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Research Briefs

ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Corporate citizenship helps protect companies when things go wrong

Corporate citizenship not only has the potential to offset negative responses to a service failure, it can actually increase repurchase intentions, especially when the consumer is offered choices about how the company makes its social investments.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Environmental policy in companies: The role of board gender diversity

Firms with gender-diverse boards are more likely to have environmental policies that manage a greater number of environmental issues, especially when the firm operates in a highly polluting industry.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Communicating green product attributes

Companies marketing products with environmentally friendly attributes should communicate the importance of the green component to the overall product in order to maximize consumer perceptions of the product.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Gain buy-in from executives by focusing on the business case. Values? or Value?

When seeking buy-in from executives, corporate citizenship practitioners should emphasize the business benefits.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Creating the perfect message: How language determines consumer donation response

The nature of a cause marketing campaign message—concrete or abstract—has an impact on consumers’ response and their likelihood to donate money or time.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Financial ROI from corporate citizenship investments

Corporate citizenship investments focused on environmental performance, employee engagement, and customer/supplier issues strengthen firm financial performance.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

A market view of sustainability and diminishing resources

In one of his recent quarterly letters, Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist of the global investment management firm GMO, looks at the markets and the planet and offers both warning and encouragement for the future. Grantham warns a “desperate focus on growth” will lead to depletion and a global crash, but suggests the brain power exists to achieve planetary sustainability.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Motivation for volunteering in workplace different than in personal life

Researchers examining what motivates people to volunteer through their employer found employees have very different reasons to volunteer at work than in their personal lives. A study in the Journal of Business Ethics found that employee volunteers look for opportunities to help themselves and their employers while helping others.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Shared objectives unify diverse teams and drive team performance

Researchers studied management teams at 42 companies to examine whether differences in gender, tenure and functional backgrounds can form “fault lines” that harm organizational performance. They report in their article in Human Relations that strong shared objectives can overcome the potential fault lines of diverse teams and tap their potential strengths.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Companies repairing damage to reputation must understand how it was built

Researchers examined 35 earlier reputation studies to understand what factors affect the building and repairing of company reputations. Understanding the foundations of a reputation is critical to its successful restoration after a damaging event.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Consumers and employees come to understand corporate citizenship similarly but their responses differ

In a study of consumer and employee responses to corporate citizenship initiatives, researchers found that consumers and employees go through similar processes in understanding corporate citizenship and need to understand different aspects of the firm’s citizenship commitments. It also finds that employees often have a low awareness of a firm’s programs, making it difficult for the company to harness them as ambassadors for their companies’ efforts. As consumers learn about initiatives, the study finds, they tend to look for transparency about company motives.

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ResearchBrief_1483653945_144

Themes in social reporting consistent across industries

Researchers reviewed social reports from 100 companies and found consistent themes across industries. This study also identifies management of pressures to meet stakeholder demands as a common primary goal of producing reports.

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