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This article analyzes the factors that explain the international diffusion of voluntary international management standards. We argue that international management standards should not be analyzed in isolation but in conjunction with other standards and their institutional environment. We present two opposite views explaining how the previous diffusion of management standards facilitates or hampers the adoption of new management standards. We test a comprehensive model of diffusion of international environmental management standards within the chemical industry using a panel of 113 different countries during the period 2000 to 2003. Our results show that the previous experience of businesses in voluntary standards such as the Chemical Industry's Responsible Care Program or ISO 9000, government commitment toward Environmental Management Systems Standards, and the level of activity of international nongovernmental organizations in the country of adoption, impact positively on the adoption of ISO 14001 by chemical firms. Unlike previous studies that focused mostly on cross industry analyses, we do not find trade‐related factors significant while explaining adoption in the chemical industry. Our results differ, therefore, from previous research and highlight the need to isolate industry effects to understand the diffusion of international standards.

Voluntary programs are now widely used by governments and other actors to improve the environmental performance of firms beyond regulatory compliance. However, it is important to understand the effectiveness and limitations of these voluntary approaches. This paper investigates the rationale for firms to 'comply' with or 'resist' the mandate of their customers to adopt the international certified management standard (CMS) ISO 14001 in the North American automotive industry. We argue that the effectiveness of such a mandate will vary according to the characteristics of the relationship between suppliers and customers. We contrast and test hypotheses based on both transaction costs economics and signaling theories to suggest that both suppliers marked by a dependent relationship with their customers as well as those marked by a distant relationship with their customers have incentives to comply with the requests of their customers but through different mechanisms. Our results, based on the analysis of the characteristics of 3,152 automotive suppliers located in the US, Canada and Mexico over the 2000-2003 period, indicate that suppliers with highly specialized assets as well as younger suppliers and those reporting to the Toxic Release Inventory are more likely to adopt the certified management standard ISO 14001.

This paper analyzes the factors that explain the international diffusion of voluntary international management standards. We argue that to understand the diffusion of international standards we need to define a model that includes interactions between standards as well as interactions between standards and their institutional environment. We present two opposite views explaining how the previous diffusion of management standards facilitates or hampers the adoption of new management standards. We test a comprehensive model of diffusion of international environmental management standards within the chemical industry using a panel of 113 different countries during the period 2000 to 2003. Our results show that the previous experience of businesses in voluntary standards such as the Chemical Industry's Responsible Care program or ISO 9000, government commitment towards Environmental Management Systems Standards, and the level of activity of international non-governmental organizations in the country of adoption, impact positively on the adoption of ISO 14001 by chemical firms. Unlike previous studies that focused mostly on cross industry analyses, we do not find trade related factors significant while explaining adoption in the chemical industry. Our results differ, therefore from previous research and highlight the need to isolate industry effects to understand the diffusion of international standards.

Three months ago, in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak and immediately after the Spanish government declared the state of emergency, we wrote the op-ed "Companies vs Coronavirus: A Call for Responsible Innovation" in which we called for rapid responsible innovation to combat Covid-19. This is defined as innovation developed in a short period of time in a state of emergency with the hope of protecting people and saving lives (Gutierrez, Castillo, and Montiel 2020). Following our initial call, things have moved very quickly, and we continue to track how innovation has mushroomed.

The social and economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on humanity is already devastating. The pandemic demands responsibility from companies to step up for the service of society. Companies must show their commitment not only to shareholders but also to all of their stakeholders, while also putting their resources and expertise at the service of governments and the entire society. Firm responsible innovation is a positive impactful alternative to combat Covid-19. This Virtual Special Issue presents a collection of recent articles on responsible innovation —innovation oriented towards avoiding harm, doing good and developing responsible governance that involves establishing institutions, structures, and procedures to facilitate innovation (Voegtlin and Scherer, 2017)— connected to situations of crisis. We hope that these research works can help understand the business responsibilities in the current 2020 global Covid-19 pandemic even though this crisis is unprecedented and is demanding of much faster action to save lives. Briefly summarizing this set of articles covers the role of business in tackling grand societal challenges through innovation (Candi et al., 2019) and civic engagement (Skarmeas et al., 2019), the role of post-disaster business communities (Dinger et al., 2019), and innovation in multi-stakeholder settings (Rühli et al., 2017). This Virtual Special Issue also wants to serve as an action call to business ethics researchers to study how such global crisis is affecting the way businesses reorient their responsibilities, embark in cross-sector collaborations, and develop rapid responsible innovation to fight Covid-19.