Managing CSR Stakeholder Engagement: A New Conceptual Framework

As concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue to evolve, the predicament facing CSR managers when attempting to balance the differing interests of various stakeholders remains a persistent management challenge. A review of the extensive literature in this field reveals that the conceptualisation of corporate approaches to responsible stakeholder management remains underdeveloped. In particular, CSR practices within the specific context of the pharmaceutical industry, a sector which particularly dramatically depicts the stakeholder management dilemmas faced by business managers, has been under-researched. To address this gap, this paper utilises qualitative, exploratory data, obtained via multiple research methods, to investigate the CSR practices of major pharmaceutical companies in the UK and Germany. The data are employed to critically re-examine and revise a previously published explanatory framework which identifies the management steps involved in CSR stakeholder engagement. The resulting revised explanatory framework is the main contribution of this paper. By abstracting those factors which influence CSR practice, it provides an analytical tool which is designed to be of practical use for business decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. Given that the research addresses values and ideals and prescribes practical recommendations for practitioners, it is essentially applied and normative in nature. Ultimately, the framework proposes a set of steps for developing CSR strategies which could help CSR professionals to make a ‘mindset transition’ from a narrower ‘traditional’ approach to CSR to a more innovative way of thinking.     

Does having women managers lead to increased gender equality practices in corporate social responsibility?

There is increasing interest in determining what impact having women in management positions may have on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Various authors suggest that gender equality practices should be factored into the broader framework of CSR. This paper examines how the presence of women on corporate boards, in top and middle management and as heads of CSR departments, influences gender equality practices in the field of CSR. Using information collected from companies that have signed up to Women's Empowerment Principles in Spain, we show that the presence of women in the aforesaid posts has a positive impact on CSR activities with gender equality objectives. We thus supplement the justice, business and moral arguments with further arguments in support of the incorporation of women into not only corporate boards but all management positions. Finally, we provide a view of how gender equality can be included in the broader framework of CSR.     

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.     

The Role of Religiosity in Business and Consumer Ethics: A Review of the Literature

This study investigates antecedents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) subsidiaries. Using stakeholder theory and institutional theory that identify internal and external pressures for legitimacy in MNCs’ subsidiaries, we integrate international business and CSR literatures to create a model depicting CSR practices in MNCs’ subsidiaries. We propose that MNCs’ subsidiaries will be likely to adapt to local practices to legitimize themselves if they operate in host countries with different institutional environments and demanding stakeholders. We also predict that MNCs’ subsidiaries will be likely to adapt to local practices to avoid spillover effects if their parent companies suffer major legitimacy problems at home or abroad. However, we speculate that MNCs’ subsidiaries will be less likely to adapt to local practices if they are strongly annexed to their parent companies and the benefit to gain internal legitimacy outweighs external legitimacy. This article contributes to the discourse on CSR across borders by exploring the antecedents of CSR practices in MNCs’ subsidiaries at social and organizational levels, and integrating institutional and stakeholder views. We provide a number of propositions for future studies and explore implications for practitioners.     

Top executives' perceptions of the inclusion of corporate social responsibility in quality management

Exercise of global responsibility is critical to the future of quality practices in business, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is relevant to the quality movement. However, not much is known about management perceptions of CSR in the specific context of quality management. This paper examines top executives' views on CSR and quality management implemented through the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) framework. We report the results of a survey of executives in a multinational corporation operating in the outsourcing and technology services industry. The main factors influencing managerial perceptions were value generation, industry forces, institutional and stakeholder pressures, and organizational values and beliefs. In contrast to previous studies, we found limited evidence supporting the influence of shareholder pressures, competition, or the business case for CSR. We concluded that company lifecycle, changes in ownership structure, and owners' orientation toward CSR influenced its potential for adoption through implementation of the EFQM quality framework.     

Is venture capital socially responsible? Exploring the imprinting effect of VC funding on CSR practices

We study how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is guided by ownership history, specifically whether a company receives venture capital (VC) funding or not. We argue that companies that receive VC funding are less likely to adopt CSR practices due to unique VC imprinting and that temporal and investment orientation moderate this relationship. We find that VC-backed companies have poorer CSR records, which do improve over time, but at a comparatively slower rate than non-VC-backed companies. However, when VC-backed companies receive funding from VC firms that have a responsible investment orientation and a broader stakeholder view, their CSR records are significantly better. This study contributes to our understanding of imprinting boundaries and related repercussions in stakeholder management strategies.     

