and holistic perspectives on corporate sustainability*

The stock market convulsions and corporate scandals of 2001 and 2002 have re-ignited debates on the purposes of the corporation, in particular, the goal of shareholder value maximization. We revisit the debates, reexamine the traditional rationales, and develop a set of new arguments for why the preferred objective function for the corporation must unambiguously continue to be the one that says ‘maximize shareholder value. ’ We trace the origins of the debates from the late nineteenth century, their implications for accepted law and practice of corporate governance in the United States, and their reflection in shareholder versus stakeholder views in the organization studies literature and contractarian versus communitarian views in the legal literature. We address in detail possible critiques of the shareholder value maximization view. While we recognize certain boundary constraints to our arguments, we conclude that the issues raised by such critiques and constraints are not unique to the shareholder value maximization view, but will exist even if the firm is managed on behalf of non-shareowning stakeholders. We are grateful for comments from the journal reviewers, and from Michael Bradley, Anthony Frost, Vijay

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ABSTRACT: The research interest in the field of stakeholder identification, analysis and salience is growing. Stakeholder theories are being proposed and experts in the field are debating over the acceptability of these theories. Starting from the classic stakeholder literature, the paper explores different theories, applications and dynamics of stakeholders available in the literature. The paper concludes that the system dynamics methodology can contribute to understanding the dynamics of stakeholders.

This paper explores the conditions that foster a positive relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance by developing a model of corporate social strategy. The paper defines corporate social strategy and elaborates a typology of generic social strategies extant in the literature: differentiation, cost leadership, and strategic interaction. It then develops a framework for formulating social strategy by exploring the relationship of industry structure, firm resources, corporate values and ideology, and stakeholders to the generic strategies in order to create competitive advantages that are valuable, rare and imperfectly imitable. Key words: corporate social responsibility, strategy formulation, resource-based view TOWARD A MODEL OF CORPORATE SOCIAL STRATEGY FORMULATION One of the great preoccupations of the social issues in management literature has been the study of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its variants (corporate social responsiveness, corporate citizenship, etc.) and financial performance (Waddock & Graves, 1997; Griffin & Mahon, 1997; Preston & O’Bannon,

This paper suggests that due to the changing nature of the firm, viewing shareholders as the sole residual claimants is an increasingly tenuous description of the actual relationships among a corporation’s various stakeholders. Thus, a shareholder wealth perspective is increasingly unsatisfactory for accurately answering the two fundamental questions concerning the theory of the firm: that of economic value creation, and the distribution of this economic value. Examining the corporation from a (team production) property rights perspective of incomplete contracting and implicit contracting provides a foundation for the revitalization of a stakeholder theory of the firm in the strategic management discipline.

Institutional investors are becoming more concerned with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards of companies in which they invest. For these investors companylevel ESG factors represent future risk when they hold their investments over a long period of time. Given the long-term nature of their portfolios, these investors engage with companies to raise these standards. This paper argues that corporate engagement has the potential to produce a positive change in company behaviour. It asks what leads to successful outcomes in engagement? We seek to quantify any observed positive change in corporate ESG standards that result from engagement. The paper extends the literature on stakeholder engagement. We use three case studies of engagements between institutional investors and companies in Canada over the past five years. We examine the outcomes of each engagement from the perspectives of the investor. We also consider the short term impacts and long term changes in corporate behaviour that resulted from engagement. Key Words: corporate engagement, shareholder engagement, stakeholder theory, environmental, social and governance ESG standards. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank our three case studies Canada Pension Plan

1 Who or What Really Counts in a Firm’s Stakeholder Environment:

Abstract. A quick look at what is happening in the corporate world makes it clear that the stakeholder idea is alive, well, and flourishing; and the question now is not "if " but "how " stakeholdertheory will meet the challenges of its success. Does stakeholder theory's "arrival " mean continued dynamism, refinement, and relevance, or stasis? How will superior stakeholdertheory continue to develop? In light of these and related questions, the authors of these essays conducted an ongoing dialogue on the current state and future of stakeholder thinking. Beginning with a review of research and theory that has developed since the major stakeholder theorizing efforts ofthe 1990s, the authors individually offer their perspectives on the key issues relevant today to stakeholder thinking, and to suggest possible approaches that might lead toward and enable the continuing development of superior stakeholder theory. Editor's note: The 2007 national meeting of the Academy of Management, held in Philadelphia, featured an "All-Academy " symposium on the future of stakeholder theorizing in business. In order to make the varying perspectives represented in that symposium available to a larger audience, the symposium participants have provided these short, thought-provoking essays, which Business Ethics Quarterly offers as a dialogue on the current and future state of stakeholder perspectives. Symposium organizer Bradley Agle and Ronald Mitchell provide an introduction to the issues and perspectives under consideration. These comments are followed by essays by

Abstract: A heightened interest in the concept of corporate social responsibility has arisen in Australia. This has occurred within the context of tax incentives for companies to form partnerships with communities and the leaders of Australian companies acknowledging their firms must take a responsible approach in their business activities. There is public dissatisfaction with corporate Australia over incidents of environmental degradation, perceived corporate greed, the impact from recent collapse of major companies, as well as bad experiences from the 1980s boom and bust period. The New Economy also requires organisational change, including that companies become more accountable for their impact on society. This paper is part of a research project whose purpose is to identify the processes involved to embed corporate social responsibility within the core values and strategies of large, Australian publicly-listed companies for maintaining their competitive advantage. The paper discusses findings from an investigation of literature on corporate strategy, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in order to identify dynamic processes that enhance the integration of social responsibility within corporate values and strategies. This review concludes that there is limited evidence to adequately explain the structure, conditions and other mechanisms involved in this event, particularly within corporate Australia. It points to the achievement of social responsibility through corporate strategy to be a matter of corporate governance.