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

The announcement of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ratings offers a good opportunity to assess the impact of CSR on financial markets. Using an event study methodology, we analyze the influence of Vigeo CSR rating announcements from 2004 to 2009 on short term European stock returns. The results show a positive significant effect of the announcement on the stock returns over two days prior and two days following. Thus, CSR provides an additional information (in respect to financial one) taken into account by markets, modifying investors beliefs and firms ’ valuation. We investigate the relation between the content of the announcement and the Abnormal Return (AR). The overall impact is positive. A limited number of CSR components explain the reaction that depends of the sign of the score (strength vs concern). Moreover, some components have a positive influence (Human rights), others have a negative (Environment, Human resources) or a mixed one (Community involvement). Our study shows that CSR really matters for financial markets and that the reaction is driven by disaggregated measures for corporate governance and varies according to the aggregation level for others topics.

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.

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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—The objective of this paper is to establish a possible relationship between sustainable business practice and firm performance. Using a field survey methodology, a sample of sixty manufacturing companies in Nigeria was studied. The firms were categorised into two groups, environmentally ‘responsible ’ and ‘irresponsible ’ firms. An investigation was undertaken into the possible relationship between firm performance and three selected indicators of sustainable business practice: employee health and safety (EHS), waste management (WM), and community development (CD), common within the 30 ‘responsible ’ firms. Findings from empirical results reveal that the sustainable practices of the ‘responsible ’ firms are significantly related with firm performance. In addition, sustainable practices are inversely related with fines and penalties. The paper concludes that, within the Nigerian setting at least, sustainability affects corporate performance and sustainability may be a possible tool for corporate conflict resolution as evidenced in the reduction of fines, penalties and compensations. The paper therefore recommends research into the relationship between sustainability and conflict management. Keywords—Environmental responsibility, environmental investment, social responsibility, sustainable business, social ethics, environmental ethics. I.

D/2004/7012/39 A strategic perspective on stakeholder management 2 The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an instrumental argumentation of stakeholder theory by discussing stakeholder theory from a strategic perspective. Our analysis does not use moral or ethical arguments in order to provide a purely instrumental rationale for stakeholder management. Such a rationale appears feasible, as companies are resource dependent on their stakeholders. This argument was articulated earlier in the stakeholder management literature, but it was deemed only appropriate for the so-called primary stakeholders. Secondary stakeholders deserve, in our opinion, instrumental managerial attention as well as a consequence of stakeholder dynamics and of cognitive limitations of managers. I.

in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of IME except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Center conference on corporate social responsibility and sustainable competitiveness in Russia held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington and via videoconference in Moscow and Philadelphia on December 6, 2002. While we thank all participants for lively discussions, we especially appreciate the stimulating conversations with the group in Washington, namely, James