There is growing evidence that a vast majority of CEO’s believe that sustainability-related issues are having or will soon have a material impact on their firms. Nearly all of the academic literature on the firm level impacts of corporate social performance (CSP) has focused on looking for a universally positive or negative effect of CSP on corporate financial performance (CFP). Recent literature in the CSP domain, however, has presented two questions that have been under-researched with respect to CSP by firms: 1) What are the processes and motivations that underlie the inclusion of CSP in firm strategic decisions? and 2) Why do some firms generate different market returns from their CSP? The present research consists of two studies that focus on developing an understanding of these two questions. The first study uses a Contingency Theory approach and proposes that several organizational, market, customer, environmental and competitive characteristics of a firm predict a firm’s level of CSP. Findings based on a longitudinal, multi-industry sample of 447 firms over the period from 2000 to 2007 show that firms that have a corporate branding strategy, serve consumer markets, and have a greater degree of globalization have higher levels of CSP. Finally, this study also finds that higher levels of CSP relative to a firm’s industry result in higher levels of firm intangible value (Tobin’s q). The second study examines the following: 1) Does CSP history moderate the relationship between CSP and CFP? and 2) Is there a CSR Black Hole with respect to a firm’s history of negative behaviors? That is, does past negative social performance of the firm negate potential benefits from current period changes in positive social performance? Using the Flow Signals framework proposed by Dekinder and Kohli (2008), this study finds that a (1) history of growth in negative CSP, (2) trend toward increasing negative CSP, or (3) more inconsistent history of positive or negative CSP (reversals) decrease the returns to positive social performance. This study also finds evidence of a CSR Black Hole, but show that firms may be able to exit this by consistently managing their social performance over time. / text

Corporate social responsibility is a widely discussed concept in today’s business, with different perceptions as well as explanations regarding the meaning and impact of the concept. Organizations are becoming more aware of the concept as well as their responsibilities to the society, which in turn results in organizations devoting more resources into CSR related activities. Nowadays, it is significant to establish a proper CSR performance while also having a solid financial foundation in order to reach a long-term sustainable success. The purpose of this study is to describe how CSR is connected to firm performance, in terms of market share and market growth. While a growing number of studies have been made regarding investigating CSR and its various dimensions, it is still unclear what the underlying factors that tie the relationship together are. This purpose was tested on a company in southern Sweden; this company Emballator Lagan Plast (ELP) produces plastic packaging solutions for a number of industries. Alongside the literature research, a case study with semi-structured interviews was conducted at ELP in order to collect data needed to answer the purpose and research questions. One of the essential findings of the study revealed from the literature, which was also proven in the case study, was that CSR is a fundamental element in an organization and it should be implemented throughout the entire organization to gain maximum effect. Moreover, the findings indicate that CSR has a positive impact on ELP’s performance. Even though the relationship is not direct, it still exists through mediating roles, and it has played an important role in the company’s growth and success. Keywords:Corporate social responsibility, firm performance, stakeholders.

This research undertakes a contingency theory examination of strategy and cost system alignment based on customer retention and customer profitability analysis. Previous research and consultancy advice has promoted the benefits of a firm following a customer retention strategy. They claim that in order to support the strategy a firm should have a customer profitability analysis system in place. Yet often what is prescribed as good practice is not observed in firms. This inconsistency is explained using contingency theory. Initial qualitative evidence was collected from four industry sites to determine whether the above strategy-cost system alignment was present. An analysis of these findings suggested that the customer retention-customer profitability analysis system relationship was contingent on a range of factors. As a result, a contingent theory of this relationship was developed from the four sites, and this theory was then tested in a survey of 862 people from 431 firms. The survey results provide support for the propositions developed from the qualitative evidence. It is likely that firms will follow multiple operational marketing strategies and have cost management systems in place to support those strategies. Although customer retention is a very important operational marketing strategy, a significant number of firms do not have customer profitability analysis systems in place to support the strategy. Many contingent factors were identified. Customer profitability analysis implementation is dependent on industry type; size; the difficulties involved in determining customer costs; whether the organisation has a champion for the system; the relationship between the marketing and accounting functions in a firm; and the available labour resources to facilitate implementation. Further, it is apparent that customer profitability analysis information is not essential to support a customer retention strategy. Customer revenue information can be substituted and the firms are satisfied with the level of management accounting system support for their operational marketing strategies. However, many respondents see the value of customer revenue, customer cost and customer profitability information, providing opportunities for future design of such systems as well as research into their development.

