IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jomstd/v58y2021i8pe1-e17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate Social Responsibility Research in the Journal of Management Studies: A Shift from a Business‐Centric to a Society‐Centric Focus

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Wickert

Abstract

This introduction to the Thematic Collection on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) tracks the evolution of CSR research published in the Journal of Management Studies from 2006 until 2021. Alongside the mainstreaming of CSR within management studies, CSR research in JMS has progressed from a business‐centric to a society‐centric focus. The business‐centric focus centres on the financial implications of CSR on business firms, and advocates CSR to the extent that it leads to improved financial performance or some other competitive advantage for the firm. The society‐centric focus asks broader questions about the appropriate role and location of business in society and its political and institutional contexts, and it reflects a wider set of variables of interest beyond firm financial performance. Understanding this evolution is crucial because it helps to elucidate where CSR research is headed and how the role of business in society is conceptualised. Based on these developments, I outline three emergent avenues for future research: the reintegration of governments as important actors shaping CSR, the need to reorient the dependent variables used in CSR research toward tangible social and ecological outcomes, and the importance of CSR research tackling interrelated societal crises such as the COVID‐19 pandemic and the climate crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Wickert, 2021. "Corporate Social Responsibility Research in the Journal of Management Studies: A Shift from a Business‐Centric to a Society‐Centric Focus," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(8), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:58:y:2021:i:8:p:e1-e17
    DOI: 10.1111/joms.12775
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12775
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joms.12775?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andreas Georg Scherer & Guido Palazzo & David Seidl, 2013. "Managing Legitimacy in Complex and Heterogeneous Environments: Sustainable Development in a Globalized World," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 259-284, March.
    2. Jonathan P. Doh & Terrence R. Guay, 2006. "Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Policy, and NGO Activism in Europe and the United States: An Institutional‐Stakeholder Perspective," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 47-73, January.
    3. Andrew Crane & Sarah Glozer, 2016. "Researching Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: Themes, Opportunities and Challenges," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(7), pages 1223-1252, November.
    4. Anselm Schneider & Christopher Wickert & Emilio Marti, 2017. "Reducing Complexity by Creating Complexity: A Systems Theory Perspective on How Organizations Respond to Their Environments," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 182-208, March.
    5. Juliane Reinecke & Shaz Ansari, 2016. "Taming Wicked Problems: The Role of Framing in the Construction of Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 299-329, May.
    6. Stephen J. Brammer & Stephen Pavelin, 2006. "Corporate Reputation and Social Performance: The Importance of Fit," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 435-455, May.
    7. David Levy & Juliane Reinecke & Stephan Manning, 2016. "The Political Dynamics of Sustainable Coffee: Contested Value Regimes and the Transformation of Sustainability," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 364-401, May.
    8. Bryan W. Husted & José De Jesus Salazar, 2006. "Taking Friedman Seriously: Maximizing Profits and Social Performance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 75-91, January.
    9. Abagail McWilliams & Donald S. Siegel & Patrick M. Wright, 2006. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 1-18, January.
    10. Gail Whiteman & Brian Walker & Paolo Perego, 2013. "Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 307-336, March.
    11. Sergiy D. Dmytriyev & R. Edward Freeman & Jacob Hörisch, 2021. "The Relationship between Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Social Responsibility: Differences, Similarities, and Implications for Social Issues in Management," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(6), pages 1441-1470, September.
    12. Andreas Georg Scherer & Andreas Rasche & Guido Palazzo & André Spicer, 2016. "Managing for Political Corporate Social Responsibility: New Challenges and Directions for PCSR 2.0," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 273-298, May.
    13. Zhi Tang & Clyde Eiríkur Hull & Sandra Rothenberg, 2012. "How Corporate Social Responsibility Engagement Strategy Moderates the CSR–Financial Performance Relationship," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7), pages 1274-1303, November.
    14. Thomas Maak & Nicola M. Pless & Christian Voegtlin, 2016. "Business Statesman or Shareholder Advocate? CEO Responsible Leadership Styles and the Micro-Foundations of Political CSR," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 463-493, May.
    15. Andreas Georg Scherer & Guido Palazzo, 2011. "The New Political Role of Business in a Globalized World: A Review of a New Perspective on CSR and its Implications for the Firm, Governance, and Democracy," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 899-931, June.
    16. Itziar Castelló & Michael Etter & Finn Årup Nielsen, 2016. "Strategies of Legitimacy Through Social Media: The Networked Strategy," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 402-432, May.
    17. Christopher Wickert & Andreas Georg Scherer & Laura J. Spence, 2016. "Walking and Talking Corporate Social Responsibility: Implications of Firm Size and Organizational Cost," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(7), pages 1169-1196, November.
    18. Duane Windsor, 2006. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Three Key Approaches," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 93-114, January.
    19. David A. Waldman & Donald S. Siegel & Mansour Javidan, 2006. "Components of CEO Transformational Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(8), pages 1703-1725, December.
    20. Christopher Wickert & Corinne Post & Jonathan P. Doh & John E. Prescott & Andrea Prencipe, 2021. "Management Research that Makes a Difference: Broadening the Meaning of Impact," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 297-320, March.