Communication of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Study of the Views of Management Teams in Large Companies

In light of the many corporate scandals, social and ethical commitment of society has increased considerably, which puts pressure on companies to communicate information related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The reasons underlying the decision by management teams to engage in ethical communication are scarcely focussed on. Thus, grounded on legitimacy and stakeholder theory, this study analyses the views management teams in large listed companies have on communication of CSR. The focus is on aspects on interest, motives/reasons, users and problems related to corporate communication of CSR information. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews confirm that there is a distinct trend shift towards more focus on CSR in corporate communication. Whilst this trend shift started as a reactive approach initiated by the many corporate scandals, the trend shift is now argued to be of a proactive nature focussed at preventing legitimacy concerns to arise. These findings are significant and interesting, implying that we are witnessing a transit period between two legitimacy strategies. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the way respondents argue when it comes to CSR activities coincides with consequentialism or utilitarianism, i.e. companies engage in CSR activities to avoid negative impacts instead of being driven by a will to make a social betterment or acting in accordance with what is fundamentally believed to be right to do. This provides new input to the ongoing debate about business ethics. The findings should alert national and international policy makers to the need both to increase the vigilance and capacity of the regulatory and judicial systems in the CSR context and to increase institutional pressure to enhance CSR adoption and CSR communication. Furthermore, stakeholders need to be careful in assuming that CSR communication is an evidence of a CSR commitment influencing corporate behaviour and increasing business ethics.     

Employer branding and CSR communication in online recruitment advertising

While multiple studies have discussed the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in recruiting, two important but unaddressed questions constrain the understanding and practice of presenting firms’ socially conscious efforts to their prospective employees. First, are companies engaged in CSR communicating their CSR practices effectively in online recruitment advertising? And second, what CSR information should companies include in online job advertisements to improve their employer attractiveness to prospective candidates? The findings of this study show that CSR communication in recruitment advertising is often limited, an ad-hoc practice, and mostly focused on company practices concerning employee participation and development. Even companies with a great CSR reputation take surprisingly little advantage of their CSR image when it comes to attracting job candidates. To improve employer attractiveness, we recommend that human resources managers consider (1) optimizing the structure of online job advertisements by including a company overview section in which CSR information can be presented easily, (2) expanding the scope of CSR dimensions in job advertisements to include environmental performance and community relations, (3) offering information about opportunities for employee engagement with CSR, and (4) adopting a strategic approach to the inclusion of CSR content in online job advertisements.     

Exogenously driven CSR: insights from the consultants' perspective

This paper offers insights into corporate social responsibility (CSR) consulting in Greece. It sheds light on perspectives of how socially responsible business conduct is shaped by consultancies in a national business environment where such an essential aspect of organizational commitment and behavior exhibits comparatively little resonance among companies and is primarily induced by supranational and international policy schemes as well as foreign competitors. Drawing from long interviews with consulting professionals, we explore key topics: the domestic CSR (consulting) industry's characteristics, issues pertaining to the engagement with clients, the endorsement of CSR standards and initiatives, along with the consultants' perspective on institutional dynamics and their prospects with respect to the future of CSR in Greece. In this context, we aim to indicate trends on CSR implementation, pressures exerted on consultants, and managerial attitudes towards corporate responsibility. Our findings illustrate an oligopolistically structured market that encourages consultancies to compete intensely, the consultants' limited capacity to influence the business behavior of their clients, with the latter to adopt a promotional communicative approach to CSR, as well as a lack of institutional coordination and mechanisms that will materially embed social responsibility in the strategic management of business.     

