| Credibility and the Theory of Testaments |
| | Mitnick, Barry M. | U. of Pittsburgh | mitnick+@pitt.edu | (412)-648-1555 |
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Antecedent to the formation of formalized social relationships and institutions, such as contracts and organizational ties, social actors negotiate with one another by making statements about events and conditions in the past, present, and anticipated future. These are termed testaments. The means by which social actors evaluate these statements and assign credibility to them is important to an understanding of how and why social institutions form. In this paper I distinguish three core types of testaments, reports about the past, claims about the present, and predictions about the future. Social actors seek verification of the reports, validation of the claims, and confirmation of the predictions. By studying the manner in which this is done we can better understand how institutions develop. I describe two general, competing processes: the mobilization of credibility, in which actors multiply testaments in order to increase their chances of cementing a relationship, and minimization of the assurance load, in which social actors try to limit the burden of evaluation in testamentary systems. The paper concludes with a series of propositions about behavior in testamentary systems and an analysis of some illustrative examples of such systems. |
| | Keywords: credibility; testaments; agency |
| The Just Organization: Organization Design and Corporate Social Performance |
| | Gerde, Virginia W. | U. of New Mexico | gerde@anderson.unm.edu | (505)-277-8880 |
| | Stephens, Carroll U. | Virginia Tech | cstephen@vt.edu | (540)-231-6353 |
| | Wokutch, Richard E. | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State U. | wokutch@vt.edu | (540)-231-5084 |
| | How should corporations be designed for the 'new' millennium? Scholars in the social issues in management field have studied particular design features that are presumed to promote ethical outcomes for organizations; however, these design features have not been examined for, or derived from, normative justifications. The general model of a just organization (Stephens, 1991) provides normative organization design principles based on Rawls’ theory of justice (1971) and consistent with Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder framework and Weber’s wertrational social action category (1978/1910). This study is the first to test this model and to examine the relation between organization design and the firm's impact on society, as measured by corporate social performance (CSP) ratings.
Using the systems approach methodology, the deviation of these firms' design from an ideal-type profile of the just organization was computed and compared to the CSP ratings. We hypothesized that the closer the distance from the ideal-type profile, the better the CSP rating would be. Organization design dimensions were evaluated for 120 publicly-traded corporations which responded to a questionnaire on specific design features. CSP ratings were determined from the Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini, and Co., Inc. (KLD), a social rating database.
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| | Keywords: corporate social performance; organization design; stakeholders |
| Culture-based Expectations of Corporate Citizenship: Management Journeys into International Pluralism and Change |
| | Katz, Jeffrey P. | Kansas State U. | jkatz@ksu.edu | (785)-532-7451 |
| | Swanson, Diane L. | Kansas State U. | swanson@business.cba.ksu.edu | (785)-532-4252 |
| | Nelson, Lori K. | Kansas State U. | jkatz@ksu.edu | (785)-532-7451 |
| | This paper addresses both culture-based and transcultural expectations of corporate citizenship. Key social issues are classified according to the strength of select cultural factors. The potential usefulness of the framework is demonstrated by a comparative analysis of the cultural tendencies of four countries. Implications are given for expectations of corporate global citizenship, including the relevance of a transcultural ethic. |
| | Keywords: Corporate social performance; national culture; international pluralism |
| Stakeholder Identification and Value |
| | Karamanos, Anastasios | Cambridge U. | ak294@hermes.cam.ac.uk | +44 1223 339700 |
| | Choi, Chong Ju | Cambridge U. | c.choi@jims.cam.ac.uk | +441223 766379 |
| | This paper links the issue of assessment of value of a firm's product or service with the idea of multiple stakeholder groups
and stakeholder network analysis research. We introduce the notion of stakeholder identification as a means of overcoming
the increased measurement costs associated with the assessment of intangible value. We introduce a stakeholder network
model that links certain stakeholders in certain network positions with the assessment of a firm's product or service value. |
| | Keywords: Value; Stakeholders; Networks |