Social Forces
Do Consumers Know Better? Harnessing Ideas for Plastic-free Food Packaging View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gianfranco Walsh, Mario Schaarschmidt, Klaus-Peter Wiedmann, Fred Lemke
We introduce a promising (but underresearched) approach to the reduction of acceptance barriers with regard to plastic-free food packaging. Building on the notion that user-generated innovations enjoy greater acceptance than conventional innovations, we propose consumer-generated, plastic-free food packaging as a viable alternative to conventional, plastic-based packaging. Specifically, we propose that the development of new, sustainable product packaging ideas can be relocated outside the company, such that a (conventional) top-down innovation process is replaced by a bottom-up innovation process in which the end customer is the starting point for an innovation.
Governance and Sustainability in Digital Worlds: The Case of Metaverses View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mario Schaarschmidt, Michael Russell, Michael Price
Sustainability is of utmost importance for digital businesses not only because of discussions of energy consumption (e.g., blockchain), but also because of the governance mechanisms needed to ensure long-lasting consumer activities. In this context, we report on research related to governance, equality, and sustainability in the metaverse. The metaverse can be considered a next-generation Internet in which the users, as avatars, can interact in a three-dimensional virtual space. Interviews with brand managers, as well as two surveys among consumers and metaverse members show that while sustainability is generally important to users, their decision to join is more related to factors such as data protection and cyberbullying compared to energy consumption and environmental impact.
The Impact of Directors, Executives, and Employees: Gender Diversity across Levels and Corporate Environmental Performance View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Miguel Villanueva
Studies in the business literature have shown that corporate board of director gender diversity positively affects business decision-making and governance, and potentially firm valuation. We examine gender diversity in the executive rank and all employees, in addition to board of directors, and investigate potential effects of these various dimensions of gender diversity on, less studied, corporate environmental performance. Using a novel dataset of quarterly ESG and financial performance metrics, we find that gender diversity among all employees positively impacts environmental performance and is robust to several controls. By contrast, the impact of gender diversity at the board of directors and executive rank varies across business sector, geographical region, and firm size.
