In light of the growing complexity of globally dispersed, multi-tier supply chains; sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has become instrumental in the quest for achieving sustainability ...compliance along the supply chain. This study investigates how sustainability capability develops within a firm, and then extends to SSCM. Using a fixed-effect model and a global dataset of 2206 firms between 2002 and 2015, this study shows that a firm's information environment, proxied by their customers awareness, has a significantly positive effect on their sustainability performance, and on their implementation of SSCM. Our analysis suggests that the influence of a firm's information environment on a firm's SSCM performance is mediated by the firm's own sustainability capability. We also find that this relationship is affected by stakeholder engagement. This research is relevant because, by investigating the factors that influence the development of SSCM, it provides guidance for firms that wish to achieve sustainability improvements in their supply chains during an era when the natural environment, social responsibility and the related strategic opportunities have increased in importance.
ABSTRACT
How can corporations develop legitimacy when coping with stakeholders who have multiple, often conflicting sustainable development (SD) agendas? We address this question by conducting an ...in‐depth longitudinal case study of a corporation's stakeholder engagement in social media and propose the concept of a networked legitimacy strategy. With this strategy, legitimacy is gained through participation in non‐hierarchical open platforms and the co‐construction of agendas. We explore the organizational transition needed to yield this new legitimacy approach. We argue that, in this context, legitimacy gains may increase when firms are able to reduce the control over the engagements and relate non‐hierarchically with their publics. We contribute to the extant literature on political corporate social responsibility and legitimacy by providing an understanding of a new context for engagement that reconfigures cultural, network, and power relations between the firm and their stakeholders in ways that challenge previous forms of legitimation.
•A theoretical framework of restaurants’ environmental sustainability was proposed.•Top managers’ environmental values influenced restaurants’ environmental commitment.•Top managers’ leadership ...influenced restaurants’ environmental commitment.•Stakeholder engagement strongly influenced restaurants’ environmental commitment.•Restaurants’ environmental performance influenced (non)financial performance.
This study examines the role of top managers’ values and leadership in advancing environmental sustainability. It also investigates the effects of stakeholder engagement on restaurants’ environmental sustainability and assesses the impact of related practices on restaurant performance. A web-based survey was administered to collect data from top-level restaurant managers in the United States. The sample was selected from panels recruited by a research company specializing in panel surveys. Invitation emails were sent to 2500 managers and 240 responses were returned, 218 of which were retained for final analysis (response rate: 8.7%). Structural equation modeling was used for testing hypothetical relationships among key constructs in the proposed research model: environmental values, leadership, stakeholder engagement, environmental sustainability, and restaurant performance. Findings confirmed the significant role of top management values and leadership in advancing environmental commitment. The results also demonstrated the strong impact of stakeholder engagement on restaurants’ commitment to environmental sustainability. Finally, they indicated the positive influence of restaurants’ environmental sustainability performance on both financial and nonfinancial performance. The study presents a theoretical framework, integrating theories or models from extant literature, and contributes to an enhanced understanding of restaurants’ environmental sustainability. The findings suggest several practical implications for managers in the restaurant industry.
The latest evidence suggests that multi-hazards and their interrelationships (e.g., triggering, compound, and consecutive hazards) are becoming more frequent across Europe, underlying a need for ...resilience building by moving from single-hazard-focused to multi-hazard risk assessment and management. Although significant advancements were made in our understanding of these events, mainstream practice is still focused on risks due to single hazards (e.g., flooding, earthquakes, droughts), with a limited understanding of the stakeholder needs on the ground. To overcome this limitation, this paper sets out to understand the challenges for moving towards multi-hazard risk management through the perspective of European stakeholders. Based on five workshops across different European pilots (Danube Region, Veneto Region, Scandinavia, North Sea, and Canary Islands) and an expert workshop, we identify five prime challenges: i) governance, ii) knowledge of multi-hazards and multi-risks, iii) existing approaches to disaster risk management, iv) translation of science to policy and practice, and v) lack of data. These challenges are inherently linked and cannot be tackled in isolation with path dependency posing a significant hurdle in transitioning from single- to multi-hazard risk management. Going forward, we identify promising approaches for overcoming some of the challenges, including emerging approaches for multi-hazard characterisation, a common understanding of terminology, and a comprehensive framework for guiding multi-hazard risk assessment and management. We argue for a need to think beyond natural hazards and include other threats in creating a comprehensive overview of multi-hazard risks, as well as promoting thinking of multi-hazard risk reduction in the context of larger development goals.
•We identify 5 core challenges for multi-hazard risk assessment and management in Europe.•Governance and knowledge of multi-hazard risk pose the greatest challenges.•Challenges in practices, science-to-policy, and data limit multi-hazard risk management.•We identify ways forward to ease the shift to multi-hazard risk management.
Firms often engage with their internal and external stakeholders to enrich their knowledge base and augment innovation. An important yet under-examined mechanism to tap into knowledge stakeholders ...can provide is corporate social and environmental behaviors (CSEB) that firms undertake. This study examines the impact of stakeholder engagement through CSEB on firm investment in innovation. Drawing arguments from the knowledge-based view (KBV), stakeholder theory, and the upper echelons perspective, we argue that undertaking higher levels of corporate social and environmental behaviors lead to better innovation outcomes through different pathways. We test our proposed model on a sample of Fortune 500 firms and find that while corporate social behaviors (CSB) have a direct positive effect on firms' subsequent R&D investments, the impact of corporate environmental behaviors (CEB) on innovation is conditioned by executive tenure. We contribute to innovation, CSB, and CEB literatures by clarifying different mechanisms through which CSB and CEB impact innovation.
