The most cited article at Business & Society in the last 3 years is an article entitled “A Meta-Analytic Review of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Financial Performance: The Moderating Effects of Contextual Factors.” This work, published by Qian Wang, Junsheng Dou, and Shenghua Jia (all at Zheijang Univeristy, Hangzhou, China) provides new evidence to one of the most frequently studied questions surrounding CSR: Does it pay off?

This new article by Wang and colleagues updates the 2003 research by Orlitzky and colleagues that tends to be the typical CSR-CFP cites. If you research in this area and are not yet familiar with the Wang et al article, it would be good to check it out: https://tinyurl.com/yba66c9b.

Taking a broader look at this question is another recent article by Michael L. Barnett examining the “business case” for CSR. The “business case” arguments are more broad reaching and, rather than only focusing on the direct effect of CSR on financial performance, look at how CSR affects other stakeholders (which may then filter back to financial performance). In his new article, Barnett sets for a series of propositions that identify challenges on ability of firms to profit from CSR and highlights challenges managers may need to be aware of. In short, another great read. That article is found here: https://tinyurl.com/y8s36ks4

Be sure to check out all the insightful articles at Business & Society here (https://journals.sagepub.com/home/bas) and follow us on Twitter for updates on all the new articles and news: https://twitter.com/BASeditors

May this new year be one of great joy and productivity to you.

-Tim Hart, The University of Tulsa