One of the most investigated research topics in the corporate sustainability literature is “the” business case. Long lionized for linking the profit motive to corporate environmental initiatives, the business case for sustainability is now vehemently criticized. These critics generally argue...

This paper explains inconsistency in stakeholder punishment for firm misconduct. It does so by developing a cognitive view of the process by which stakeholders allocate their limited attention. This cognitive view outlines individual and situational factors that produce variation in a...

Building on Barnett's (2007) theoretical argument that a firm's ability to profit from social responsibility depends upon its stakeholder influence capacity (SIC), we bring together contrasting literatures on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been shown to provide insurance-like protection that buffers firms from losses when they are sued. But does CSR also buffer firms from being sued? We conduct a study of 408 U.S. firms over the period 2002 to 2011 and find that, indeed, firms with greater...

Thousands of scholars and hundreds of millions of dollars are devoted to the study of management. What has society gained from this significant and ongoing allocation of scarce talent and money? As many of our most senior scholars have noted, less than we would like. We can do better. Through an...

We measure the influence of reputation rankings on individuals' perceptions of firms. Through experimental design, we vary whether and how subjects are exposed to a reputation ranking alongside other information about a firm. We find that rankings influence perceptions when they are negative and...

Are financial and social performance negatively associated, positively associated, or are they simply unrelated? Common sense, theory, and a growing body of empirics have supported all of the above contradictory positions. Despite the importance of this body of research and the intensity of...

We extend theories of self-regulation of physical commons to analyze self-regulation of intangible commons in modern industry. We posit that when the action of one firm can cause spillover harm to others, firms share a type of commons. We theorize that the need to protect this commons can...

Real options reasoning assumes timely and effective managerial decision-making yet does not address managers' ability to provide it. An attention-based view describes managerial behavior under varying structural conditions. I examine real options reasoning from an attention-based view. I develop...

This paper primarily focuses on Entine's assertion that SRI research is hopelessly flawed. Although SRI researchers have primarily chosen to pluck the low-hanging fruit in this line of inquiry, it is possible to obtain unbiased higher level insight. SRI research best functions as a means of...