The societal impact of companies is gaining increasing attention both in the literature and in managerial discussions. Managers are expected to minimize negative impact along their value chain and contribute to society in addition to achieving solid financial performance. In this paper we assess whether this is possible and/or if trade-offs between different dimensions of societal impact need to be made thereby contributing to a long-standing discussion on the ‘business case’ for sustainability versus the trade-off or tensions perspective. Using a novel dataset (Upright project) we can objectively quantify (monetize) positive and negative societal impact of a company along the value chain and across 19 dimensions grouped into 4 broad categories (society, knowledge, health and environment). Stochastic frontier analysis is used to establish a ‘frontier’ of best performing companies both on the financial and societal level and estimate the relationship between financial and societal impact as well as between different categories of societal impact. Our findings indicate support for the ‘business case’ framing, meaning high performance on knowledge generation and diffusion as well as environmental performance are positively related to achieving higher efficiency (i.e. more financial performance with given labor and financial resources). However, there are clear trade-offs when translating company resources into societal impact, especially the ‘society’ category is negatively related to environmental performance. We therefore build the consensus that both business case for sustainability frame holds overall but trade-offs or tensions exist between different categories of societal impact. This has implications for managers and policymakers.

This study explores how corporate environmental misconduct impacts a firm’s regulatory outcomes. Building on prior theoretical arguments about organizational legitimacy and association risk, the study argues that legitimacy loss resulting from environmental misconduct makes it challenging for firms to obtain state government subsidies. This is because state governments are formally responsible for balancing competing demands of state economic development and environmental protection and may consider providing regulatory incentives to environmentally harmful firms as politically and reputationally risky. Further, the extent of legitimacy loss may depend on stakeholder perception of the environmental harm and attention by the media and social movement organizations. The hypotheses will be tested on state government subsidies obtained by Fortune 1000 firms in the United States between 2004 and 2022.

Family firms are often seen as key drivers of environmental sustainability due to their distinctive characteristics—such as long-term orientation, intergenerational commitment, and community embeddedness—that align closely with environmental stewardship. Scholars in family business research suggest that these attributes foster the adoption of environmentally sustainable business practices, motivated by a desire to preserve resources for future generations, protect the family’s image, and safeguard socioemotional wealth. Despite growing attention to sustainability in family firms, however, the role of sustainability reporting remains largely underexplored. Drawing on upper echelons theory and integrating insights from socioemotional wealth and legitimacy theory, this study investigates how upper echelon composition—specifically the presence of family members—shapes sustainability reporting practices in family firms. In this context, we distinguish between formal and informal reporting, as the latter may play a more significant role in family firms due to their informal and relationship-based structures and management approaches. To test our hypotheses, we will collect survey data as part of a larger research project utilizing a comprehensive database of Dutch family firms. Our findings aim to underscore the pivotal role of family members in shaping environmental sustainability practices. In particular, this study intends to contribute to upper echelons and socioemotional wealth theory by illustrating how the distinct goals of family members influence engagement in critical firm efforts.

This study explores the societal case for corporate philanthropy (CP), shifting from the traditional firm-centric research. Despite assumptions that corporate resources - such as knowledge, networks, and legitimacy - are leveraged in CP to generate societal value, there is little empirical evidence beyond financial spending. To address this gap, we investigate Corporate Venture Philanthropy (CVP), a growing approach to CP which integrates venture capital practices into philanthropy. We identify five operational stages (deal screening, due diligence, deal structuring, investment management, and exit) and qualitatively examine how European corporations leverage intangible resources to create social value. By offering insights into where, when, and how these resources are utilized, the study contributes to a better understanding of CP processes and strengthens the societal case for CP. This research opens new avenues for research around repurposing corporate resources for societal value creation.

This proposed paper is anchored in a great irony: extractive industries provide crucial keys to addressing the grand challenges of climate change mitigation and environmental sustainability advancement, yet they are themselves major contributors to these problems. Further, this proposed paper illuminates and investigates a significant paradox: within these industries, the Chandlerian firms that well-serve the objectives of the former are apparently ill-suited to solve the challenges of the latter. The setting of this paper, the global copper mining industry, captures both this irony and this paradox. This proposed paper has three pillars. The first sets the “Chandlerian stage” of the analysis, showcasing how copper mining companies evolved with structures, managerial approaches, and processes in the Chandlerian tradition. The second pillar examines how and by whom the environmental challenges created by Chandlerian copper mining firms’ activities have been addressed, using the copper mine tailings waste stream as the focal point of departure for the analysis. The historical approaches taken by the Chandlerian mining companies themselves will be investigated and contrasted with how alternatively-structured organizations have approached solving the environmental and climate change problems posed by copper mine tailings. The third pillar synthesizes the paper’s findings and distills why organizational alternatives to Chandlerian firms, which have been so successful on other performance dimensions, appear better positioned to tackle the environmental threats posed by copper mine tailings. What this means for addressing today’s “grand challenges” is considered.