Corporate Social Responsibility Construct Research Articles

Accountants' construction of CSR competencies and commitment

Purpose– The article's main purpose is to investigate the relationship between organizational and professional commitment and accountants' construction of corporate social responsibility (CSR) competencies.Design/methodology/approach– A survey of accounting professionals in Canada (chief financial officers/finance directors) was conducted to ask them about their organization's CSR position, their openness to CSR, involvement in related activities, the codified knowledge they use and their organizational and professional commitment.Findings– The results show the dominance of normative commitment to the profession or organization and its relationship with professional CSR training. Professional CSR training and organizational and other CSR training activities are also related to the professional's openness to CSR.Research limitations/implications– The study's main limitation is the small number of participants. Future research is needed to investigate the conditions under which normative commitment is developed.Practical implications– The results make a practical contribution by suggesting that organizations seeking to involve accounting professionals in CSR activities might want to consider encouraging them to get CSR training using professional resources because of its link to both forms of normative commitment. Further, the findings indicate that the profession could integrate CSR issues more extensively in its accreditation process to enhance its role as a resource provider in the construction of accountants' CSR competencies.Originality/value– To the authors' knowledge, the study is the first one to investigate the relationship between organizational and professional commitment and accountants' construction of CSR competencies.

The Construction of Corporate Social Responsibility in Network Societies: A Communication View

The paper introduces the communication view on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which regards CSR as communicatively constructed in dynamic interaction processes in today’s networked societies. Building on the idea that communication constitutes organizations we discuss the potentially indeterminate, disintegrative, and conflictual character of CSR. We hereby challenge established mainstream views on CSR such as the instrumental view, which regards CSR as an organizational instrument to reach organizational aims such as improved reputation and financial performance, and the political-normative view on CSR, which highlights the societal conditions and role of corporations in creating norms. We argue that both the established views, by not sufficiently acknowledging communication dynamics in networked societies, remain biased in three ways: control-biased, consistency-biased, and consensus-biased. We discuss implications of these biases and propose a future research agenda for the communication view on CSR.

Corporate social responsibility

PurposeThe world is becoming global, digital, health conscious and spiritual. In this new and evolving international environment with a large private sector and global integration of world capital markets, Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become the prominent topic of institutional reform. This issue of CSR is of great importance as the Saudi economy is opening up and the government is trying to diversify its investments and reduce its reliance on the petroleum sector. The proposed research study is aimed at identifying perceptions of managers, company practices and performance of companies concerning CSR practices of 21 listed companies in Saudi Arabia.Design/methodology/approachFrom each company, ten managers were chosen randomly totaling two hundred and ten respondents. Primary and secondary data was collected for the study. Primary data were collected by conducting interviews and discussions with management respondents through questionnaires structured for the purpose.FindingsThe empirical findings in the KSA study support the applicability of Carroll's Pyramid of CSR constructs and Lawrence et al.'s charity and stewardship principles.Research limitations/implicationsThere is excellent scope for future research on the current topic and in improving the instruments, measures and constituent concepts of CSR constructs in order to provide better guidance to policy makers and managers, as well as academic interest.Originality/valueSaudi Arabia is known for its charity and stewardship principles, but not much empirical work based on CSR constructs has been done. Hence, this study attempts to measure perception and construct validity.

The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and customer trust on the restoration of loyalty after service failure and recovery

Purpose – This study seeks to examine perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) with a focus on ethical and legal questions, related to the constructs such as recovery satisfaction, customer trust, and loyalty after a service failure. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical test was conducted on this relationship in the context of service failure and recovery. A structural equation model was employed to test the hypotheses. Findings – Results indicate that perceived CSR has a significant impact on customer trust and loyalty and that customer trust serves as a key mediating variable in service recovery. Research limitations/implications – This study provides a theoretical implication for the relationship between perceived CSR and the relationship constructs such as service recovery satisfaction, customer trust, and loyalty. Practical implications – The results suggest that managers may need to be aware of perceived CSR as a key variable in restoring customer loyalty. The results further suggest that perceived CSR has a direct and indirect positive effect on loyalty; perceived CSR has a direct impact on loyalty, but it also has an indirect influence on loyalty through customer trust. Originality/value – In an attempt to deepen the understanding of how customer perceptions of firm CSR are connected with other customer-related outcomes during service recovery, the present research proposes a comprehensive model which encompasses CSR and other key relationship constructs after a service failure and recovery.

