abstract While smaller firms are less likely to undertake as many environmental practices as larger firms, extant literature suggests that smaller firms may be more responsive to stakeholder pressures. This paper contributes to the development of stakeholder theory by deriving a size moderated stakeholder model and applying it to a firm's adoption of proactive environmental practices. The empirical results show that smaller firms are more responsive to value‐chain, internal, and regulatory stakeholder pressures. These findings suggest that researchers evaluating organizations and the natural environment should be cautious about associating stakeholder pressures directly with firms' environmental strategies. Rather, the relationship between stakeholder pressures and environmental strategy tends to vary with size.

Claude d'Aspremont and Alexis Jacquemin (1988) employ a simple yet elegant symmetric duopoly model of R&D and spillovers to compare several equilibrium concepts. These concepts include (1) the two-stage noncooperative solution, (2) the two-stage mixed game,' (3) the two-stage fully cooperative solution,2 and (4) the social planner's optimum.3 For each of the cases stated above, they computed the equilibrium levels of output (Q=q1+q2) and R&D (xl=x2=x) and the required second-order conditions. They report (i) for large spillovers (i.e., /B > 0.5) x** > > x' > x* and Q**> Q> Q*> Q and (ii) for small spillovers (i.e., /3 x 2x*>x and Q**>Q*>Q>Q, where x denotes a firm's R&D level, Q denotes total industry output, ** denotes the social optimum, denotes the fully cooperative model, * the noncooperative two-stage case, and the mixed game. /3 is the spillover parameter. Here we show that comparing the pure cooperative and the pure noncooperative solutions as defined by d'Aspremont and Jacquemin is only meaningful when the noncooperative solution is stable, that is, when spillovers are not too small. We find that, for very small spillovers (in our example this occurs when 3 < 0.17), the d'Aspremont-Jacquemin observation holds because the noncooperative model is unstable. The importance of this result rests on the fact that even though the output reaction functions cross correctly when /3 < 0.17, the R&D reaction functions do not. When 0.17 < / < 0.41, stability obtains but R&D levels are higher in the noncooperative case than the fully cooperative one. For large spillovers the d'Aspremont-Jacquemin result is confirmed. Moreover, we find that the introduction of spillovers in the case of the noncooperative model tends to promote stability. In the case of the cooperative model, however, as the level of spillovers is increased, an equilibrium ceases to exist.

Are corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives providing the societal good that they promise? After decades of CSR studies, we do not have an answer. In this review, we analyze progression of the CSR literature toward assessing the performance of CSR initiatives, identify factors that have limited the literature’s progress, and suggest a new approach to the study of CSR that can overcome these limits. We begin with comprehensive bibliometric mapping illustrating that although social impact has infrequently been its explicit focus, the CSR literature has measured outcomes other than firm performance, especially in the current decade. Thereafter, we conduct a more fine-grained analysis of recent CSR studies. Adapting a logic model framework, we show that even the most highly cited studies have stopped short of assessing social impact, often measuring CSR activities rather than impacts and focusing on benefits to specific stakeholders rather than to wider society. In combination, our analyses suggest that assessment of the performance of CSR initiatives has been driven by the availability of large, public secondary data sources. However, creating more such databases and turning to “big data” analyses are inadequate solutions. Drawing from the impact evaluation literature of development economics, we argue that the CSR field should reconceive itself as a science of design in which researchers formulate CSR initiatives that seek to achieve specific social and environmental objectives. In accordance with this pursuit, CSR researchers should move toward “small data” research designs, which will enable studies to better determine causation rather than just identify correlation.

Abstract We examined how managers' perceptions of different types of stakeholder influences in the Canadian forestry industry affect the types of sustainability practices that their firms adopt. Both influences involving withholding of resources by social and ecological stakeholders and those involving directed usage of resources from economic stakeholders were found to drive such practices. We found that the industry and its stakeholders have moved beyond a focus on early stages of sustainability performance such as pollution control and eco‐efficiency. However, more advanced practices, such as those involving the redefinition of business and industrial ecosystems where firms locate in a region so that they can exchange and utilize wastes generated by other firms, are in their infancy. Stakeholders and firms in the industry are focused on the intermediate sustainability phases involving recirculation of materials and redesign of processes including sustainable harvesting of lumber. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Do firms committed to stewardship of the natural environment differ from less environmentally committed firms in their perceptions of the relative importance of different stakeholders in influencing their environmental practices? Using cluster analysis on six responses to questions describing a firm's practices, we classified 400 firms into four environmental profiles: reactive, defensive, accommodative, and proactive. Results indicate that firms with more proactive profiles do differ from less environmentally committed firms in their perceptions of the relative importance of different stakeholders.