We draw on a phenomenological model of institutional theory to explore how sub-national policies shape corporate board gender diversity of publicly traded firms. Using a sample of S&P 1500 firms in ...49 U.S. states from 2003 to 2014, we find that firms headquartered in states with progressive policies that protect women from discrimination and provide greater availability of emergency contraception and public funding for abortions have greater shares of women directors in their board of directors. Our findings hold after a series of robustness checks and offer implications for theory, policy, and practice.
•Uses phenomenological view of institutions to examine link between state-level gender policies and female board composition.•Availability of emergency contraception, public funding for abortions policies are fully supported.•Anti-gender discrimination policies in the workplace are marginally supported.•Timely contribution to institutional theory and research given lack of research on the non-monolithic nature of institutions.•Relevant research given stagnation of female board appointments and that the U.S. is unlikely to adopt board gender quotas.
The concept of managerial discretion provides a theoretical fulcrum for resolving the debate about whether chief executive officers (CEOs) have much influence over company outcomes. In this paper, we ...operationalize and further develop the construct of managerial discretion at the national level. In an empirical examination of 15 countries, we find that certain informal and formal national institutions—individualism, tolerance of uncertainty, cultural looseness, dispersed firm ownership, a common-law legal origin, and employer flexibility—are associated with the degree of managerial discretion available to CEOs of public firms in a country. In turn, we show that country-level managerial discretion is associated with how much impact CEOs have on the performance of their firms. We also find that discretion mediates the relationship between national institutions and CEO effects on firm performance. Finally, we discuss two inductively derived institutional themes: autonomy orientation and risk orientation.
How do civil society organizations (CSOs) use state‐backed supranational institutions to call multinational enterprises (MNEs) to account? There are few studies of precisely how CSOs—union and ...other—use institutional power in global value chain (GVC) governance or the impact of institutional change on actor behaviour. To address this gap, we assess the impact of changes in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on CSO engagement with MNEs, comparing complaints lodged by CSOs before and after the Guidelines were revised in June 2011 to accommodate the rise in global prominence of the human rights and business frame. In our analysis, we focus on how constitutive and institutional power plays out in GVC governance, with special attention to the impact of institutional change on actor behaviour. Our analysis reveals that this state‐backed mechanism provides CSOs with a structure through which to address human rights violations in some MNEs’ supply chains but also that, despite its high degree of reflexivity, ongoing design flaws limit its capacity to address the uneven distribution of power not only between CSOs and MNEs, but among CSOs themselves. In doing so, we draw attention to the need for further research on the dynamic multilevel interactions between the configuration and adjustment of supranational institutions and how these mediate CSO and MNE interactions.
While many multinationals reduce their ecological footprint and signal corporate social responsibility (CSR), consumers’ perceptions of CSR signals have distinct cross-national effects on behavior. ...However, knowledge of how national institutions influence these effects remains limited. The authors address this gap by analyzing the roles of institutions in perceived CSR effects on consumer purchase intention, via trust and quality, in 43 countries using multilevel modeling. They find a core pathway of CSR among the direct and indirect effects. Importantly, they show for the first time how economic, regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions affect these pathways differently. Key levers are revealed, together with less important institutions. These findings have direct implications for managers and stakeholders interested in cross-national differences in CSR effects.
•Direct and indirect effects of perceived CSR across nations are highlighted.•Core pathway via trust to consumers’ purchase intention across nations exists.•Importantly, initial examination of country-specific institutions as moderators for CSR effects.•MSEM shows relative importance of country differences for CSR effects.
The alignment among multiple stakeholder benefits is a valuable performance indicator for the benefits generated by a firm for various stakeholders. Our research seeks to augment stakeholder-agency ...theory with an institutional perspective to analyze how national institutions affect stakeholder benefit alignment. We suggest that the current development of stakeholder-agency theory has overlooked the alignment of different stakeholders’ benefits and the external institutional contexts as critical determinants in ensuring such alignment. We conceptualize stakeholder benefit alignment as a positive relationship between different stakeholder groups’ benefits, and propose an institutional framework grounded in relative stakeholder salience. Using this framework, we argue that stakeholder benefits are better aligned when national institutions enhance the ease of withdrawal, legal protection, and private enforcement for intrinsically less salient stakeholders, and when a long-term oriented culture characterizes a society. We found supportive evidence by employing a meta-analytic approach based on 530 correlations from 94 primary studies representing 23 economies. Our study adds new insights to the stakeholder-agency literature by conceptualizing and quantitatively examining the degree of alignment across different stakeholder benefit dimensions, focusing on national formal and informal institutions as boundary conditions.