Assessing the Impact of Public–Private Partnerships in the Global South: The Case of the Kasur Tanneries Pollution Control Project

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitiveness. We start with the commonly held view that firm competitiveness is defined by the market. That is, the question of what are the critical competitiveness factors is answered by looking at how companies and financial analysts describe and evaluate a firm. To analyze this, we review the current state of the art on the relationship between CSR and competitiveness. Second, CSR criteria used by financial analysts is identified and compared with company valuation methods. Third, the results of a multi-stakeholder dialogue on CSR and competitiveness of the European financial sector are presented. As a conclusion, we argue that CSR and competitiveness relate through a learning and innovation cycle, where corporate values, policies and practices are permanently defined and re-defined. Thus, we propose that learning takes place as CSR is embedded in business processes, and that once it has been integrated, in turn, it generates innovative practices, and finally, competitiveness. At the end of the paper, we propose that CSR in practice consists of managing inherent paradoxes generated by the tension between CSR and business policies.     

Building a competitive advantage based on transparency: When and why does transparency matter for corporate social responsibility?

Customers today are increasingly demanding transparency from firms. This article discusses the concept of performance transparency and explores when and why transparency plays a key role for a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) effectiveness. In doing so, it addresses consumer skepticism as the logic of the transparency-CSR interaction and presents empirical evidence of the effect. It also discusses key principles for managing performance transparency effectively. Companies should monitor and track performance transparency regularly, initiate consistent transparency practices along with CSR activities, pay attention to the types of information made available, and adapt the transparency practices to the involvement level.     

Antecedents of Adopting Corporate Environmental Responsibility and Green Practices

This paper examines the antecedents of organizational commitment for adopting corporate environmental responsibility and green practices in the case of the logistics industry in South Korea. Seven hundred and eighty employees and top management from logistics companies were sampled. The data were analyzed using factor analysis, structural equation modeling techniques, and one-way analysis of variance. The results showed that social expectations, organizational support, and stakeholder pressure were the important antecedents for the adoption of corporate environmental responsibility and green practices. In the path analysis, social expectations had the greatest impact on both stakeholder pressure and green practice adoption. Moreover, we found that the higher the job titles were, the more willing they were to adopt green practices. This indicated that the current top management of Korean logistics companies is well aware of being mandated to make a commitment to corporate environmental responsibility and green practices.     

How Important Are CEOs to CSR Practices? An Analysis of the Mediating Effect of the Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility

Drawing on the Agency–Stewardship approach, which suggests that manager profile may range from the agent model to the steward model, this article aims to examine how important CEOs are to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Specifically, this exploratory study proposes the existence of a relationship between manager profile and CSR practices and that this relation is mediated by the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility. After applying a mediated regression analysis using survey information collected from 149 CEOs in Spain, results show that those closer to the steward model are more inclined to attach great importance to ethics and social responsibility, and to implement CSR practices in their companies. Results also provide support for the suggested mediating effect. Thus, this article extends research in understanding top managers as drivers for CSR and suggests new ways to deal with this issue empirically.     

Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

We examine the relationship between corporate governance and the extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures in the annual reports of Bangladeshi companies. A legitimacy theory framework is adopted to understand the extent to which corporate governance characteristics, such as managerial ownership, public ownership, foreign ownership, board independence, CEO duality and presence of audit committee influence organisational response to various stakeholder groups. Our results suggest that although CSR disclosures generally have a negative association with managerial ownership, such relationship becomes significant and positive for export-oriented industries. We also find public ownership, foreign ownership, board independence and presence of audit committee to have positive significant impacts on CSR disclosures. However, we fail to find any significant impact of CEO duality. Thus, our results suggest that pressures exerted by external stakeholder groups and corporate governance mechanisms involving independent outsiders may allay some concerns relating to family influence on CSR disclosure practices. Overall, our study implies that corporate governance attributes play a vital role in ensuring organisational legitimacy through CSR disclosures. The findings of our study should be of interest to regulators and policy makers in countries which share similar corporate ownership and regulatory structures.     

