Proactiveness and corporate social performance in the global forest industry

Abstract

SUMMARY Companies involved in natural resource extraction, such as forestry, have a profound impact on the environments in which they operate. Therefore, active engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) by managing close relationships with key stakeholder groups, i.e., governments, communities, environmental NGOs, and employees have become necessary to maintain their social license to operate. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that proactiveness has a positive influence on the company's corporate social performance (CSP). Proactiveness can act as a stance towards CSP, and further it may be a precondition to gain a competitive advantage by investing in CSR. International survey data from managers in 60 forest industry companies in different continents is used to empirically test the hypothesis. A positive impact of company's proactiveness on CSP was found using the regression analysis. Results also show that employees and managers in a proactive company more often take the initiative to impro...