IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v112y2020icp521-530.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the business logic behind CSR certifications

Author

Listed:
  • Dahlin, Peter
  • Ekman, Peter
  • Röndell, Jimmie
  • Pesämaa, Ossi

Abstract

Research shows that CSR certification motives span from being symbolic to substantive. Prior studies have mainly focused on the differences between firms that hold and do not hold CSR certificates. This study explores if the extent of CSR certification is related to different business logic amongst firms who hold CSR certificates. The study utilizes full sample data from the Swedish commercial real estate industry to analyze the variance in motives and performance among firms with CSR certificates. The results indicate that firms that have a substantive CSR commitment have a business logic that entails a holistic and long-term perspective on both financial and CSR performance. However, substantive CSR commitment comes with greater staffing costs and lower financial returns as opposed to those of firms that obtain CSR certificates based on symbolic motives.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahlin, Peter & Ekman, Peter & Röndell, Jimmie & Pesämaa, Ossi, 2020. "Exploring the business logic behind CSR certifications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 521-530.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:112:y:2020:i:c:p:521-530
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.046
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296319307210
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.046?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nancy E. Landrum & Brian Ohsowski, 2018. "Identifying Worldviews on Corporate Sustainability: A Content Analysis of Corporate Sustainability Reports," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 128-151, January.
    2. Menguc, Bulent & Ozanne, Lucie K., 2005. "Challenges of the "green imperative": a natural resource-based approach to the environmental orientation-business performance relationship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 430-438, April.
    3. Gergely Nyilasy & Harsha Gangadharbatla & Angela Paladino, 2014. "Perceived Greenwashing: The Interactive Effects of Green Advertising and Corporate Environmental Performance on Consumer Reactions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(4), pages 693-707, December.
    4. Kent Walker & Fang Wan, 2012. "The Harm of Symbolic Actions and Green-Washing: Corporate Actions and Communications on Environmental Performance and Their Financial Implications," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 109(2), pages 227-242, August.
    5. Stuart L. Hart & Gautam Ahuja, 1996. "Does It Pay To Be Green? An Empirical Examination Of The Relationship Between Emission Reduction And Firm Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 30-37, March.
    6. E. R. Osagie & R. Wesselink & V. Blok & T. Lans & M. Mulder, 2016. "Individual Competencies for Corporate Social Responsibility: A Literature and Practice Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 233-252, May.
    7. Stephen L. Vargo & Robert F. Lusch, 2016. "Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-dominant logic," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 5-23, January.
    8. Julian M Birkinshaw & Allen J Morrison, 1995. "Configurations of Strategy and Structure in Subsidiaries of Multinational Structure," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 26(4), pages 729-753, December.
    9. Gebauer, Heiko & Fleisch, Elgar & Friedli, Thomas, 2005. "Overcoming the Service Paradox in Manufacturing Companies," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 14-26, February.
    10. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808, Decembrie.
    11. Kai Hockerts, 2015. "A Cognitive Perspective on the Business Case for Corporate Sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 102-122, February.
    12. Shaun Bond & Avis Devine, 2016. "Certification Matters: Is Green Talk Cheap Talk?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 117-140, February.
    13. Pavlos Vlachos & Nikolaos Panagopoulos & Adam Rapp, 2013. "Feeling Good by Doing Good: Employee CSR-Induced Attributions, Job Satisfaction, and the Role of Charismatic Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 577-588, December.
    14. Piet Eichholtz & Nils Kok & John M. Quigley, 2010. "Doing Well by Doing Good? Green Office Buildings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2492-2509, December.
    15. Filippo Vitolla & Nicola Raimo & Michele Rubino, 2019. "Appreciations, criticisms, determinants, and effects of integrated reporting: A systematic literature review," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 518-528, March.
    16. Laura Schons & Maria Steinmeier, 2016. "Walk the Talk? How Symbolic and Substantive CSR Actions Affect Firm Performance Depending on Stakeholder Proximity," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(6), pages 358-372, November.
    17. Jeffrey Gauthier & Bill Wooldridge, 2012. "Influences on Sustainable Innovation Adoption: Evidence from Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 98-110, February.
    18. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4687 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Zuo, Jian & Zhao, Zhen-Yu, 2014. "Green building research–current status and future agenda: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 271-281.
    20. Ko, Eunju & Hwang, Yoo Kyung & Kim, Eun Young, 2013. "Green marketing' functions in building corporate image in the retail setting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 1709-1715.
    21. William G. Hardin & Kartono Liano & Kam C. Chan, 2006. "Influential Journals, Institutions and Researchers in Real Estate," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 34(3), pages 457-478, September.
    22. Marvin B. Lieberman & Roberto Garcia‐Castro & Natarajan Balasubramanian, 2017. "Measuring value creation and appropriation in firms: The VCA model," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(6), pages 1193-1211, June.
    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. Zhimin Zhou & Yucheng Wang & Yaqin Zheng & Shixiong Liu, 2023. "Effects of brand community social responsibility: roles of collective self-esteem and altruism," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 30(4), pages 347-366, July.
    2. Xue, Fei & Chen, Qinyuan & Chan, Kam C. & Yi, Zhihong, 2022. "Is corporate social responsibility value relevant? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of anti-corruption campaign," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 520-532.
    3. Cheng, Louis T.W. & Sharma, Piyush & Shen, Jianfu & Ng, Allen C.C., 2021. "Exploring the dark side of third-party certification effect in B2B relationships: A professional financial services perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 123-136.
    4. Anna Jakubczak & Małgorzata Gotowska & Anna Andrzejewska & Aleksandra Tomasiewicz, 2022. "The Use of Team Management Methods to Design Socially Responsible Services—A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    5. Michael Greiner & Jing Sun, 2021. "How corporate social responsibility can incentivize top managers: A commitment to sustainability as an agency intervention," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(4), pages 1360-1375, July.
    6. Ucar, Erdem & Staer, Arsenio, 2020. "Local corruption and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 266-282.
    7. Dongsoo Kim & Jongseon Lee & Nami Kim, 2023. "Engaging CSR in SMEs by exporting: The critical factors of CEOs and markets," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 1953-1964, July.

