Literature Review of Management System Frameworks for CSR and Other Sustainability Concepts

Pek Yew Liew,Christoph Luetge

doi:10.5539/jms.v8n4p22

Abstract

This paper presents an overview and analysis of plan-do-check-act (PDCA) based management system frameworks and other similar structured frameworks that were developed for the systematic implementation and management of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate sustainability (CS) and sustainable development (SD). With the aim of providing a comprehensive insight to support future research on this topic, this paper focuses on uncovering the different systematic approaches that can be adopted for the implementation and management of these stakeholder concepts at the organizational level. Our extensive literature search for articles that were published between 2000 to 2017 was able to identify only nineteen relevant articles, which indicates that there is very limited research in this field of work. Our analysis of the frameworks revealed that diverse approaches were developed for CSR. Apart from the traditional management system approach that are based on ISO 9001 (quality management standard) or ISO 14001 (environmental management standard), a variety of other approaches such as frameworks that are built on ISO 26000 (social responsibility guidance standard), organizational change management theories as well as other concepts that are similar to the PDCA cycle were developed for CSR. In contrast to the approaches for CSR, the frameworks that were developed for the implementation and management of CS or SD are mainly based on ISO 14001.

Highlights

Management systems have a long history in the world of business, specific ones such as management systems for ensuring the quality of products and services as well as for the management of environmental, health and safety (Argandoña, 2004)
Despite the proliferation of publications on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability (CS)/sustainable development (SD) in the last decades, our research revealed that there are only very few researchers who explored the development of management system frameworks or systematic approaches for the implementation and management of CSR and CS/SD
According to our analysis in this literature review, the management system approaches that were developed for the implemention and management of CSR are very similar to the management system approaches for CS/SD

Summary

Introduction

Management systems have a long history in the world of business, specific ones such as management systems for ensuring the quality of products and services as well as for the management of environmental, health and safety (Argandoña, 2004). In the absence of a MSS that prescribes requirements for a systematic approach, it is difficult to implement and manage CSR and CS/SD effectively at the organizational level (Singh, Murty, & Gupta, 2007; Asif, & Searcy, 2014). This is because these concepts cover a broad spectrum of issues which needs to be managed with a long term perspective and require the engagement of multiple stakeholders from within and beyond the boundaries of the organizations. The continuous and repetitive feature of PDCA cycle provides an excellent means to drive jms.ccsenet.org

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