Circular economy orientation from corporate social responsibility: A view based on structural equation modeling and a fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis

Abstract

Seeking sustainable development, companies voluntarily implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach, considering economic, social and environmental aspects of interest to global society. Searching for sustainable development, the Circular Economy (CE) emerged as a new philosophy of life to meet the new challenges in society. This research links CSR and CE but considering jointly the Institutional and Stakeholder Theories to delimit the sustainable development framework from the EC approach driven by CSR. According to this framework, it was tested whether the CSR practices of companies positively and significantly impacts on a business orientation towards CE, through two models (Model A and Model B) each of them analyzed with two independent samples of companies in Spain. Both samples are composed of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) at two different stages of CSR adoption. The hypotheses were analyzed through a structural equation modeling‐fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (SEM‐fsQCA). The result of the SEM supports the hypothesis in both models. So, CSR practices are driving companies towards CE, incorporating propositions on stakeholders' value creation. Moreover, an fsQCA revealed combinations of relationships that ensure the consistency of obtained results, generating five configurations based on two models defined. Main contribution of this work is CSR practices of companies and their orientation towards CE can be linked. This encourages to deep in analysis about the relations between CE and CSR, and of the specific CSR practices that should be enhanced for their beneficial effect on the implementation of CE.

Decision-Making Mechanism of Farmers in Land Transfer Processes Based on Sustainable Livelihood Analysis Framework: A Study in Rural China

“…The SEM model was introduced by Joreskog and Wiley in the 1970s as a multivariate statistical analysis method to analyze the interaction between variables, theoretical model testing, impact path analysis, and sample data fitting effects [63]. The model has the advantages of multi-factor analysis, high error accommodation, and fitting effect analysis and it is more suitable for this study [64,65]. First, previous econometric models are mostly limited to single-factor analysis; SEM breaks this constraint and can analyze and measure multiple dependent variables and factor structures as a way to clarify the complex relationships among the factors [66,67].…”