This paper examines the institutionalisation of corporate social responsibility reporting among listed companies in Pakistan. First, we identify the influence of industry type; regulatory pressures; ...the presence of CSR promoting institutions; business size; and, ownership on the extent of CSR reporting. Second, we explore the managerial perceptions on CSR reporting. In so doing, the paper extends the existing literature on the debate over accountability, regulation, international standards, sustainability and the influence or otherwise of other stakeholders by exploring organisational and external institutional drivers of CSR reporting in developing countries. The quantitative content analysis of annual reports from 29 listed companies across a range of industries is used to identify the nature and scope of CSR reporting. Four annual reports from each company (2001, 2006, 2011 & 2017 – five-yearly intervals) were selected as the reporting horizon. The content analysis demonstrated considerable growth in CSR reporting, potentially enabled by various organisational and institutional factors. To explore the perceptions, motivation, and authenticity of these reports, on-site interviews with 15 managers are then conducted. The interviews highlight that public image and company recognition are the primary motivation for CSR reporting, rather than the pursuit of improved tangible outcomes. We discuss the contributions to research of institutional theory on CSR reporting and pose recommendations to both managers and regulators.
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•A sample of Pakistani listed companies shows that institutional environment affects corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting.•Our results portray a significant increase in CSR reporting over the timeframe studied.•We find a strongly significant impact of regulatory influences and promoting institutions on such CSR reporting.•No significant relationship of explanatory variables including hazardous industries; MNC’s subsidiaries; and, size exists with CSR reporting.•The qualitative analysis of CSR reporting highlights issues related to reporting quality, and lack of experience, among other challenges.
Corporate reputation is becoming more important to managers and scholars around the world. However, little is known about how much or why reputation differs across countries. We use institutional ...theory to fill this gap. We focus on institutional development, reflecting the expansion of formal institutions, and national culture, an important informal institution. We find that reputation is negatively related to institutional development and masculinity and positively related to power distance in a sample of 401 corporations from 25 countries. We recommend that institutional theory complement signaling theory in cross-national studies of corporate reputation.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) footprints in terms of relevant policies, plans and programs are evident at a global scale, but the level of national uptake and penetration differs, as ...countries differ considerably in terms of institutional efficiency. With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between CSR penetration and institutional conditions that shape and define the macroeconomic environment and development dynamics of countries. Building on Campbell's seminal propositions on institutional parameters that facilitate effective CSR management, the study's results lend partial support to his conceptual framework as it was operationalized in our assessment. Civic engagement, regulatory effectiveness and competitive conditions appear to be very significant factors influencing CSR penetration with macroeconomic conditions and industrial self-regulation to play a less significant role on national CSR penetration. These findings provide fertile ground to theorists and researchers for a deeper investigation of the impact of institutional arrangements that define the national specificity of CSR and act as moderators of responsible business behavior.
•We utilize data indicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) penetration among 86 countries.•The relationship between CSR penetration and national institutional conditions is investigated.•Findings lend partial support to the link between CSR and institutional of countries.•Implications for practitioners, decision-makers and researchers are set forth.
Abstract
As the COVID‐19 outbreak forced many organizations to shift to work from home (WFH) arrangements, many are now considering whether to continue these arrangements post‐pandemic. To make ...informed decisions, understanding the environmental factors that influence employees' capacity to WFH effectively is crucial. This study contributes to this understanding by drawing on neo‐institutional theory to develop a model that characterizes how employees' WFH outcomes are shaped by their national institutional environment. The model was tested using data from multiple national‐level sources and individual‐level data obtained via a survey. The findings reveal that employees from high competency (cognitive institutions), meritocratic (normative institutions), and more labor‐regulated (regulatory institutions) contexts demonstrate higher levels of perceived productivity and satisfaction with WFH. Moreover, the link between the institutional context and WFH effectiveness is more pronounced when employees' capacity to adjust to WFH is high. Theoretical and practical implementations for organizations, especially multinational ones, are being discussed.
Research into the link between national institutions and entrepreneurship is characterized by three shortcomings: First, clear-cut concepts of institutions are rare. Second, a parsimonious ...understanding of how a few core institutions influence entrepreneurship is missing. Third, scholars often ignore that incrementally innovative ventures constitute a distinct (and under-researched) type of entrepreneurship next to the (over-researched) form of radically innovative, high-growth or high-tech entrepreneurship. By addressing these three shortcomings, the Varieties-of-Capitalism (VoC) literature can explain how a core group of distinct national institutions facilitate the development of different types of entrepreneurship between countries. In particular, the VoC framework illustrates the comparative institutional advantage that continental European economies offer to incrementally innovative ventures. Applications of the VoC reasoning to entrepreneurship studies would thus allow researchers to, first, perform focused rather than eclectic analyses of institutional influences on entrepreneurship. Second, it would pave the way for research into institutionally induced equifinality. Third, entrepreneurship research could move away from its wishful ideology displaying radically innovative entrepreneurship as the most desirable form of entrepreneurship. As a consequence, policymakers could target entrepreneurial support measures more specifically to their economy’s institutional environment.
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