The Influence of Global Institutions on MNCs' Behaviour: The Case of the GRI

In this paper, we address the question of the influence of a global governance institution, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), on a multinational corporation’s (MNC) management practices. More precisely, this article provides an empirical view into the impact of sustainability reporting on organizational practices; and explores the effects of one of the key sustainability reporting institutions, the GRI, on a firm’s international management of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The research is based on a qualitative case study conducted in an MNC and investigates the firm’s response to institutional pressures by comparing the stated intention of the use of the GRI versus its actual use and consequent effects within the MNC. The findings indicate an increased influence of the GRI, moving from a reporting standard to a management standard, hereby causing an enhanced focus on CSR representation rather than performance. One of the significant effects of this emphasis on reporting is a shift towards a globally integrated approach to CSR management inside the MNC. These practices led to the development of a CSR construct focused on transparency, which was unanimously adopted across the corporation. The study therefore illustrates the processes involved in the translation of institutional pressures inside the firm.

Institutional Models of Corporate Social Responsibility

Matten and Moon studied cross-national variations in corporate social responsibility (CSR) forms using an explicit-implicit framework. This article proposes a development and refinement of the explicit-implicit framework to account for, first, intranational variations of CSR, and, second, the role of individual managers in the actual process of developing CSR constructs within a given country. The specific national, institutional context, such as Norway, within which managers construct personal meaning for CSR, is ambiguous and possesses both different and potentially conflicting institutional logics of the role and responsibility of business in a given society. The author suggests that explicit and implicit models of CSR differ in two key respects. One difference concerns whether corporate or collective responsibility mechanisms should be used to address social issues. The other difference concerns whether the scope of issues to which the corporate entity is expected to attend should be broad or narrow. The author proposes four institutional models of CSR that combine the explicit-implicit distinction with these two differences: Explicit Expansionist CSR, Implicit Contractive CSR, Implicit Expansionist CSR, and Explicit Contractive CSR. Focus group interviews with Norwegian managers empirically illuminate these models and the micro-level individual construction of variable meanings for CSR within a national, institutional context.

La responsabilità sociale d’impresa: strategia per l’impresa relazionale e innovazione per la sostenibilità

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a strongly debated and still ambiguous concept. In this article we define CSR as a new strategic approach to management, that is, as innovation for the sustainability of the firm and of the network of which the firm itself is a member. This perspective tries to point out the important-and sometimes not completely understood-implications that the CSR construct has for the theory of the firm and for business practice.

Corporate social responsibility organizational identification and motivation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement on employee motivation, job satisfaction and organizational identification as well as employee citizenship in voluntary community activities.Design/methodology/approachEmployees (n=224) of a major airline carrier participated in the study based on a 54‐item questionnaire, containing four different sets of items related to volunteering, motivation, job satisfaction and organizational identification. The employee sample consisted of two sub‐samples drawn randomly from the company pool of employees, differentiating between active participants in the company's CSR programs (APs) and non participants (NAPs).FindingsSignificant differences were found between APs and NAPs on organizational identification and motivation, but not for job satisfaction. In addition, positive significant correlations between organizational identification, volunteering, job satisfaction, and motivation were obtained. These results are interpreted within the broader context that ties social identity theory (SIT) and organizational identification increase.Practical implicationsThe paper contributes to the understanding of the interrelations between CSR and other organizational behavior constructs. Practitioners can learn from this study how to increase job satisfaction and organizational identification. Both are extremely important for an organization's sustainability.Originality/valueThis is a first attempt to investigate the relationship between CSR, organizational identification and motivation, comparing two groups from the same organization. The paper discusses the questions: “Are there potential gains at the intra‐organizational level in terms of enhanced motivation and organizational attitudes on the part of employees?” and “Does volunteering or active participation in CSR yield greater benefits for involved employees in terms of their motivation, job satisfaction and identification?”.

Pictures at an exhibition revisited: reflections on a typology of images used in the construction of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in non-financial corporate reporting

Strategic corporate and public affairs communication about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a major component of corporate efforts to interact with their stakeholders and society at large. Non-financial reporting, and CSR reporting in particular, is now seen as an essential corporate communication process by most members of a company's stakeholder community. This growth in CSR reporting has been driven by the need to increase corporate transparency and accountability concerning social and environmental issues. Arguably, the European Union is the most progressive region in adopting CSR reporting. Almost all of Europe's top 100 companies report on social and environmental performance, whilst figures for the USA and the rest of the world are much lower. The latest Accountability Rating concludes that ‘Europe leads, America lags’ after measuring companies' social and environmental impacts. The authors argue that visual communication is as important as words and numbers in creating meaning and assess UK and German Companies' non-financial performance. Utilizing a range of research methods including content analysis and semiotic interpretation the authors propose a typology of images used in non-financial reporting. This typology and associated conceptual development can used to more accurately define and interpret CSR and sustainability. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Critical incidents and social construction of corporate social responsibility

