Legitimizing CSR Enactment Through Institutional Logics: A Cross-Market Comparison

Abstract

As responsible business becomes an increasingly global concern, the ways in which organizations, and the individuals within, enact and legitimize corporate social responsibility (CSR), is increasingly important. Drawing on a qualitative study of scientists and engineers in the energy sector in Eastern Europe and Canada, we show differences in exposure to and interpretation of institutional logics in these two national settings that drive heterogeneity in how these professionals enact CSR through their work. In both contexts, the hazardous nature of their organizations requires them to act with agency. However, in the Eastern European context, professionals use localized logic—a constellation of local collective norms developed through a variety of organizational and social positions—to legitimize their CSR enactment. In contrast, in the Canadian context, professionals use professional logic—a constellation of artifacts and practices embedded in the standards of their profession—to legitimize their CSR enactment. Based on these findings, we develop a process model of legitimizing CSR enactment that explicates three mechanisms through which logics shape the agency of CSR enactment at the micro- level of analysis.