33 research outputs found
Microsoft Word - Rieneke Slager - oikos PRI paper Slager final
No full textAbstract While the relationship between financial performance and social performance of companies has received a lot of attention within the Social Responsible Investment (SRI) literature, the link between the metrics used to measure social performance and the impact these metrics have on corporate behaviour remains relatively unexplored. This paper uses concepts developed in institutional theory and economic sociology to explain the role of metrics such as the FTSE4Good Indices within the field of Social Responsible Investment. A conceptual framework that articulates the environmental, relational and cognitive mechanisms whereby indices change corporate behaviour is developed
sj-pdf-1-hum-10.1177_00187267231174700 – Supplemental material for Mirroring and switching authoritative personae: A ventriloquial analysis of shareholder engagement on carbon emissions
No full textSupplemental material, sj-pdf-1-hum-10.1177_00187267231174700 for Mirroring and switching authoritative personae: A ventriloquial analysis of shareholder engagement on carbon emissions by Rieneke Slager, Jean-Pascal Gond and Emma Sjöström in Human Relations</p
One Size Fits All? A Configurational Study of Collective Shareholder Engagement on ESG Issues
No full textAlthough institutional investors working collectively have increasing potential to influence corporations’ behaviour towards Environmental Social Governance (ESG) issues through shareholder activism practices such as collective engagement–i.e. direct dialogue and interactions with investee corporations organized by a coalition of investors–little is known about the conditions that underpin the effectiveness of collective engagement. Relying on unique archival data from the United-Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI) and multiple other sources of qualitative and quantitative data, we examine which combinations of factors makes companies responsive to collective engagement by a group of shareholders. We develop a neo-configurational perspective to explain the effectiveness of collective engagement based on configurations of investor coalition characteristics, engagement tactics and company characteristics. Using QCA, we contribute to current studies of shareholder activism, provide insights into responsible investing practices and establish the potential of the neo-configurational perspective for stakeholder saliency theor
Fit or Friction:The Role of Sustainability Centres in Integrating Sustainable Business Education
No full textOur Panel Symposium is designed to address the question of how these can contribute to integrating sustainable business education, specifically by investigating different forms of ‘fit’ they can achieve with their ‘home’ business schools, as well as the strategic and substantive value of ‘non-fit’ or ‘friction’ with their home schools. It is designed and facilitated by the authors of a forthcoming paper on this topic (Slager, Pouryousefi, Moon & Schoolman d.o.i. 2018) and features leaders of well-known sustainability centres, including Mette Morsing (CBS/Stockholm School of Economics); Andy Hoffman (Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan) and Vasanthi Srinivasan (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Therapeutic footprint: sustainable finance for gains in wealth and health
Get PDFNearly every novel medicine is brought to patients by commercial firms, owned in a significant part by institutional investors with broad beneficiary bases, such as pension funds. Savers- beneficiaries are therefore both owners-investors and patients-consumers. They are connected to the producing firms through a series of contractual agreements: an agreement between savers and their institutional investors - an investment policy - determines the savers’ capital allocation, among others, into the pharmaceutical firms; the contract between the institutional investors and the firms’ executives - a remuneration policy - determines the incentives and performance measures for drug development innovation. Commercial pharmaceutical research and development ought to create value for savers both financially (wealth gains) and clinically (health gains), yet only a small share of novel medicines represents a therapeutic advance over existing treatments. Can the contracts, such as investment and remuneration policies, be used to steer the direction of technological change and improve the aggregate welfare outcomes, including both wealth and health gains? The contracts that organise and steer modern capital-markets-funded drug development are currently being reshaped by the reforms in the organisation of the capital markets themselves. These reforms - sustainable finance regulations - aim to connect the value creation for investors with value creation for the society and the environment. The research on the environmental outcomes of sustainable finance is aided by a common methodology to account for climate impact - carbon footprinting. This thesis instead explores how sustainable finance affects society, specifically in the healthcare domain, and introduces a methodology to account for health impact - therapeutic footprinting
The politics of reactivity: Ambivalence in corporate responses to corporate social responsibility ratings
Get PDFOrganizational ratings exude anxiety and allure, but relatively little is known about how managers balance resisting and mobilizing ratings. We explore this duality with a qualitative study on managerial responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings. Based on interviews focused on CSR ratings with managers of 60 companies, we induce four responses to ratings: grumbling, contestation, cherry-picking and microstatactivism. We further show how managers combine resistance and mobilization in two ambivalent engagement modes. Our analysis contributes to the literature by developing a more nuanced theory of corporate responses to organizational ratings, which demonstrates the importance of ambivalence in managing institutional pressure
Carrot and stick?: the role of financial market intermediaries in corporate social performance
Get PDFhis article examines the role of intermediaries in financial markets in fostering corporate sustainability. Responsible investment (RI) indices have been primarily identified as intermediaries that provide information regarding corporate social performance (CSP) for investors and other stakeholders. The authors argue that the role of these intermediaries is not confined solely to information provision, but they may also incentivize high levels of CSP through mechanisms such as exclusion threats, signaling, and engagement. The authors rely on unique access to the archives of the FTSE4Good Index to examine the effects of these mechanisms on CSP. The study shows that companies facing exclusion threats and signaling are more likely to comply with the intermediary’s criteria, and medium levels of engagement leads to higher levels of CSP. The authors contribute to the study of sustainability in financial markets by explicating the mechanisms that intermediaries and other financial actors could employ to foster greater corporate sustainability
Sustainability centres and fit: how centres work to integrate sustainability within business schools
Get PDFFor nearly as long as the topic of sustainable business has been taught and researched in business schools, proponents have warned about barriers to genuine integration in business school practices. This article examines how academic sustainability centres try to overcome barriers to integration by achieving technical, cultural and political fit with their environment (Ansari, Fiss, & Zajac, 2010). Based on survey and interview data, we theorise that technical, cultural and political fit are intricately related, and that these interrelations involve legitimacy, resources and collaboration effects. Our findings about sustainability centres offer novel insights on integrating sustainable business education given the interrelated nature of different types of fit and misfit. We further contribute to the literature on fit by highlighting that incompatibility between strategies to achieve different types of fit may act as a source of dynamism
