ect how a person presents an image of effectiveness or morality" (pp. 22-23). Although their arguments are far from conclusive, Giacalone and Payne make an important point about the importance most people and businesses place on making a good public impression.
A study conducted by Rita D. Kosnik of Texas A & M University, on the other hand, is based on the assumption that many businesses are indeed legitimately concerned with the importance of social responsibility. Kosnik's study also yields evidence which supports the view that true corporate responsibility is dependent upon various outside forces. The study compared a large group of corporate boards that "privately repurchased stock at a premium above the market place" with a similar number of boards that resisted doing so (Kosnik, 1987, p. 163). This practice, known as "greenmail," presents an ethical situation pertaining to corporate social responsibility, since it is "in conflict with stockholders' interests" (p. 163). Kosnik found that the group that resisted "greenmail" tended to possess "more outside directors, more directors with executive experience, and more directors who represented interorganizational transactions" than the group which did not (p. 163).
A fundamental concern of corporations facing questions of social responsibility is whether or not the practice interferes with profitability. Wood, Chonko and Hunt, after studying a sample of over 1,000 professionals in marketing firms arrived at a neutral answer to this question. The findings of this study showed that "neither penalties nor rewards accrue to marketing executives for socially responsive actions" (Wood, 1986, p. 193). Therefore, from a marketing perspective, it appears that the individuals in charge of decisionmaking tend to neither profit nor lose on the basis of social responsibility. However, the authors of this study further hypothesize that if a system of
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