PurposeThis paper seeks to address how major companies adjust their behaviour and definitions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) when exposed to “critical incidents”.Design/methodology/approachThis is a qualitative explorative study including two cases from the Norwegian oil and gas industry, both reflecting critical incidents that are included in the present study: the Utkal case of Norsk Hydro and the Iran corruption case of Statoil.FindingsThe critical incidents reported here resulted in changes in decision making and the reformulation of corporate strategies. The findings reported also reveal how the construction of CSR policy and the construction of the reality of the different stakeholders were transferred between companies, NGOs and civil society.Research limitations/implicationsOnly a small sample of events and companies is investigated in the study. Accordingly, future research is needed on how legislation and government regulations affect a broader scale of different companies and how complex organisations manage individual and organisational challenges concerning all aspects of CSR.Practical implicationsAssuming that critical incidents influence organisational attention, interpretation and actions, the study indicates that the incidents can be seen as catalysts for the emergence of new CSR policy. New CSR policy is expressed in the patterns of social behaviour. This implies participating in diverse social networks, partnerships and learning forums and that CSR behaviour is constructed in the interaction between company, NGOs, media and business networks.Originality/valueSimilar studies have not previously been undertaken in Norwegian oil companies.

Development of a scale on strategic corporate social responsibility constructs

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is getting more and more attention from both business and society researchers and corporate managers. Over a period of time, CSR as a concept have become a much broader and richer theoretical concept. In recent years, some streams in theoretical CSR like the concept of Strategic CSR and comparative CSR is gaining both significance and relevance. The focus of this article is on the concept of Strategic CSR. The article develops a scale to measure Strategic CSR constructs. The strategic CSR constructs are on the dimensions of CSR activities, characteristics and benefits. The scale was developed based upon structured questionnaire survey conducted on large Indian organisations. Scale development statistical techniques were used for the development of the scale. This scale would help both managers and CSR researchers in future to better comprehend and manage aspects related to Strategic CSR.

Emerging Investor Networks and the Construction of Corporate Social Responsibility

Emerging Investor Networks and the Construction of Corporate Social Responsibility

Empirical Essays on Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility

This dissertation is comprised of three essays on entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility (CSR). In the first essay, I find that prior employment in the medical device sector has a positive impact on performance due to non-technical knowledge gained at the parent firm. In the second essay, I examine the validity of CSR ratings and find low validity across ratings, implying that there is uncertainty about the underlying construct of CSR. The third essay studies the impact of local contracting set aside programs on minority entrepreneurship and finds that minority entrepreneurship increased between 2.5%-5% after the introduction of these programs.

Reconstructing the corporate social responsibility construct in Utlish

The charged debate on the ‘C‐S‐R‐ization’ of organizational practices seems to have produced two opposing and seemingly incompatible explanations for why organizations should engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR): one, the normative rationale based on an appeal to ethics; and the other, the instrumental rationale, based on an appeal to business pragmatism. This paper argues that a missing link in this debate is the failure to recognize that the normative and instrumental approaches to corporate social responsibility are underpinned by substantively, differentiating, relative logics of emotional rationalism on the one hand, and instrumental rationalism on the other. The paper makes a case that for CSR as a management practice to be practicable and actionable within a sustainable business agenda, it will need to be stripped of its current normative undertone and reconstructed in the instrumentally, pragmatic (utlish) language of business. Otherwise, the whole concept of CSR may continue to dwell in the realm of abstract theorizing without yielding many beneficial and practicable outcomes. The paper concludes that such an approach that situates CSR within a pragmatic business lingua, rather than a non‐business lingua, will help in legitimizing CSR as a ‘neutral’ management practice.

Changing the odds: a study of corporate social principles and practices in addressing problem gambling

This paper documents a quantitative study into socially responsible principles and practices adopted in registered clubs in New South Wales Australia to manage one of their social impacts – problem gambling. The survey utilised an adapted version of Aupperle's (1982) corporate social responsibility instrument to measure the priority given to economic, legal, ethical and discretionary principles in club machine gambling operations. The survey also assessed support for certain management practices in responsible gambling. The results indicate that the participating club managers prioritise economic, legal, ethical and discretionary principles respectively, and that these are statistically related to practices they have implemented and support in responsible gambling. The managers most favoured secondary harm minimisation practices, followed by reactive primary intervention. Less favoured were proactive primary intervention and discretionary practices. These principles and practices contrast markedly with those advocated by key stakeholder groups, as expressed in semi-structured interviews and submissions to the NSW Gaming Inquiry. Non-industry stakeholders favoured a more balanced set of principles and a more holistic set of management practices in responsible gambling. The results also provide validation of Aupperle's (1982) instrument when applied to corporate management of a single social impact and for Carroll's (1979, 1991) construct of corporate social responsibility.

Corporate Social Responsibility

There is an impressive history associated with the evolution of the concept and definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, the author traces the evolution of the CSR construct beginning in the 1950s, which marks the modern era of CSR. Definitions expanded during the 1960s and proliferated during the 1970s. In the 1980s, there were fewer new definitions, more empirical research, and alternative themes began to mature. These alternative themes included corporate social performance (CSP), stakeholder theory, and business ethics theory. In the 1990s, CSR continues to serve as a core construct but yields to or is transformed into alternative thematic frameworks.