless, several issues surrounding its conceptualization remain ambivalent. In light of empirical advancement, this paper aims to clarify the concept of dynamic capabilities, and then identify three component factors which reflect the common features of dynamic capabilities across firms and which may be adopted and further developed into a measurement construct in future research. Further, a research model is developed encompassing antecedents and consequences of dynamic capabilities in an integrated framework. Suggestions for future research and managerial implications are also discussed.

By engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, companies can not only generate favorable stakeholder attitudes and better support behaviors (e.g. purchase, seeking employment, investing in the company), but also, over the long run, build corporate image, strengthen stakeholder–company relationships, and enhance stakeholders' advocacy behaviors. However, stakeholders' low awareness of and unfavorable attributions towards companies' CSR activities remain critical impediments in companies' attempts to maximize business benefits from their CSR activities, highlighting a need for companies to communicate CSR more effectively to stakeholders. In light of these challenges, a conceptual framework of CSR communication is presented and its different aspects are analyzed, from message content and communication channels to company‐ and stakeholder‐specific factors that influence the effectiveness of CSR communication.

Recent work on competitiveness has emphasized the importance of business networking for innovativeness. Until recently, insights into the dynamics of this relationship have been fragmented. This paper presents a systematic review of research linking the networking behaviour of firms with their innovative capacity. We find that the principal benefits of networking as identified in the literature include: risk sharing; obtaining access to new markets and technologies; speeding products to market; pooling complementary skills; safeguarding property rights when complete or contingent contracts are not possible; and acting as a key vehicle for obtaining access to external knowledge. The evidence also illustrates that those firms which do not co‐operate and which do not formally or informally exchange knowledge limit their knowledge base long term and ultimately reduce their ability to enter into exchange relationships. At an institutional level, national systems of innovation play an important role in the diffusion of innovations in terms of the way in which they shape networking activity. The paper provides evidence suggesting that network relationships with suppliers, customers and intermediaries such as professional and trade associations are important factors affecting innovation performance and productivity. Where networks fail, it is due to inter‐firm conflict, displacement, lack of scale, external disruption and lack of infrastructure. The review identifies several gaps in the literature that need to be filled. For instance, there is a need for further exploration of the relationship between networking and different forms of innovation, such as process and organisational innovation. Similarly, we need better understanding of network dynamics and network configurations, as well as the role of third parties such as professional and trade associations. Our study highlights the need for interdisciplinary research in these areas.

The impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008, the intractable problems of persistent poverty and environmental change have focused attention on organizations that combine enterprise with an embedded social purpose. Scholarly interest in social enterprise (SE) has progressed beyond the early focus on definitions and context to investigate their management and performance. From a review of the SE literature, the authors identify hybridity, the pursuit of the dual mission of financial sustainability and social purpose, as the defining characteristic of SEs. They assess the impact of hybridity on the management of the SE mission, financial resource acquisition and human resource mobilization, and present a framework for understanding the tensions and trade‐offs resulting from hybridity. By examining the influence of dual mission and conflicting institutional logics on SE management the authors suggest future research directions for theory development for SE and hybrid organizations more generally.

Organizations increasingly rely on external sources of innovation via inter‐organizational network relationships. This paper explores the diffusion and characteristics of collaborative relationships between universities and industry, and develops a research agenda informed by an ‘open innovation’ perspective. A framework is proposed, distinguishing university–industry relationships from other mechanisms such as technology transfer or human mobility. On the basis of the existing body of research, the role of practices such as collaborative research, university–industry research centres, contract research and academic consulting is analysed. The evidence suggests that such university–industry relationships are widely practised, whereby differences exist across industries and scientific disciplines. While most existing research focuses on the effects of university–industry links on innovation‐specific variables such as patents or firm innovativeness, the organizational dynamics of these relationships remain under‐researched. A detailed research agenda addresses research needs in two main areas: search and match processes between universities and firms, and the organization and management of collaborative relationships.

