Employees, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the importance of sustainability in corporations. In fact, firms engaged in CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities have been thoroughly assessed and evaluated by market participants in COVID-19 pandemic era (Bae et al., 2021). In China, ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance has decreased the financial risks that occur during global pandemics (Broadstock et al., 2021). These studies suggest that investors recognize that ESG performance is a positive indication of future stock performance during pandemic crises.

The role of firms that engage in CSR is to construct and implement a framework for a sustainable plan. Previous studies have shown that firms engaged in CSR activities improve their relationships with lenders (La Rosa et al., 2018). Recently, the ESG movement has increased in corporations all over the world. In fact, investors evaluate a company’s long-term sustainable performance using ESG performance indicators. Thus, the engagement in CSR activities and ESG performances is necessary to establish sustainable corporations.

National-level corporate governance differences are essential to consider when attempting to explain firm-level corporate governance practices (Aguilera and Jackson, 2003). Moreover, the differences between shareholder- and stakeholder-oriented corporate governances are important in the context of globalization (Sakawa et al., 2021, Sakawa et al., 2022). There remain gaps in the research concerning how the differences in corporate governance practices affect the effects of a company’s engagement with CSR and ESG policies. Furthermore, these differences result in the different effects of CSR or ESG engagement during the era of the global pandemic.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome for submission. We invite submissions of papers that address further research that asseses the features of national-level governance and CSR or ESG engagement from the persepctive of single-country or comparative studies. Thus, this Special Issue will focus on empirical and case studies that attempt to expose these issues. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• CSR and its effects on corporate performance;
• CSR and its effects on different measures of corporate performance;
• CSR and its impacts on society;
• Consistency and authenticity in the implementation of CSR practices;
• Theories explaining instrumental and moral initiatives in CSR practices;
• Resources and capabilities that help firms in the adoption of sustainable practices;
• Innovations in the adoption of sustainable practices;
• Stakeholders’ influence on CSR adoption;
• Perceptions of various stakeholders of CSR practices;
• CSR in family firms;
• CSR and corporate performance in different sectors;
• CSR during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Naoki Watanabel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• CSR
• ESG
• corporate governance
• employees
• sustainability