Dealing With Uncertainties When Governing CSR Policies

As corporate social responsibility involves a voluntary business endeavour to address social and environmental issues beyond legal compliance, governments cannot fall back on hierarchical command-and-control policies to support it. As such, it is complementary with the increasing popularity of public policies known as New Governance policies, where the government is engaged in a horizontal inter-organizational network of societal actors and where public policy is both formed and executed by the interacting and voluntary efforts from a multitude of stakeholders. However, such policies are known to generate substantive uncertainty about the content of CSR and its related issues, strategic uncertainty regarding the behavior of the actors involved and institutional uncertainty related to the interaction process involved in the institutional change. We explore New Governance policy instruments to address these uncertainties in the context CSR and discuss the experiences with these methods in the European Union. Jan Lepoutre is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Economics at Ghent University, Belgium. In his dissertation, he focuses on the competences associated with small business social responsibility and networks as governmental means to build competences among small businesses. Nikolay A. Dentchev is an independent research fellow at Ghent University, Belgium, and a project coordinator at the corporate venturing department of Fortis Group (Fortis Venturing). He holds a Ph.D. in business economics from Ghent University. His current research is related to entrepreneurship, instrumental stakeholder theory, and management challenges of corporate social responsibility. Aimé Heene is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Ghent University, Belgium. He teaches strategic management for private and public organizations and currently focuses his research on (competencebased) management in public and social profit organizations.     

Understanding Responsible Leadership: Role Identity and Motivational Drivers

This article contributes to the emerging discussion on responsible leadership by providing an analysis of the inner theatre of a responsible leader. I use a narrative approach for analyzing the biography of Anita Roddick as a widely acknowledged prototype of a responsible leader. With clinical and normative lenses I explore the relationship between responsible leadership behavior and the underlying motivational systems. I begin the article with an introduction outlining the current state of responsible leadership research and explaining the kind of magnifying glasses used to examine the case. I continue with a brief summary of Anita Roddick’s development from childhood to adulthood, which provides the biographical background for exploring her motivational systems as a leader. Against this backdrop, I analyze the relationship between motivational drivers and a responsible leadership identity as revealed by Roddick in different behavioral leadership roles. I conclude the article by providing a number of lessons learned for responsible leadership and the development of future global leaders. Dr. Nicola M. Pless is a former Vice President of leadership development at a large financial services institution. Currently she is Reader in Responsible Leadership at the University of St. Gallen and Research Director of the HSG-INSEAD Initiative on Responsible Leadership. She holds a Ph.D. in organizational theory and social issues from the University of St. Gallen and a diploma in clinical organizational psychology from INSEAD where she is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow. She is editor of “Responsible Leadership”, published by Routledge in 2006.     

Revisiting the Concept of a Societal Orientation: Conceptualization and Delineation

Marketers have traditionally evaluated products and practices on the basis of whether something could be sold. It is also important to evaluate products and practices from a societal perspective, “Should a product be sold?” The first idea reflects a managerial orientation and what must be done to sell a product; the second idea reflects a societal orientation and the impact of selling a product. In relation to the second idea, the societal marketing concept was introduced in 1972. There has been little advancement in our understanding of a societal orientation since that time. The current study presents a conceptualization of a societal orientation based on a review of literature and qualitative interviews. The construct was conceptualized as “attention to the long-term well-being of individuals and society at large by enhancing positive impacts from and reducing negative effects associated with production and consumption of a product.” Five domains comprising a societal orientation are proposed: physical consequences, psychological well-being, social relationships, economic contribution, and environmental consciousness.     

Can Consumers Buy Responsibly? Analysis and Solutions for Market Failures

This paper analyses one of the business case arguments for social responsibility: that corporate social responsibility plans are rewarded by consumers. This paper explores the ability of consumers to buy responsibly, identifies the main obstacles for responsible consumption, and suggests conditions for it to work. The review of previous studies leads us to conclude that consuming responsibly is seen as a time consuming activity, economically disadvantageous, and stressful. The main thesis of this paper is that unless market failures are corrected, consumers will not be able to buy responsibly, and therefore, market incentives for CSR are seriously threatened.

Ethics in Business: Answering the Call

What might happen if business leaders across the globe viewed their work as a sacred calling in a religious sense? Might not the world be a far better place? This paper is an effort to stimulate debate and discussion on this topic. Concepts addressed include: (a) ethics in business, (b) ethical standards in business settings, (c) the role of law, (d) levels of corporate responsibility, (e) the role of religion in business ethics, (f) the idea of business as a calling in a religious sense, (g) the elements of modern corporate culture, (h) creating an ethical corporate culture, (i) demonstrating corporate social responsibility, and (j) providing servant leadership. The introduction to the paper shows how these concepts interrelate; its conclusion offers a challenge to business leaders to answer their call to business in the truest sense.     

