Dear Colleagues,

Businesses can play a crucial role in increasing sustainability and preventing the escalation of environmental and social problems. Through the analysis of how sustainable firm processes and activities positively affect society as a whole, and specifically firm performance, and by developing theory to inform practice through well-grounded guidelines for firms, scholars can help to raise awareness of the need to incorporate these sustainable practices.

Interest in and research into Corporate Social Responsibility have grown exponentially in the last two decades, and some meta-analytical studies (e.g., Orlitzky et al., 2003) have corroborated the positive effect of CSR on firms’ financial performance. Nevertheless, this topic still requires a deeper analysis and theoretical foundation. CSR practices contribute positively to society by supporting sustainable economic, social, and environmental development (Du et al., 2010). They also help to strengthen firms’ competitive advantage and performance (Carroll and Shabana, 2010; Lee and Park, 2009). Whether firms adopt CSR practices for instrumental or moral reasons is also a topic of debate, since they are based on contradictory foundations (Aguilera et al., 2007; Hahn et al., 2016), although both contribute to increasing corporate social performance (Hahn et al., 2016). Hahn et al. (2016) found that firms’ practices grounded in instrumental and in moral initiatives complement each other and increase the scale of corporate social performance. Deeper analysis of how CSR practices grounded in both rationales help firms to improve their corporate performance can be a way to raise firms’ awareness about sustainability.

Furthermore, firms must often rely on contradictory processes that underpin, for example, environmental requirements, as in the case of efficiency and flexibility (Lin and Ho, 2016; Boronat-Navarro and García-Joerger, 2019). The analysis of how firms develop holistic solutions for sustainability requires deeper study of firm resources and capabilities. Dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997) can facilitate strategic change towards integration of sustainability and its effect on corporate performance (Wu et al., 2012), but this analysis requires further development. Exploration of different contexts such as family firms, or sectors like tourism or manufacturing companies could help toward a further understanding of this strategic change.

Additionally, customers’ perceptions of and intentions towards firms change according to the information they have about sustainable firms or their experiences with them (e.g., Boronat-Navarro and Pérez-Aranda, 2019, 2020). Studies demonstrating the positive effects on the perception of multiple stakeholders due to the authentic adoption of CSR practices (Wang et al., 2020) could also raise firms’ awareness of the importance of truly integrating these practices into their mission, culture and values, strategy, and operations. This analysis could shed light on the relationship between CSR and corporate performance.

Against this background, for this Special Issue, we invite submissions of academic papers analyzing how firms integrate and develop CSR practices that can contribute to corporate performance and to the sustainable progress of society. Both original research articles and review articles are welcome. The Special Issue focuses on but is not limited to the following topics:

• CRS and its effects on corporate performance;
• CSR and its effects on different measures of corporate performance;
• CSR and its impacts on society;
• Consistency and authenticity in the implementation of CSR practices;
• Theories explaining instrumental and moral initiatives in CSR practices;
• Resources and capabilities that help firms in the adoption of sustainable practices;
• Dynamic capabilities and sustainability;
• Innovations in the adoption of sustainable practices;
• Stakeholders’ influence on CSR adoption;
• Perceptions of various stakeholders of CSR practices;
• CSR in family firms;
• CSR and corporate performance in different sectors.

References:

Aguilera, R. V., Rupp, D. E., Williams, C. A., & Ganapathi, J. (2007). Putting the S back in corporate social responsibility: A multilevel theory of social change in organizations. Academy of management review, 32(3), 836-863.

Boronat-Navarro, M., & García-Joerger, A. (2019). Ambidexterity, Alliances and Environmental Management System Adoption in Spanish Hotels. Sustainability, 11(20), 5815.

Boronat-Navarro, M., & Pérez-Aranda, J. A. (2019). Consumers’ perceived corporate social responsibility evaluation and support: The moderating role of consumer information. Tourism Economics, 25(4), 613-638.

Boronat-Navarro, M., & Pérez-Aranda, J.A. (2020) Analyzing Willingness to Pay More to Stay in a Sustainable Hotel. Sustainability,12, 3730.

Carroll, A. B., & Shabana, K. M. (2010). The business case for corporate social responsibility: A review of concepts, research and practice. International journal of management reviews, 12(1), 85-105.

Du, S., Bhattacharya, C. B., & Sen, S. (2010). Maximizing business returns to corporate social responsibility (CSR): The role of CSR communication. International journal of management reviews, 12(1), 8-19.

Hahn, T., Pinkse, J., Preuss, L., & Figge, F. (2016). Ambidexterity for corporate social performance. Organization Studies, 37(2), 213-235.

Lee, S., & Park, S. Y. (2009). Do socially responsible activities help hotels and casinos achieve their financial goals?. International journal of hospitality management, 28(1), 105-112.

Lin, L. H., & Ho, Y. L. (2016). Institutional pressures and environmental performance in the global automotive industry: the mediating role of organizational ambidexterity. Long Range Planning, 49(6), 764-775.

Orlitzky, M., Schmidt, F. L., & Rynes, S. L. (2003). Corporate social and financial performance: A meta-analysis. Organization studies, 24(3), 403-441.

Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic management journal, 18(7), 509-533.

Wu, Q., He, Q., Duan, Y., & O'Regan, N. (2012). Implementing dynamic capabilities for corporate strategic change toward sustainability. Strategic Change, 21(5), 231.

Dr. Montserrat Boronat Navarro
Dr. José A. Pérez-Aranda
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• corporate social responsibility
• corporate performance
• dynamic capabilities
• instrumental and moral reasons
• innovation
• stakeholder’s perception
• family firms
• hotel sector
• industrial companies