When a major disruption occurs, an organization’s performance is usually negatively affected. The great recession of 2008 – 2009 was such a disruption which had global implications that had not been seen since the great depression that started in the 1930s. This thesis is intended to contribute to the understanding of how leanness and slack resources affect firm performance in the presence of disruptions that test supply chain resilience, or the ability to restore the firm’s performance to its original condition after encountering stress or a large disturbance. These disruptions may not only affect the firm’s financial performance during the disruption but also well after the disruption has occurred. Two industries with differing supply chains, food and beverage, and electronics and computer, were investigated. The study is based on archival data (N=10,020 and 668 firms) with observations from just before and just after the great recession, a disruption that affected the entire global economy. Our results suggest (1) the effect of inventory leanness and slack resources on firm performance is industry specific; and (2) variation in firm performance is less in the post-disruptive period than in the pre-disrupted period. Overall, our findings call for a contingency perspective to specify the level of inventory leanness and slack resources when determining their impact on firm performance to support supply chain resilience.

This dissertation examines the identity of new controlling shareholders in partial corporate control transactions and its influence on firm performance and corporate policies in an international context. In a transfer of partial corporate control, the identity of controlling shareholder changs, thereby facilitating an event study of corporate changes resulted from controlling shareholder turnover. The dissertation comprises of three empirical research projects to address two questions: Firstly, does the identity of a new controlling shareholder in a partial control transfer matter to firm value? Secondly, how does new controlling shareholder identity explain the differences of firm performance and corporate policies in the long run? The equity block transactions in listed firms from around the world announced between 1996 and 2005 are filtered to arrive at the final sample of 215 corporate control transfers through private negotiation. This hand-collected dataset allows the dissertation to contribute to the existing literature on ownership concentration by introducing the identity of controlling shareholder into the theoretical framework and investigating its significance in an international context. It is argued that firm value, long-term performance and corporate policies can be influenced by the identity of new controlling shareholders because different controlling shareholders have distinct incentives, skills and styles. This dissertation finds that individual investor controlled firms outperform those controlled by corporate investors in both short-term abnormal returns and long-term performance after a control transfer; and that the sample firms controlled by individual and corporate investors adopt different policies of investment and financial leverage. The evidence presented here shows that individual controlling shareholders are better motivated to monitor managers and improve operational efficiency. Partial corporate control activities have important governance effects and controlling shareholder heterogeneity is a significant contributing factor to firm performance and decision making.

This dissertation examines the identity of new controlling shareholders in partial corporate control transactions and its influence on firm performance and corporate policies in an international context. In a transfer of partial corporate control, the identity of controlling shareholder changs, thereby facilitating an event study of corporate changes resulted from controlling shareholder turnover. The dissertation comprises of three empirical research projects to address two questions: Firstly, does the identity of a new controlling shareholder in a partial control transfer matter to firm value? Secondly, how does new controlling shareholder identity explain the differences of firm performance and corporate policies in the long run? The equity block transactions in listed firms from around the world announced between 1996 and 2005 are filtered to arrive at the final sample of 215 corporate control transfers through private negotiation. This hand-collected dataset allows the dissertation to contribute to the existing literature on ownership concentration by introducing the identity of controlling shareholder into the theoretical framework and investigating its significance in an international context. It is argued that firm value, long-term performance and corporate policies can be influenced by the identity of new controlling shareholders because different controlling shareholders have distinct incentives, skills and styles. This dissertation finds that individual investor controlled firms outperform those controlled by corporate investors in both short-term abnormal returns and long-term performance after a control transfer; and that the sample firms controlled by individual and corporate investors adopt different policies of investment and financial leverage. The evidence presented here shows that individual controlling shareholders are better motivated to monitor managers and improve operational efficiency. Partial corporate control activities have important governance effects and controlling shareholder heterogeneity is a significant contributing factor to firm performance and decision making.