Equity crowdfunding (ECF) has spread rapidly worldwide, however its use by university spin-offs (USOs) along with scholarly attention to it, is still extremely limited. In this qualitative study, we ...examine the views of founders of the few USOs that have used ECF in the Italian market and unveil their motivation for bypassing traditional funding models and the related benefits and risks. USOs have mixed motivations in pursuing ECF (testing the market, involving new people, overcoming limited public/private supports or funds, attractiveness to traditional investors, risky forecasts); at the same time there are significant benefits (crowd participation, strategic resources, legitimacy for the valorization/exploitation of research results and knowledge transfer mechanisms) and underlying risks (management of investors and their lack of scientific culture, data use, bureaucracy, uncertainty related to outputs/technologies). This study contributes to the literature on crowdfunding and USOs and has implications for the strategic decisions of founders, universities, policymakers, governments.
Degradation of freshwater ecosystems and the services they provide is a primary cause of increasing water insecurity, raising the need for integrated solutions to freshwater management. While methods ...for characterizing the multi-faceted challenges of managing freshwater ecosystems abound, they tend to emphasize either social or ecological dimensions and fall short of being truly integrative. This paper suggests that management for sustainability of freshwater systems needs to consider the linkages between human water uses, freshwater ecosystems and governance. We present a conceptualization of freshwater resources as part of an integrated social-ecological system and propose a set of corresponding indicators to monitor freshwater ecosystem health and to highlight priorities for management. We demonstrate an application of this new framework —the Freshwater Health Index (FHI) — in the Dongjiang River Basin in southern China, where stakeholders are addressing multiple and conflicting freshwater demands. By combining empirical and modeled datasets with surveys to gauge stakeholders' preferences and elicit expert information about governance mechanisms, the FHI helps stakeholders understand the status of freshwater ecosystems in their basin, how ecosystems are being manipulated to enhance or decrease water-related services, and how well the existing water resource management regime is equipped to govern these dynamics over time. This framework helps to operationalize a truly integrated approach to water resource management by recognizing the interplay between governance, stakeholders, freshwater ecosystems and the services they provide.
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•A social-ecological framework is developed to assess freshwater health.•The framework links ecological, hydrological, and social parameters.•A set of indicators, the Freshwater Health Index, guides quantitative assessments.•The Index can be used to monitor changes or compare modeled scenarios to a baseline.
Evidence for the importance of focusing on participation to promote health and wellbeing in childhood-onset disability exists, but practice is slow to change. This paper provides a knowledge ...translation roadmap to accelerate uptake of participation evidence into day-to-day practice.
A structured roadmap to guide knowledge translation initiatives for implementing participation-based practices in co-creation with service users was developed based on elements from: the Five-factorframework for predicting implementation outcomes, the Cultural Cone framework, and the Knowledge-to-Action model.
Guiding principles paired with examples of multi-component knowledge implementation strategies to facilitate readiness for change by stakeholders at the micro (e.g., client/family, service providers), meso (e.g., administrators within organisations such as rehabilitation centres, hospitals, schools) and macro (e.g., local and governmental policy, regulatory bodies) levels are introduced. Solution-based strategies are provided to facilitate "readiness to change" for each stakeholder group. The strategies are examples for successful implementation of evidence-based interventions/approaches that can be contextualized across settings.
The knowledge translation roadmap can assist children and families, service providers, administrators, and policymakers to bridge existing knowledge-to-practice gaps surrounding participation. Partnering and collaborating through a "family-clinician-manager-community leader-policymaker" synergy is key for achieving strategic practice change focussed on participation.
Implications for Rehabilitation
Sound evidence surrounding the topic of participation, including effective assessments and interventions, is available and ready for use.
Shifting towards participation-focused practices for children and youth with disabilities requires a systemic multi-level KT approach.
Our Participation-KT roadmap, comprised of a framework and a list of principles and strategies for implementation, can be used to guide all stakeholders to foster a shift in practice.
Forming partnerships and working collaboratively with all stakeholders is key for successful implementation.
Collaboration with stakeholders has become a cornerstone of contemporary business; however, absolute collaboration is not trouble-free. The present study explores how and why firms engage and ...disengage external stakeholders in their value-creating activities in complex product systems over time. From the existing research on stakeholder management, we know that actor roles, strategies, reasons and challenges of engaging external stakeholders in innovation and business activities vary across contexts. However, additional research is needed to construct a more comprehensive understanding of the practices as well as their rationales by which firms engage or disengage external stakeholders in complex product systems. Our empirical study of a European district development megaproject improves the current understanding of stakeholder management in complex product systems contexts. We derive nine practices and four rationales that timely describe the engagement and disengagement of external stakeholders. The study develops a processual model of stakeholder management in complex product systems with implications for both stakeholder management literature and managerial practice.
•Stakeholder engagement is ever more important in complex product systems.•We explore how and why firms engage and disengage stakeholders in complex product systems.•Findings unearth a processual and cyclical model of stakeholder management.•Stakeholder management practices vary in time between engagement and disengagement.•Rationales for stakeholder engagement and disengagement are bound to system lifecycle.
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