The following articles have been published on-line and are now available on the Business and Society website for all subscribers. Abstracts are provided below.
Business & Society - OnlineFirst articles for September 2015
===============================================================================================================================================
Assessing the Concurrent Validity of the Revised Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini Corporate Social Performance Indicators Abstract This article examines the concurrent validity of the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics (KLD) corporate social performance (CSP) measures. Because KLD changed its evaluation methods to richer approaches, a new look at the concurrent validity of the indicators is necessary. To do this new look, the authors examine the new "Binary" and "Continuous" versions of the KLD and compare them with previous versions of KLD. The results suggest that the continuous scores provide better measurement characteristics than do the binary version. Overall, the new versions of the KLD data demonstrate concurrent validity with the original version. =============================================================================================================== Effectiveness of the KLD Social Ratings as a Measure of Workforce Diversity and Corporate Governance Abstract This article examines how well the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics (KLD) ratings measure past corporate social performance and predict future corporate social performance in Diversity and Governance categories. The results show that the KLD ratings effectively measure (past) and predict (future) social performance in both categories. The results also suggest that the KLD ratings may identify differences in the quality of management and firm which can affect future social performance and is not entirely explained by past social performance. The findings of this study lend some support for empirical studies relying on the KLD ratings to operationalize corporate social performance. The findings suggest that users of the ratings need to have a clear understanding of what information they are seeking from the KLD ratings in order to maximize the utility of these ratings. ============================================================================================================= Environmental Disclosure: Evidence From Newsweek's Green Companies Rankings Abstract Corporate-level environmental information disclosure is increasingly common. This article studies the impact of a prominent media-generated sustainability ratings program, Newsweek's 2009 ranking of the 500 largest U.S. firms. Using an event study methodology, the authors find the rankings had a significant impact on shareholder value. Firms in the top 100 experienced abnormal returns after the information release that were 0.6%–1.0% higher than returns of firms in the bottom 400. The form of the information released had significant effects as well. Nuanced environmental score variables had no independent impact on market outcomes; only the final ranking mattered. This article also explores possible channels through which the rankings may have had their impact. The authors find suggestive evidence that private and public politics mechanisms were the most important. ============================================================================================================= The Illegal as Normative: Employment Practices of Cleaning Companies in Israel as Shaped by Subcontractors' Organizational Networks Abstract This article explores the ways in which employers' organizational networks, as shaped by the emergence of the "contract state" and related changes in the legal environment, affect employment practices. The classic analysis of the ways in which the legal environment benefits elites has successfully been applied to large organizations. Here, from a microsociological perspective, the authors researched how within an ambivalent legal context small and medium size cleaning companies interact with members of their organizational network. Semistructured interviews with cleaning subcontractors illustrate a specific type of standardization process by which the Finance Ministry's administrative guidelines encourage cleaning companies to ignore workers' rights and develop illegal employment practices which are then transferred from contracts with state agencies to contracts with private firms purchasing services. The possibility to interpret this process as a form of state power is discussed. ============================================================================================================= Adoption and Implementation of Corporate Responsibility Practices: A Proposed Framework Abstract Defining and implementing Corporate Responsibility can be a challenge for many businesses. The identification of patterns in the processes of adoption and implementation of Corporate Responsibility practices can help managers to administer these processes more ably. In this research note, the authors identify four factors influencing the adoption and implementation of Corporate Responsibility practices: (a) internal drivers; (b) organizational structures; (c) attributes of practice; and (d) formal processes. Results indicate that there is also a continuous improvement component, meaning that the adoption and implementation of Corporate Responsibility practices are cyclical, rather than linear, processes. ============================================================================================================= Andy Crane, Dirk Matten, Irene Henriques, Bryan Husted
York University
Schulich School of Business
4700 Keele Street, Toronto, M3J 1P3
baseditors@schulich.yorku.ca