Sociology Colloquium, 1/25/2023
Corporate Social Performance in the Face of Institutional De-Prioritization of Sustainability Policies
Dr. Debtanu Lahiri, Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon
The study examines firms’ response to sudden changes in the institutional environment, whereby the rules and regulations pertaining to the adoption of socially responsible practices is considerably muted. Using Trump’s victory in the 2016 US Presidential Elections as an exogenous event that led to ‘institutional de-prioritization’ of sustainability policies, this study reveals that US firms proactively improved their corporate social performance in response, so as to shield themselves against the potential consequences of the burden of de-legitimacy. This improvement was significantly lower for firms having no ideological predispositions since they are likely to be less constrained by socio-normative expectations. Theoretically, this study uses both the insurance-risk view and the corporate culture view to arrive at a nuanced understanding of firms’ motivation for adopting CSR practices.
Debtanu’s interests are corporate political activity, social activism, corporate social responsibility, geo-politics and global strategy, areas referred to as institutional strategy or non-market strategy. He earned his doctorate in Strategy and Business Policy from HEC Paris. Debantu was born and raised in India, where he obtained a Bachelors’ degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters’ in Human Resource Management.
January 25, 2023
Wednesday, 12:00pm
Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 987 6892 4948
Passcode: 420900
If you cannot join with video, you can connect to the Zoom session via phone: 1–346–248–7799