The current extremely volatile business world requires firms to deal with a wide range of risks that pose threats to their organisations. The poor practices of risk management, based on Traditional Risk Management (TRM), was cited time and time again in the aftermath of the recent Global Crisis. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has been advocated as a solution to the problems of TRM. The aim is to centralise the management of risk within the organisation and ensure that the board deals with the risk. Hence strategic, external, internal, operational, compliance and reputational risk are dealt with jointly. In doing so, it is expected that ERM will bring value creation to firms. One of the main limitations facing researchers is the lack of a good standardised measurement of ERM implementation; therefore, it has not been possible to establish whether ERM does actually bring benefit to firms. In addition, many companies have set up ERM initiatives, but they lack a clear understanding of the factors that will lead to successful ERM implementation. The remaining unanswered problematic situation has led to two unanswered questions that will determine whether the solution to ERM implementation is avoiding potential pitfalls and improving business sustainability. Firstly, does ERM implementation have an impact on firm performance? And secondly, which is the firm-specific characteristic that leads to better ERM implementation level? This thesis answers the aforementioned questions by proposing a reliable ERM measurement method, and then testing whether firms that adopt ERM actually improve financial performance and determine the influential factor of ERM implementation. The proposed method for measuring ERM implementation is based on the components developed from the current ERM frameworks, where contribution scoring can be standardised to measure ERM implementation level. To demonstrate its viability, data was collected from publicly listed firms in Thailand and was then compared to three alternative methodologies: cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS). The results show that the proposed method did well compared to the alternatives, both statistically and in prediction performance. The relationship between the proposed ERM measurement and firm performance is then considered by taking appropriate control variables into account, such as the firm’s size and characteristics, industry effects, sales growth and the external environment: technology, market uncertainty, as well as economic factors. By using data from the Thailand Stock Exchange, it was found that implementing ERM could improve firm performance in term of Tobin's Q, ROE and ROA. The results show that ERM and firm performance are related. For the influential factor of ERM implementation, the empirical results show that a firm’s size and economic factors have a statistically positive relationship with a high level of ERM implementation, while lower ERM scores show more revenue volatility than those who have well-implemented ERMs. Furthermore, technology and growth are positively related to each ERM in the scoring system considered.

Although researchers have determined that immigrants are valuable to our society and produced several studies that seek to explain immigrant benefits, little has been done to study whether or not immigrant-founded firms outperform native firms. This report determines whether or not immigrant entrepreneurs are good investments from societal, financial and market perspectives. It analyzes the impact of immigrant founders on 2017 Fortune 500 company performance from a societal, investment and market perspectives. To compile the data set, it utilizes immigration classification from the Center for American Entrepreneurship’s report on 2017 Fortune 500 company founders as a means of categorizing firm immigration status. In order to be included in the sample, there were several requirements: firms had to have a publicly listed security with a Capital IQ identification ID. These criteria resulted in 463 firms. Financial performance and innovation data were gathered through Capital IQ. The analysis seeks to prove or disprove immigrant impact on performance in three categories. The first category, social impact, determined whether or not immigrant-founded firms are good societal investments. The second category, financial impact, determined whether or not immigrant-founded firms are good financial investments. The final category, market stability, determined whether or not immigrant-founded firms are good for overall market stability. There were no statistically significant results for the dependent variables that were regressed. The was a range of R Values, regressions we run with both robust precision adjustments, and Winsor control methods were tested to no avail. This leads to the conclusion that immigrant-founded firms are not better investments than native founded firms at the Fortune 500 level. This held true in all models for each of the 3 theses compiled.

The value add of gender diversity in the financial services industry has been overlooked. From providing capital for businesses to financing mortgages, it goes without question that financial institutions play a most critical role in the function of the economy. Our study poses a potential solution for managing the immense responsibility of these entities. The financial crisis of 2008 awakened the public to the high levels of risk that banks endure in the practice of their business. Banks often rely on a liquidity cushion in order to mitigate the risk of financial distress. Liquidity consists of the cash and other liquid assets that banks retain for times of unexpected demands for cash. Financial institutions often vary in their levels of liquidity due to different risk tolerances and appetites for return. This thesis contributes to existing literature by looking into the role that gender diverse boards play in managing liquidity risk and its transparent effect on bank performance. Through an analysis of seventy-four global, regional, small, mid and large cap commercial banks, we concluded that increased gender diversity results in increased liquidity and decreased risk to bank assets. In the process, we also test the effect of increased liquidity on bank performance, as it would likely be a concern for shareholders

In the U.S. firms spend millions of dollars each year on climate lobbying. Climate lobbying is often seen as “dirty” firms lobbying against environmental regulations; however, my study reveals a subset of major climate lobbying contributors actually have positive environmental performance records. This paper analyzes the relationship between firm-level environmental performance indicators and climate lobbying expenditures. To explore this relationship, I combine a firm level climate lobbying expenditures dataset from the Center for Responsive Politics, financial measures from Compustat and CRSP, and environmental performance indicators from MSCI. My results indicate more climate lobbying among firms that derive substantial revenues from products and services with environmental benefits and those with proactive carbon emission reduction policies/technologies