Not dinosaurs but dynamos: the roles of middle managers in corporate social responsibility and sustainable development issues

Abstract

Current approaches analyze corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development (SD) as an organizational-level phenomenon that develops in response to institutional forces or as a consequence of top management instrumental motivations. This focus limits our understanding of how CSR and SD initiatives are conceived, developed, and implemented. While top managers may define CSR strategies, it is middle managers that implement these strategies in the day-to-day concrete operations. Therefore, in light of our knowledge about middle managers from the strategy literature, the goal of this chapter is to explore how, according to the CSR and SD literature, middle managers in charge of CSR or SD initiatives perform their managerial roles. Drawing on their knowledge of operations and context, their position at the interface of different stakeholders inside and outside the organization and their values, we found that middle managers in charge of CSR and SD initiatives perform three types of roles: influencing, implementing, and connecting. Based on these findings, we reflected on future research avenues that can better support practitioners’ engagement toward a more sustainable business environment.