Corporate Social Reporting in the European Context and Human Resource Disclosures: An Analysis of Finnish Companies

This paper explores by means of content analysis the extent to which the Finnish biggest companies have adapted socially responsible reporting practices. The research focuses on Human Resource (HR) reporting and covers corporate annual reports. The criteria has been set on the basis of the analysis of the documents published at the European level in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR), paying special attention to the European Council appeal on CSR in March 2000. As CSR is a relatively new concept in Finland, the paper also contributes to the discussion on interface between HR reporting (especially as based on measurements such as Human Resource Accounting and Intellectual Capital schools) and corporate social reporting practices. The results of the content analysis indicate that social reporting practices are still at an early stage of development in Finland. The most reported theme was ‘training and staff development’. A positive sign was that the majority also disclosed themes ‘participation and staff involvement’ and ‘employee health and well-being’. Furthermore, nearly one-third made references to their work atmosphere or job satisfaction survey. However, disclosures lacked overall consistency and comparability with each other and especially quantitative indicators were disclosed by few. Further concern was lack of information related to the theme equal opportunities and going beyond a sheer disclosure of age or gender structure. The other issues rarely disclosed were those related to employee work–life balance and integration of disadvantaged groups in the labour markets.     

The Influence of Internal and External Codes on CSR Practice: The Case of Companies Operating in Serbia

In this article, our aim is to examine the difference between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice of the multinational companies (MNCs) and of the domestic companies operating in Serbia, as well as the influence of internal self-regulations such as statements of corporate values and codes of conduct, and external self-regulations such as the implementation of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards on CSR practice. The CSR practice is observed in five CSR areas: employee relations, customer relations, environmental practice, community and social involvement, and transparency in business activity. The findings indicate that the CSR practice of the MNCs is significantly different in comparison to domestic companies only in the area of employee relations. Furthermore, the overall results suggest that internal self-regulations have more influence on CSR practice than the implementation of generic management system standards. However, the existence of transparent corporate values, codes of conduct and implemented management systems according to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards does not prove to be strong predictors of CSR performance.     

Corporate Reputation Through Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights From Service Industry Companies

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained global awareness in recent years. The proponents of CSR state that a good corporate reputation may be beneficial to an organization. This research paper reviews the theoretical basis of CSR, and by adopting a qualitative methodology examines the characteristics of CSR strategies and CSR communication tactics of eight companies in Cyprus market through personal in-depth interviews. Results reveal that CSR has a positive impact on the company's employees, the environment, stakeholders and the general public, and highlight that CSR is an important ingredient for the success of the organizations in the Cyprus market.     

The effect of cross-listing on the environmental,social, and governance performance of firms

We propose that cross-listing is associated with better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, because cross-listed firms adopt ESG practices to mitigate the liability of foreignness (LOF) in foreign financial markets. Institutionalization processes have made ESG practices important for managing challenges associated with the LOF. With tests involving the S&P Global 1200 index, we show that cross-listing improves corporate social responsibility (CSR; i.e., social and environmental dimensions) but not corporate governance. The effects of cross-listing on CSR also depend on investor protection regimes of listing destinations: Stronger regimes correspond with poorer CSR performance, suggesting that they limit managerial discretion.     

The Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility: Techniques of Neutralization, Stakeholder Management and Political CSR

Since scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily focused on the synergies between social and economic performance, our understanding of how (and the conditions under which) companies use CSR to produce policy outcomes that work against public welfare has remained comparatively underdeveloped. In particular, little is known about how corporate decision-makers privately reconcile the conflicts between public and private interests, even though this is likely to be relevant to understanding the limitations of CSR as a means of aligning business activity with the broader public interest. This study addresses this issue using internal tobacco industry documents to explore British-American Tobacco’s (BAT) thinking on CSR and its effects on the company’s CSR Programme. The article presents a three-stage model of CSR development, based on Sykes and Matza’s theory of techniques of neutralization, which links together: how BAT managers made sense of the company’s declining political authority in the mid-1990s; how they subsequently justified the use of CSR as a tool of stakeholder management aimed at diffusing the political impact of public health advocates by breaking up political constituencies working towards evidence-based tobacco regulation; and how CSR works ideologically to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the relative merits of competing approaches to tobacco control. Our analysis has three implications for research and practice. First, it underlines the importance of approaching corporate managers’ public comments on CSR critically and situating them in their economic, political and historical contexts. Second, it illustrates the importance of focusing on the political aims and effects of CSR. Third, by showing how CSR practices are used to stymie evidence-based government regulation, the article underlines the importance of highlighting and developing matrices to assess the negative social impacts of CSR.