This study aims to trace the conceptual evolutionary path of theories on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to reflect on the implications of the development. The retrospection has revealed that the trend has been a progressive rationalization of the concept with a particular focus on tighter coupling with organizations’ financial goals. Rationalization involves two broad shifts in the conceptualization of CSR. First, in terms of the level of analysis, researchers have moved from the discussion of the macro‐social effects of CSR to organizational‐level analysis of CSR's effect on profit. Next, in terms of theoretical orientation, researchers have moved from explicitly normative and ethics‐oriented arguments to implicitly normative and performance‐oriented managerial studies. Based on the retrospection, the limitations of the current state of CSR research that places excessive emphasis on the business case for CSR are outlined, and it is suggested that future research needs to refocus on basic research in order to develop conceptual tools and theoretical mechanisms that explain changing organizational behavior from a broader societal perspective.

Given the rising interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) globally, its local expressions are as varied as they are increasingly visible in both developed and developing countries. This paper presents a multilevel review of the literature on CSR in developing countries and highlights the key differentiators and nuanced CSR‐related considerations that qualify it as a distinctive field of study. This review entails a content analysis of 452 articles spanning two‐and‐a‐half decades (1990–2015). Based on this comprehensive review, the authors identify the key differentiating attributes of the literature on CSR in developing countries in relation to depictions of how CSR is conceived or ‘CSR Thinking’ and depictions of how CSR is practiced and implemented or ‘CSR Doing’. The authors synthesize from there five key themes that capture the main aspects of variation in this literature, namely: (1) complex institutional antecedents within the national business system (NBS); (2) complex macro‐level antecedents outside the NBS; (3) the salience of multiple actors involved in formal and informal governance; (4) hybridized and other nuanced forms of CSR expressions; and (5) varied scope of developmental and detrimental CSR consequences. The paper concludes by accentuating how the nuanced forms of CSR in the developing world are invariably contextualized and locally shaped by multi‐level factors and actors embedded within wider formal and informal governance systems.

The claim that high levels of engagement can enhance organizational performance and individual well‐being has not previously been tested through a systematic review of the evidence. To bring coherence to the diffuse body of literature on engagement, the authors conducted a systematic synthesis of narrative evidence involving 214 studies focused on the meaning, antecedents and outcomes of engagement. The authors identified six distinct conceptualizations of engagement, with the field dominated by the Utrecht Group's ‘work engagement’ construct and measure, and by the theorization of engagement within the ‘job demands–resources’ framework. Five groups of factors served as antecedents to engagement: psychological states; job design; leadership; organizational and team factors; and organizational interventions. Engagement was found to be positively associated with individual morale, task performance, extra‐role performance and organizational performance, and the evidence was most robust in relation to task performance. However, there was an over‐reliance on quantitative, cross‐sectional and self‐report studies within the field, which limited claims of causality. To address controversies over the commonly used measures and concepts in the field and gaps in the evidence‐base, the authors set out an agenda for future research that integrates emerging critical sociological perspectives on engagement with the psychological perspectives that currently dominate the field.

This paper demonstrates that the context within which performance measurement is used is changing. The key questions posed are: Is performance measurement ready for the emerging context? What are the gaps in our knowledge? and Which lines of enquiry do we need to pursue? A literature synthesis conducted by a team of multidisciplinary researchers charts the evolution of the performance‐measurement literature and identifies that the literature largely follows the emerging business and global trends. The ensuing discussion introduces the currently emerging and predicted future trends and explores how current knowledge on performance measurement may deal with the emerging context. This results in identification of specific challenges for performance measurement within a holistic systems‐based framework. The principle limitation of the paper is that it covers a broad literature base without in‐depth analysis of a particular aspect of performance measurement. However, this weakness is also the strength of the paper. What is perhaps most significant is that there is a need for rethinking how we research the field of performance measurement by taking a holistic systems‐based approach, recognizing the integrated and concurrent nature of challenges that the practitioners, and consequently the field, face.