Various corporate social activities were regressed on self-report measures of stakeholder-orientations from 220 CEOs from large Fortune 500 industrial and service firms. Overall, the relationship between who CEOs say is important and corporate activities toward those stakeholders is much weaker than anticipated. Of the expected relationships, only corporate philanthropy was positively related to CEO community orientation. The few other significant findings were less straightforward. Return on equity (ROE) of the company was related to the CEO's customer orientation rather than the CEO's stockholder orientation, and liberal HRM programs were positively associated with a CEO's stockholder orientation rather than employee orientation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abbott, W. F.
, & Monsen, R. J. (1979).On the measurement of corporate social responsibility: Self-reported disclosure as a method of measuring corporate social involvement. Academy of Management Journal, 22, 501-515.
2.
Aldrich, H. E.
(1979). Organizations and environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
3.
Allison, G. T.
(1971). The essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis. Boston: Little, Brown.
4.
Andrews, K. R.
(1971). The concept of corporate strategy. Homewood, IL: Dow Jones Irwin.
5.
Ansoff, H. I.
(1965). Corporate strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
6.
Ansoff, H. I.
(1984). Implanting strategic management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
7.
Aupperle, K. E.
(1984). An empirical measure of corporate social oientation. In L. Preston (Ed.), Research in corporate socialperformance andpolicy (pp. 27-54). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
8.
Aupperle, K. E.
, Carroll, A. B., & Hatfield, J. D. (1985). An empirical examination of the relationship between corporate social responsibility and profitability. Academy of Management Journal, 28,446-463.
9.
Barnard, C. I.
(1939). The functions of the executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
10.
Bourgeois, L. J.
(1984). Strategic management and determinism. Academy of Management Review, 9, 586-596.
11.
Bowen, H. R.
(1953). Social responsibilities of the businessman. New York: Harper & Brothers.
12.
Bowman, E. H.
(1986). Concerns of the CEO. Human Resource Management, 25, 267-285.
13.
Bowman, E. H.
, & Haire, M. (1975).A strategic posture toward corporate social responsibility. California Management Review, 18(2), 49-58.
14.
Buehler, V. M.
, & Shetty, Y K. (1976). Managerial response to social responsibility challenge. Academy of Management Journal, 19, 66-78.
15.
Burns, T.
(1966). Preface. In T. Burns & G. M. Stalker (Eds.), The management of innovation (2nd ed.). London: Tavistock.
16.
Carroll, A. B.
(1979). Athreedimensional conceptual model of corporate social performance. Academy of Management Review, 4,497-505.
17.
Chamberlain, N. W.
(1968). Enterprise and environment. New York: McGraw-Hill.
18.
Child, J.
(1972). Organization structure, environment and performance: The role of strategic choice. Sociology, 91, 2-22.
19.
Clarkson, M.
(1988). Corporate social performance in Canada 1976-86. In L. Preston (Ed.), Research in corporate social performance and policy (pp. 241-265). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
20.
Corporate 500: The directory of corporate philanthropy. (1991). San Francisco: Public Management Institute.
21.
Directory of corporate andfoundation givers. (1992). Rockville, MD: Taft Group.
22.
Epstein, E. M.
(1969). The corporation in American politics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
23.
Family pays $72 million to defend a company. (1989, July 18). The New York Times, p. Al-Al
24.
Fishbein, M.
, & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief; attitudes, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Philippines: Addison-Wesley.
25.
Fiske, S. T.
, & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
26.
Freeman, R. E.
(1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Boston: Pitman.
27.
Friedman, M.
(1962). Capitalism andfreedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
28.
Friedman, S. D.
, & Singh, H. (1989).CEO succession and stockholder reaction: The influence of organizational context and event content. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 718-744.
29.
Fryxell, G. E.
, & Wang, J. (in press).The Fortune "reputation" index: Reputation for what?Journal of Management.
30.
Galbraith, J. K.
(1973). Economics and the public purpose. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
31.
Guth, W.
, & Tagiuri, R. (1965).Personal values and corporate strategy. Harvard Business Review, 43(5), 123-132.
32.
