Performance measurement systems have the potential to improve organizational outcomes, but they often come at a cost. This commentary highlights the individual, organizational, and societal costs of performance measurement systems and explores how such costs could be reduced.

Stakeholder recognition constitutes a firm’s experience of affirmation and acknowledgment from stakeholders and is deemed essential for organizations to develop positive self-relations and a sense of themselves as morally responsible social actors. Through an in-depth case study, I show how a firm’s varied experiences of stakeholder recognition for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts alternately facilitated and hindered the performativity of its aspirational CSR talk through two key processes: (a) a recognition-attainment process whereby the experience of stakeholder recognition helped turn (...) aspirational CSR talk into “substantive” talk with the performative potential to catalyze other CSR practices; and (b) a subsequent recognition-commodification process induced by a perceived misrecognition that ultimately rendered such talk “ceremonial.” Elucidating stakeholder recognition as an undertheorized boundary condition of aspirational CSR talk, this study adds to performative approaches to CSR communication. It further contributes to research on recognition by demonstrating the explanatory potential of Axel Honneth’s notion of recognition in researching business and society interactions. (shrink)

Business & Society’s 60th anniversary affords an opportunity to reflect on the journal’s achievements in the context of the wider field. We analyze editorial commentaries to map the evolving mission of the journal, assess the achievement of the journal’s mission through a thematic analysis of published articles, and examine Business & Society’s distinctiveness relative to peer journals using a machine learning approach. Our analysis highlights subtle shifts in Business & Society’s mission and content over time, reflecting variation in the relative (...) emphasis on scholarly quality versus policy/practice relevance, and building the journal and its academic community versus addressing issues of concern to wider society. While Business & Society’s intended missions have been substantially and sequentially achieved, an increased emphasis on the society-business nexus and a critical approach to interdisciplinarity could further enhance Business & Society’s leading role within business and society research and attract new generations of contributors and readers. (shrink)