Drivers of corporate environmental and social responsibility practices : a comparison of two moderated mediation models

Čater, Tomaž (author), Čater, Barbara (author), Milić, Patricia (author), Žabkar, Vesna (author)

This paper adds to CSR, environmental management and strategy literature by examining motivating and enabling factors of corporate environmental and social responsibility practices. We develop and compare two moderated mediation models – one related to the environmental (Study 1) and the other to the social (Study 2) dimension of sustainability. Survey-based data collected from 236 companies in Study 1 and 219 companies in Study 2 along with data on firm financial health from an external source are used. In both models, the moral motives of “doing the right thing” have stronger effects on environmental/social responsibility strategy, which then acts as an important mediator for translating those motives into specific environmental/social practices. Moreover, financial health negatively moderates the strategy–practices relationship in the environmental model, while its moderation role is not significant in the social model, suggesting that sustainability practices are not necessarily limited to financially healthy firms. Our research casts fresh light on the (N)RBV and stakeholder theories, proposing their integration when discussing corporate environmental/social sustainability models.

• Language: English
• Keywords: enterprises, sustainable development, social responsibility, business strategy, sustainability, environment, strategy, motives, financial health
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: 17 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 159, art. 113652
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-144445
• UDC: 005.3
• ISSN on article: 0148-2963
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113652
• COBISS.SI-ID: 142449923
• Publication date in RUL: 22.02.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of business research
• Shortened title: J. bus. res.
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0148-2963
• COBISS.SI-ID: 25694208

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: podjetje, trajnostni razvoj, družbena odgovornost, poslovna strategija

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0128
• Name: Izzivi vključujočega in trajnostnega razvoja v prevladujoči paradigmi ekonomskih in poslovnih znanosti