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Some evidence on executives' views of corporate social responsibility

Some evidence on executives' views of corporate social responsibility
Some evidence on executives' views of corporate social responsibility
This paper draws upon the concepts of organizational legitimacy, political economy of accounting and agency theory, and subsequently combines these with stakeholder analysis, in an attempt to analyse the attitudes towards their perceived social responsibility on the part of the executives of a small sample of large, UK companies.
In the conceptual model developed, organizational legitimacy is perceived as a way of examining corporate behaviour, whereby a business is visualized as operating under a mandate from society, withdrawable were the organization be seen not to be doing the things society expects of it. There is, however, an alternative political economy of accounting view, suggesting corporate behaviour might be perceived as more proactive, with company directors attempting to ‘set the agenda’, such as to manipulate societal opinion towards a favourable view of corporate activity.
Agency theory is then utilized in an attempt to establish the connection between organizations and the various interest groups with whom they interact, whilst, finally, stakeholder analysis is resorted to as a way of establishing the relevant societal interest groups to which businesses might either be considered ‘accountable’, or alternatively whose views they might wish to ‘manipulate’ favourably regarding their (i.e. corporate) actions.
The underpinning theory, as delineated, is then examined for validity via interviews with executives representing eight prominent UK companies in four business sectors. The model outlined enables the nature of perceived accountability/influence by the company to be linked to perceived/manipulated stakeholder expectations of the company, with the tentative conclusion being reached that support can be found for both organizational legitimacy and political economy of accounting perspectives, although which predominates is impossible to determine.
0890-8389
357-397
Woodward, David
9d2e5339-0477-488c-aad0-0244e63e4736
Edwards, Pam
b7320665-a429-4254-ba16-74a7acc5ccc7
Birkin, Frank
220efe67-6d17-4c25-b110-dd8392f3ffdb
Woodward, David
9d2e5339-0477-488c-aad0-0244e63e4736
Edwards, Pam
b7320665-a429-4254-ba16-74a7acc5ccc7
Birkin, Frank
220efe67-6d17-4c25-b110-dd8392f3ffdb

Woodward, David, Edwards, Pam and Birkin, Frank (2001) Some evidence on executives' views of corporate social responsibility. British Accounting Review, 33 (3), 357-397. (doi:10.1006/bare.2001.0165).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper draws upon the concepts of organizational legitimacy, political economy of accounting and agency theory, and subsequently combines these with stakeholder analysis, in an attempt to analyse the attitudes towards their perceived social responsibility on the part of the executives of a small sample of large, UK companies.
In the conceptual model developed, organizational legitimacy is perceived as a way of examining corporate behaviour, whereby a business is visualized as operating under a mandate from society, withdrawable were the organization be seen not to be doing the things society expects of it. There is, however, an alternative political economy of accounting view, suggesting corporate behaviour might be perceived as more proactive, with company directors attempting to ‘set the agenda’, such as to manipulate societal opinion towards a favourable view of corporate activity.
Agency theory is then utilized in an attempt to establish the connection between organizations and the various interest groups with whom they interact, whilst, finally, stakeholder analysis is resorted to as a way of establishing the relevant societal interest groups to which businesses might either be considered ‘accountable’, or alternatively whose views they might wish to ‘manipulate’ favourably regarding their (i.e. corporate) actions.
The underpinning theory, as delineated, is then examined for validity via interviews with executives representing eight prominent UK companies in four business sectors. The model outlined enables the nature of perceived accountability/influence by the company to be linked to perceived/manipulated stakeholder expectations of the company, with the tentative conclusion being reached that support can be found for both organizational legitimacy and political economy of accounting perspectives, although which predominates is impossible to determine.

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Published date: 2001

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 35716
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/35716
ISSN: 0890-8389
PURE UUID: b714ebe1-9d67-40cf-9675-1e3095718a09

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Date deposited: 22 May 2006
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 07:54

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Contributors

Author: David Woodward
Author: Pam Edwards
Author: Frank Birkin

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