Cost and revenue impacts of corporate responsibility: Comparisons across sustainability dimensions and product chain stages

The study examines the CR-economic performance relationship with a simultaneous emphasis on comprehensiveness and disaggregation. To this end, it presents a theoretical discussion and a tentative manager survey, and ends with hypotheses for further research. The study covers CR issues in three sustainability dimensions and three product chain stages, seeks systematic patterns in the economic performance impacts of these issues, and reports separately on the cost-side and revenue-side impacts. The study points to certain differences between sustainability dimensions and product chain stages as far as revenues and individual cost components are concerned. Economic responsibility issues and supplier issues stand out as less profitable than others. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.