    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. Wei Li & Weining Li & Veikko Seppänen & Timo Koivumäki, 2023. "Effects of greenwashing on financial performance: Moderation through local environmental regulation and media coverage," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 820-841, January.
    2. Francesco Testa & Ivan Miroshnychenko & Roberto Barontini & Marco Frey, 2018. "Does it pay to be a greenwasher or a brownwasher?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1104-1116, November.
    3. Wei Li & Weining Li & Veikko Seppänen & Timo Koivumäki, 2022. "How and when does perceived greenwashing affect employees' job performance? Evidence from China," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1722-1735, September.
    4. Joern Hoppmann & Alice Sakhel & Marcel Richert, 2018. "With a little help from a stranger: The impact of external change agents on corporate sustainability investments," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1052-1066, November.
    5. Wójcik Piotr, 2018. "The business case for corporate social responsibility: A literature overview and integrative framework," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 26(1), pages 121-148, March.
    6. Wei Li & Yuan Lu & Weining Li, 2019. "Does CSR Action Provide Insurance-Like Protection to Tax-Avoiding Firms? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-19, September.
    7. Jiajia Zhang & Jin Sun, 2021. "Green Talk or Green Walk: Chinese Consumer Positive Word-of-Mouth to Corporate Environmental Actions in Polluting Industries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, May.
    8. Wei Qian & Carol Tilt & Dinithi Dissanayake & Sanjaya Kuruppu, 2020. "Motivations and impacts of sustainability reporting in the Indo‐Pacific region: Normative and instrumental stakeholder approaches," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3370-3384, December.
    9. Pengyu Chen & Abd Alwahed Dagestani, 2023. "Greenwashing behavior and firm value – From the perspective of board characteristics," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 2330-2343, September.
    10. Markus Hang & Jerome Geyer‐Klingeberg & Andreas W. Rathgeber, 2019. "It is merely a matter of time: A meta‐analysis of the causality between environmental performance and financial performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 257-273, February.
    11. Sania Khan & Wadi B. Alonazi & Azam Malik & Noor Raihani Zainol, 2023. "Does Corporate Social Responsibility Moderate the Nexus of Organizational Culture and Job Satisfaction?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, May.
    12. Bazlur RAHMAN, & Idris ALI, & Alexandru Mircea NEDELEA, 2017. "Greenwashing In Canadian Firms: An Assessment Of Environmental Claimsgreenwashing In Canadian Firms: An Assessment Of Environmental Claims," EcoForum, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Public Administration - Economy, Business Administration and Tourism Department., vol. 6(2), pages 1-8, july.
    13. Hidemichi Fujii & Kimbara Tatsuo, 2012. "Environmental Management Mechanisms in U.S. and Japanese Manufacturing Firms," International Journal of Business Administration, International Journal of Business Administration, Sciedu Press, vol. 3(6), pages 13-24, November.
    14. Stanley Kam Sing Wong, 2013. "Environmental Requirements, Knowledge Sharing and Green Innovation: Empirical Evidence from the Electronics Industry in China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 321-338, July.
    15. Green, Maxwell H. & Davies, Philip & Ng, Irene C.L., 2017. "Two strands of servitization: A thematic analysis of traditional and customer co-created servitization and future research directions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 40-53.
    16. Domenico Morrone & Rosamartina Schena & Danilo Conte & Candida Bussoli & Angeloantonio Russo, 2022. "Between saying and doing, in the end there is the cost of capital: Evidence from the energy sector," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 390-402, January.
    17. Mähönen Jukka, 2020. "Integrated Reporting and Sustainable Corporate Governance from European Perspective," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-40, July.
    18. Sayani Saha & Rahul B Hiremath & Sanjay Prasad & Bimlesh Kumar, 2021. "Barriers to Adoption of Commercial Green Buildings in India: A Review," Journal of Infrastructure Development, India Development Foundation, vol. 13(2), pages 107-128, December.
    19. Nazim Hussain, 2015. "Impact of Sustainability Performance on Financial Performance: An Empirical Study of Global Fortune (N100) Firms," Working Papers 1, Department of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
    20. Anette Hallin & Tina Karrbom‐Gustavsson & Peter Dobers, 2021. "Transition towards and of sustainability—Understanding sustainability as performative," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1948-1957, May.

    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:eee:jbrese:v:112:y:2020:i:c:p:521-530. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    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.