    21. Valentina Marano & Tatiana Kostova, 2016. "Unpacking the Institutional Complexity in Adoption of CSR Practices in Multinational Enterprises," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 28-54, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Čater, Tomaž & Čater, Barbara & Milić, Patricia & Žabkar, Vesna, 2023. "Drivers of corporate environmental and social responsibility practices: A comparison of two moderated mediation models," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Yiqiang Zhou & Lianghua Chen & Yan Zhang & Wan Li, 2024. "“Environmental disclosure greenwashing” and corporate value: The premium effect and premium devalue of environmental information," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 2424-2438, May.
    3. Francisco Javier Forcadell & Antonio Lorena & Elisa Aracil, 2023. "The firm under the spotlight: How stakeholder scrutiny shapes corporate social responsibility and its influence on performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 1258-1272, May.
    4. Daniela Ortiz‐Avram & Nelly Ovcharova & Alexander Engelmann, 2024. "Dynamic capabilities for sustainability: Toward a typology based on dimensions of sustainability‐oriented innovation and stakeholder integration," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 2969-3004, May.
    5. Ehsan Poursoleyman & Gholamreza Mansourfar & Mohammad Kabir Hassan & Saeid Homayoun, 2024. "Did Corporate Social Responsibility Vaccinate Corporations Against COVID-19?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 525-551, January.
    6. Shuili Du & Assaad El Akremi & Ming Jia, 2023. "Quantitative Research on Corporate Social Responsibility: A Quest for Relevance and Rigor in a Quickly Evolving, Turbulent World," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 1-15, September.
    7. Donald S. Siegel, 2022. "Two Cheers for RRBM, Pasteur’s Quadrant, and an Application of RRBM to the Commercialization of Science and Technology Transfer," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(6), pages 1643-1650, September.
    8. Heidi Reed, 2022. "When the Right Thing to Do Is Also the Wrong Thing: Moral Sensemaking of Responsible Business Behavior During the COVID-19 Crisis," Post-Print hal-04531082, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andreas Georg Scherer & Andreas Rasche & Guido Palazzo & André Spicer, 2016. "Managing for Political Corporate Social Responsibility: New Challenges and Directions for PCSR 2.0," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 273-298, May.
    2. Christopher Wickert & Andreas Georg Scherer & Laura J. Spence, 2016. "Walking and Talking Corporate Social Responsibility: Implications of Firm Size and Organizational Cost," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(7), pages 1169-1196, November.
    3. Sergiy D. Dmytriyev & R. Edward Freeman & Jacob Hörisch, 2021. "The Relationship between Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Social Responsibility: Differences, Similarities, and Implications for Social Issues in Management," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(6), pages 1441-1470, September.
    4. Jan Anton van Zanten & Rob van Tulder, 2018. "Multinational enterprises and the Sustainable Development Goals: An institutional approach to corporate engagement," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(3), pages 208-233, December.
    5. Verena Girschik, 2020. "Managing Legitimacy in Business‐Driven Social Change: The Role of Relational Work," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 775-804, June.
    6. Christian Voegtlin & Andreas Georg Scherer & Günter K. Stahl & Olga Hawn, 2022. "Grand Societal Challenges and Responsible Innovation," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 1-28, January.
    7. Dominik van Aaken & Violetta Splitter & David Seidl, 2012. "Why Do Corporate Actors Engage in Pro-Social Behavior? A Bourdieusian Perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility," Working Papers 319, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    8. Christian Voegtlin & Colina Frisch & Andreas Walther & Pascale Schwab, 2020. "Theoretical Development and Empirical Examination of a Three-Roles Model of Responsible Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 411-431, December.
    9. Ilka Marie Frerichs & Thorsten Teichert, 2023. "Research streams in corporate social responsibility literature: a bibliometric analysis," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 231-261, February.
    10. Danny Zhao‐Xiang Huang, 2022. "An integrated theory of the firm approach to environmental, social and governance performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1567-1598, April.
    11. Dolores Gallardo-Vázquez & Luis Enrique Valdez-Juárez & José Luis Lizcano-Álvarez, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Intellectual Capital: Sources of Competitiveness and Legitimacy in Organizations’ Management Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-29, October.
    12. Joern H. Block & Marcus Wagner, 2014. "The Effect of Family Ownership on Different Dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Large US Firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(7), pages 475-492, November.
    13. Ralph Hamann & Lulamile Makaula & Gina Ziervogel & Clifford Shearing & Alan Zhang, 2020. "Strategic Responses to Grand Challenges: Why and How Corporations Build Community Resilience," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(4), pages 835-853, February.
    14. Tolossa Fufa Gulema & Yadessa Tadesse Roba, 2021. "Internal and external determinants of corporate social responsibility practices in multinational enterprise subsidiaries in developing countries: evidence from Ethiopia," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, December.
    15. Wang Shuo & Gao Yuhui, 2016. "What do we know about corporate social responsibility research? a content analysis," The Irish Journal of Management, Sciendo, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, April.
    16. Sylvia Grewatsch & Ingo Kleindienst, 2017. "When Does It Pay to be Good? Moderators and Mediators in the Corporate Sustainability–Corporate Financial Performance Relationship: A Critical Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 383-416, October.
    17. Anna-Lena Maier, 2021. "Political corporate social responsibility in authoritarian contexts," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(4), pages 476-495, December.
    18. Wenbin Long & Sihai Li & Huiying Wu & Xianzhong Song, 2020. "Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: The roles of government intervention and market competition," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 525-541, March.
    19. Sean T. Hannah & Naz Sayari & Frederick H. deB. Harris & Carol L. Cain, 2021. "The Direct and Moderating Effects of Endogenous Corporate Social Responsibility on Firm Valuation: Theoretical and Empirical Evidence from the Global Financial Crisis," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 421-456, March.
    20. Jacob Brower & Peter A. Dacin, 2020. "An Institutional Theory Approach to the Evolution of the Corporate Social Performance – Corporate Financial Performance Relationship," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 805-836, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jomstd:v:58:y:2021:i:8:p:e1-e17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2380 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.