“AIDS is Not a Business”: A Study in Global Corporate Responsibility – Securing Access to Low-cost HIV Medications

At the end of the 1990s, Brazil was faced with a potentially explosive HIV/AIDS epidemic. Through an innovative and multifaceted campaign, and despite initial resistance from multinational pharmaceutical companies, the government of Brazil was able to negotiate price reductions for HIV medications and develop local production capacity, thereby averting a public health disaster. Using interview data and document analysis, the authors show that the exercise of corporate social responsibility can be viewed in practice as a dynamic negotiation and an interaction between multiple actors. Action undertaken in terms of voluntary CSR alone may be insufficient. This finding highlights the importance of a strong role for national governments and international organizations to pressure companies to perform better. William Flanagan is the Dean of Law at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. His research interests include international trade and investment, and corporate law and corporate governance. Gail Whiteman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Business and Society of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.     

Analysis of Social Performance in the Spanish Financial Industry Through Public Data. A Proposal

Banking firms are becoming increasingly aware that their clients’ management of environmental and social risks may in term threaten their own business as lenders and investors. In addition, stakeholders are requiring banks to improve their social performance. As a result, some banks are developing corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and management systems to reduce potential risks and improve their performance. In the Spanish financial system, half of the banking firms are savings banks, most of which have always used some Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) criteria in their management. Private Banks have only recently started to integrate social aspects in their performance. However, no formal analysis has been carried out on the impact of CSR strategies. Various initiatives have been launched nationally and internationally to include the social dimension in management systems. The purpose of this research is to analyse the social performance of the main Spanish financial companies through public data such as social or sustainability reports and media sources. In order to do this, we need to determine which CSR criteria most greatly affect banking firms and to choose the most accurate quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure social performance.     

Exploring the Effects of Union–NGO Relationships on Corporate Responsibility: The Case of the Swedish Clean Clothes Campaign

In the current era, governments are playing smaller roles in regulating workers’ rights internationally, and transnational corporations (TNCs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in the struggle for workers’ rights, and labour/trade unions have started to fill this governance gap. This paper focuses on the least researched of the relationships among these three actors, the union–NGO relationship, by analysing the ways in which it affects definitions of TNC responsibility for workers’ rights at their suppliers’ factories. Based on a qualitative study of the union–NGO relationship in the Swedish garment industry between 1996 and 2005, we propose that there are six main configurations of union–NGO relationships. By linking these configurations to their effects on TNC responsibility, we propose that co-ordination relationships between unions and NGOs, particularly high-commitment co-ordination relationships, are likely to result in a broadening of the definition of TNC responsibility, while conflictual relationships, both high and low commitment, result in a narrowing of the definition of TNC responsibility. The study indicates that co-operation is generally more beneficial for both unions and NGOs than is any form of conflictual relationship, in terms of broadening the definition of TNC responsibility.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring Stakeholder Relationships and Programme Reporting across Leading FTSE Companies

Although it is now widely recognised by business leaders that their companies need to accept a broader responsibility than short-term profits, recent research suggests that as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social reporting become more widespread, there is little empirical evidence of the range of stakeholders addressed through their CSR programmes and how such programmes are reported. Through a CSR framework which was developed in an exploratory study, we explore the nature of stakeholder relationships reported across leading FTSE companies and the importance they attach to communicating both social and business outcomes. It is evident from the hypotheses tested that the bigger FTSE companies, particularly extraction companies and telecoms, are more adept at identifying and prioritising their stakeholders, and linking CSR programmes to business and social outcomes. However, we draw the general conclusion that building stronger stakeholder relationships through CSR programmes – other than with customers – is not currently a priority for most companies. We also conclude that a limited sophistication in managing multiple stakeholders may compromise the impact of CSR upon business and social results. Finally, the managerial implications and the contribution of our study are discussed before closing with an acknowledgement of the limitations of this work and suggestions for further research.     

Strategic consequences of being unsympathetic: For‐profit companies benefit more than individuals from focusing on responsibility

Previous research has found that consumers ascribe mental states to for‐profit companies that enable them to elicit anger more easily than sympathy. The current study applies these findings to demonstrate how this evaluative asymmetry in consumer perceptions favor different strategies for individuals and companies managing conflicts and crises. First, it is shown that the mental states consumers ascribe to for‐profit companies enable them to elicit anger and admiration more easily than sympathy. Second, due to their ability to elicit anger more easily than sympathy, it is found that in conflicts between for‐profit companies and individuals, companies are evaluated more favorably when they focus attention on which side perpetrated the most harm, while individuals are evaluated more favorably when they focus on which side was most victimized. Third, due to their ability to elicit admiration more easily than sympathy, it is found that for‐profit companies derive greater benefits than individuals do from proactively taking responsibility to resolve crises rather than deflecting responsibility through claims of victimhood. Discussion focuses on marketing applications for companies managing conflicts and crises.