Discussion

Introduction

The set-up of multi-stakeholder partnerships was found to be challenged by institutional, organizational and cultural differences. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the optimum interplay of market forces and governmental regulation in an economically transforming world needs to be studied. Global screenings and international comparisons must distinguish PPP-favorable infrastructures to foster the worldwide spread of corporate and financial social responsibility.

Political divestiture is foremost captured by the event study methodology. Event study designs were found to be influenced by the sampling, time windows, lurking variables but also the irreplicability of specific events. Future evaluations may consider the long-term and broader-scale societal impacts of political divestiture. The findings on South Africa could be validated in the case of Sudan’s genocide in the Darfur region. Political divestiture should also be attributed in financial market experiments capturing unintentional investment decision making fallibility.

The qualitative interviews with financial experts on SRI at the NYSE during the summer of 2008 should be replicated to measure the perception of SRI in the aftermath of the crisis. Stakeholder interviews may also attribute the potential of SRI to re-establishing trust in financial markets and the optimum interplay of deregulated market systems and governmental control in providing social responsibility. The predicted trend of the rising of SRI should be captured by additional research.

The monograph explored innovative corporate and financial market potentials to create value for society.

The theoretical part described corporate and financial social responsibility. The human foundation of responsibility and decision making fallibility on responsibility were discussed. The international emergence of CSR governance was outlined in the case of the UNGC, which serves as a social responsibility international best practice guideline. CSR was portrayed as a conflict resolution means in multi-stakeholder partnerships.

The rise of SRI was traced back to a combination of historical incidents, legislative compulsion and stakeholder pressure. International comparisons of North American and European legislative frameworks led to conclusions about SRI practices around the globe.

The role of the UN in promoting and implementing financial global governance was discussed. The innovative coupling of stakeholder activism with investment strategies was introduced in the case of political divestiture. A socio-psychological framework of financial social responsibility motives complementing traditional, financial profit maximization investment models was presented.

Empirically the book addressed up-to-date corporate and financial social responsibility conduct. Expert interviews with public servants were staged in the fall of 2007 about the strengths and weaknesses of private sector contributions to social welfare. The exploratory survey found civil servants to be polarized about corporate social endeavors. CSR was honored to grant societal value; but was also associated with stakeholder management. Intrinsic motives and employee satisfaction contribute to CSR. Detected concerns about CSR are democratic deficiencies, costs and liability issues. CSR adherents point out the access to additional resources as well as the high degree of flexibility in administrating social responsibility. Individuals who are skeptic about CSR mention the lack of accountability, shareholder supremacy as well as inefficiency and dishonesty notions.

The study implies several limitations: As the expert interviews featured a limited number of executive university students, the non-representative sample is potentially biased. Although the categorization of the free associations was assisted by independent raters, the moderate interrater-reliability raises methodological concerns. The generalizability of the time- and context-specific results must be validated in future follow-up studies. Overall, the exploratory research remains a first step towards further investigations of public administrators’ view on CSR that offers an understanding of the relation of the corporate world and the public sector in attributing social responsibility.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships were analyzed as an innovative combination of public and private sector forces to address international problems. The set-up of PPP networks was found to be challenging. Building partnerships requires time and resources but also the participants’ willingness to cooperate on commonly-shared goals. On a global scale, multistakeholder partnerships are prone to be limited by institutional, organizational and cultural differences that must be overcome by governance, stakeholder management and local networking.