The state of corporate citizenship in Brazil (original) (raw)

Corporate Citizenship

Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management, 2021

The term corporate citizenship is typically used to describe corporations in their socio-political role. It recognizes that corporations are involved in social activity beyond mere financial activities and carry obligations to contribute to the social well-being of a society. As the term ‘citizen’ indicates, the notion is rooted in politics, indicating a recognition of the corporation as a social actor and as responding to non-market pressures. Research of the concept includes both institutionalist and business social scientific methods.

Appraising the Business Value of Corporate Citizenship: What Does the Literature Say

IABS Proceedings 2000, 2000

The overall purpose of this paper is to present the values that have been achieved as a result of corporate citizenship initiatives. This will be accomplished by a literature review of thirty-six (36) articles spanning the past two decades (1980-1999). Corporate citizenship will be defined broadly, as encompassing the literatures of corporate philanthropy, cause-related marketing, and corporate social performance. The goal will be to present in summary form the specific values/benefits to the business bottom-line identified through articles, books and studies that reflect philosophical beliels (expert opinion), anecdotal experiences, and empirical studies. These benefits include: improved employee relationships; improved customer relationships; improved business performance; and enhanced marketing efforts.

CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP: TOWARD AN EXTENDED THEORETICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION

Academy of Management review, 2005

Corporate citizenship (CC) has emerged as a prominent term in the management literature dealing with the social role of business. This paper critically examines the content of contemporary understandings of CC and locates them within the extant body of research dealing with business-society relations. Two conventional views of CC are catalogued -a limited view which largely equates CC with strategic philanthropy and an equivalent view which primarily conflates CC with CSR. Significant limits and redundancies are subsequently identified in these views, and the need for an extended theoretical conceptualization is highlighted. The main purpose of the paper is thus to realize a theoretically informed definition of CC that is descriptively robust and conceptually distinct from existing concepts in the literature. Specifically, the extended perspective on CC exposes the element of "citizenship" and conceptualizes CC as the administration of a bundle of individual citizenship rights -social, civil and political -conventionally granted and protected by governments. The implications of this view of CC for management theory and practice are suggested.

The emergence of corporate citizenship: historical development and alternative perspectives

In this chapter we provide an overview of the advent, rise, current use and future perspectives of corporate citizenship in the management literature. The purpose of our chapter then is to map out the territory of research on corporate citizenship and outline the major contestations, debates and the potential of using citizenship as a metaphor for business–society relationships. After providing a brief overview about how corporate citizenship entered the agenda in business and academia, we will analyse and critically categorize the extant use of the terminology. Based on this literature survey we will then proceed to focus on the potential for using the citizenship metaphor to provide a more expansive analysis of the political role of the corporation. This will pave the way to mapping out three fundamental approaches to apply citizenship to corporations. We argue however that such an application has to be cognizant of the facts that citizenship in itself is a dynamic concept and, moreover, that corporations play quite a substantial role in transforming contemporary notions of citizenship. We conclude our foray into corporate citizenship with a discussion of these themes and a review of future perspectives.

Leading corporate citizenship: governance, structure, systems

IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2009

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to benchmark how 25 companies in five industries are addressing corporate citizenship through their governance, structures and systems. The paper aims to look at patterns of leadership practice developing in firms in this regard and what might be shaping them. It also seeks to consider current practices in light of movement toward next-generation corporate citizenship. Design/methodology/approach-The study surveyed a representative sample of Fortune 500 companies. To benchmark how companies are embedding citizenship into their governance, structure, and systems, two scorecards were devised measuring practices pertaining to: Corporate Board Governance; and Operational Management of Corporate Citizenship. Criteria chosen represent Board and management policies, behaviors, and/or public commitments. Findings-It was found that, while corporate Boards are assuming more responsibility for oversight of conduct and taking account of specific social and environmental issues, citizenship is not yet fully embedded into Boards or the operating structures and systems of most firms. Research limitations/implications-Companies appear to be moving through developmental stages as they integrate citizenship into their governance and operations, with several developmental patterns emerging. While there seem to be specific patterns of development that link to the industry, issues faced, and culture of firms, it is difficult to generalize specific influences within industry from the relatively small sample. Further benchmarking is needed to better understand these issues and which ideas represent best practices going forward. Practical implications-A next generation approach to corporate citizenship requires more than top down advocacy-this needs to be backed up by Board oversight and engagement and by layered management structures, systems, processes, and policies that make citizenship part of every employee's remit, across the company's value chain. Originality/value-The paper provides a unique set of frameworks to assess company performance in relation to governing and managing corporate citizenship. It provides much needed data from companies across a number of industries to prompt further discussion on next generation corporate citizenship, where responsible business practices are woven into the corporate DNA.

Editorial: Journal of Corporate Citizenship (65)

2017

The world of corporate citizenship is diverse and growing in scope and scale. Often still used interchangeably with corporate responsibility, corporate sustainability and other related concepts, the diversity of terminology in this wide field of inquiry and practice continues. For example, the world's largest oil and gas corporation Exxon-Mobil headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA publishes an annual Corporate Citizenship Report which in the words of the company's former Chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson “provides a view of how we work to help power the world's progress.” In comparison, the world's largest hotel company by revenue InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with its headquarters in Denham, Buckinghamshire, UK produces an annual Responsible Business Report, which includes a stated commitment “to ensuring a positive impact on the lives of all people that interact with IHG.” Other leading companies in different industries and cultural contexts publish reports un...

Corporate Citizenship: Toward an Extended Understanding of The Relationship Between Economic and Legal Citizenship

Journal of Economics Studies and Research, 2020

The concept of corporate citizenship has been growing progressively in the business field for decades. Our research has developed a structural equation model to examine the primary factors and their interactions that influence economically motivated administrators to observe legal citizenship as an essential element to exhibit an excellent social responsibility position in front of their stakeholders. The four-factor model of Corporate Citizenship (CC) proposed by Maignan, Ferrell and Hult, (1999) has been validated, supporting that profit-oriented managers should obey the country's legal system to create social acceptance. This study scrutinizes the influence of economic citizenship on legal citizenship utilizing ethical and discretionary citizenship as a mediator. The results demonstrate the direct and indirect positive effect of economic citizenship on legal citizenship. Structural model and regression-based approach by SPSS and PROCESS were used to analyze the mediation effect. Empirical testing using a survey of 319 college students in the area of International Business confirms the effects of the included hypotheses. This study discusses theoretical and managerial implications of its findings.

Sector-based corporate citizenship

This paper approaches the much debated issue of corporate citizenship (CC). Many models depict the development process of CC, yet attempts to find one extensive definition remain in progress. We argue that more than one type of citizenship may be needed to fully describe the concept. So far, social factors have dominated the definitions of CC discussion, but citizenship functions can also be found in other areas. In fact, for maximum benefit, the type of citizenship should be tied to the sector and business field of the corporation in question. Using data drawn from three multinational corporations headquartered in Finland, we introduce three different types of corporate citizenship that are in line with their core business ideas: Cultural citizenship, environmental citizenship and technological citizenship. These new types of citizenships can help to grasp the complexity of business responsibility and ethics, and offer tools to gaining competitive advantage by differentiation.