Hambrick, D. C.
(1989). Guest editor's introduction: Putting top managers back in the strategy picture. Strategic Management Journal, 10, 5-15.
33.
Hambrick, D. C.
, & Finkelstein, S. (1987). Managerial discretion: A bridge between polar views of organizational outcomes. In B. M. Staw & L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior 9, 369-406. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
34.
Hannan, M. T.
, & Freeman, J. (1977).The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 929-964.
35.
Holmes, S. L.
(1977). Corporate social performance: Past and present areas of commitment. Academy of Management Journal, 20, 433-438.
36.
Kerlinger, F. N.
(1986). Foundations of behavioral research (3rd ed.. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
37.
Kotter, J. P.
(1982). The general managers. New York: Free Press.
38.
Lenz, R. T.
, & Lyles, M. A. (1986).Managinghuman problems in strategic planningsystems. Journal of Business Strategy, 6(4), 57-66.
39.
Lerner, L. D.
, & Fryxell, G. E. (1988).An empirical study of the predictors of corporate social performance: A multi-dimensional analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 7, 951-959.
40.
Lieberson, S.
, & O'Connor, J. F. (1972).Leadership and organizational performance: A study of large corporations. American Sociological Review, 37, 117-130.
41.
Logsdon, J. M.
(1985). Organizational responses to environmental issues: Oil refining companies and air pollution. In L. Preston (Ed.), Research in corporate social performance and policy (pp. 47-71). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
42.
Mason, E. S.
(1961). The corporation in modern society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
43.
Masters, M. S.
, & Keim, G. E. (1986). Variation in corporate PAC and lobbying activity: An organizational and environmental analysis. In L. Preston (Ed.), Research in corporate social performance and policy (pp. 249-271). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
44.
Mescon, T. S.
, & Tilson, D. J. (1987).Corporate philanthropy: A strategic approach to the bottom-line. California Management Review, 29(2), 49-61.
45.
Miles, R. H.
(1987). Managing the corporate social environment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
46.
Mintzberg, H.
(1973). The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper & Row.
47.
Moskowitz, M.
(1972). Choosing socially responsible stock. Business and Society Review, 1,71-75.
48.
National directory of corporate giving: A guide to corporate giving programs and corporate foundations. (1989). New York: Foundation Center.
49.
National directory of corporate public affairs. (1988). New York: Columbia Books, Inc.
50.
Noel, A.
(1989). Strategic cores and magnificent obsessions: Discovering strategy formation through daily activities of CEOs. Strategic Management Journal, 10, 33-49.
51.
Nunnally, J.
(1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
52.
Peters, T.
, & Waterman, R. H. (1982). In search of excellence: Lessons from America's best-run companies. New York: Harper & Row.
53.
Posner, B.
, & Schmidt, W. H. (1984).Values and the American manager: An update. California Management Review, 26, 202-216.
54.
Preston, L. E.
(1978). Corporate social performance and policy: A synthetic framework for research and analysis. In L. Preston (Ed.), Research in corporate social performance and policy (pp. 1-25). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
55.
Salancik, G. R.
, & Pfeffer, J. (1977).Constraints on administrative discretion: The limited influence on mayors on city budgets. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 12, 475-498.
56.
Schuler, R. S.
(1990). Repositioning the human resource function: Transformation or demise?Academy of Management Executive, 4(3), 49-60.
57.
Sethi, P. S.
(1975). Dimensions of corporate social performance: An analytical framework. California Management Review, 17(1), 58-64.
58.
Shipper, F.
, & Jennings, M. M. (1984). Business strategy for the political arena. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.
59.
Useem, M.
(1988). Market and institutional factors in corporate contributions. California Management Review, 30(2), 77-88.
60.
Wartick, S. L.
, & Cochran, P. L. (1985). The evolution of the corporate social performance model. Academy of Management Review, 10, 758-769.
61.
Wood, D. J.
(1991a). Social issues in management: Theory and research in corporate social performance. Journal of Management, 17(2), 383-406.
62.
Wood, D. J.
(1991b). Corporate social performance revisited. Academy of Management Review, 16(4), 691-718.
