Mario Minoja

Towards an internal change management perspective of CSR: evidence from project RESPONSE on the sources of cognitive alignment between managers and their stakeholders, and their implications for social performance

Purpose – This paper aims to juxtapose two separate perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of their ability to explain the cognitive alignment between managers and stakeholders on what constitutes the social responsibility of the focal firm, and to explain social performance.Design/methodology/approach – The authors take two perspectives: that of stakeholder engagement, which has historically characterized the debate on CSR; and that of internal change processes required to integrate CSR in a firms operations. The authors analyze data from 427 interviews, of which 209 were with managers and 219 with stakeholders of 19 multinational firms in eight sectors, to assess the extent of cognitive alignment between managers and stakeholders on the conceptualization of CSR for the relevant firm, to determine which of the two theoretical perspectives is connected with the degree of cognitive alignment, and to determine which of the two is connected with the perception of corporate social per...

Stakeholder cohesion, innovation, and competitive advantage

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the limits of stakeholder governance and to contribute a better comprehension of the relationships between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) through the development of a dynamic model that links together innovation and change, stakeholder cohesion, and competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of theory building through the development of eight testable propositions.Findings – Stakeholder cohesion may have a “dark side” to the extent that it results in inertia and resistance to change, thus reducing propensity to innovation and change. The latter, in turn, are vital for both competitive advantage and stakeholder cohesion itself. Therefore, propensity to innovation and change is the pivotal variable that helps to explain the complex, non‐linear, often inextricable relationships between CSP and CFP. Furthermore, external (environmental dynamism) and internal (firm culture) varia...

The Relationship Between Cognitive Maps, Industry Complexity and Strategies Implemented: The Case of the Carpi Textile-Clothing Industrial System

This paper discusses the relationship between the subjective organisation and the perceived competitive structure of an industry based on an empirical study of the Carpi textile-clothing district, which partially replicates a previous study of the Scottish knitwear industry conducted by other authors (Porac et al., 1995). The initial hypothesis to be tested is that an industry may be broken down into a number of subsets of firms within which competition is perceived as being fiercer as compared with firms in different subsets. These subsets, or groups, correspond to the groups or types of firms into which decision-makers -- managers and entrepreneurial business owners alike -- perceive the industry as being divided.The results of the study are then compared to the empirical evidence from the research conducted by other authors. This comparison provides some interesting elements for investigating the relationships between industry complexity, cognitive maps and strategies implemented by the firms belonging to it. After suggesting a definition of complexity of an industry as the number of strategies implemented in it by competitors, we discuss the hypothesis that key-actors in the firms develop a mental picture of their environment that tends to become less comprehensive and accurate as the degree of complexity of the environment itself increases.

“PUBLIC” AND “PRIVATE” CROSS-LOCALITY NETWORKS: CONDITIONS FOR ACCESS, COMPLEMENTARY ROLES AND IMPACT ON INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT COMPETITIVENESS

Firms located in industrial districts are acknowledged to benefit from externalities of geographic colocation, like access to specialized inputs and labour skills, better infrastructure and so on. Nevertheless, there is no clear empirical evidence that their performance is, on average, better than that of ‘isolated’ firms. I argue that a contingent approach is required to better explore the relationship between clustering and performance and suggest that access to external, more codified and ‘scientific’ knowledge, that complement informal and tacit knowledge developed within an industrial district, is of increasing importance as a source of competitiveness both for a district as a whole and for individual district firms. After illustrating main features of ‘public’ and ‘private’ cross-locality networks as possible ways to facilitate access to external knowledge for an industrial district, I propose a theoretical framework that, with the aid of some Italian cases, explores conditions of access, complementary roles and impact of cross-locality networks on performance both of an industrial district as a whole and of individual firms located in it.