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CALL FOR CHAPTERS
Chapter Proposals Due: May 31, 2010 or before
Full Chapters Due: November 30, 2010 or before

A STAKEHOLDER APPROACH TO CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:
PRESSURES, CONFLICTS, RECONCILIATION

Edited by:

Professor Adam Lindgreen, Hull University Business School
Professor Philip Kotler, Kellogg School of Management
François Maon, Université catholique de Louvain
Associate professor Joëlle Vanhamme, IESEG School of Management

Publisher: Gower Publishing

Introduction

According to a recent McKinsey & Co. global survey, 95% of surveyed CEOs believe that “society has greater expectations than it did five years ago that companies will assume public responsibilities” (Bielak, Bonini, and Oppenheim, 2007, p. 1). This increasing pressure on organizations demands that they adopt a broader perspective of their purpose that includes social and environmental considerations. In turn, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown into a global phenomenon that involves businesses, consumers, governments, and civil society, and many organizations have adopted its discourse (Kotler and Lee, 2005). The various CSR initiatives organizations embrace range from the design and implementation of codes of conduct to triple bottom line reporting, collaborations with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and U.N. agencies, and increased support for community development programs.

Yet despite this global spread, CSR remains an uncertain and poorly defined ambition, with few absolutes (Carroll, 1991). First, the CSR issues that organizations must address can easily be interpreted as including virtually everyone and everything (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2001). Issues involving CSR can “vary by business, by size, by sector and even by geographic region” (Business for Social Responsibility, 2003), to include concerns and issues related to human rights, workers’ well-being, environmental impacts, business ethics, community investments, governance, and the marketplace. All such issues place enormous pressure on the organizations.

Second, due to their unique and often particular characteristics, different stakeholder groups tend to focus only on those specific issues that they believe are the most appropriate and relevant in organizations’ CSR programs. Thus, beliefs about what constitutes a socially responsible and sustainable organization depend on the perspective of the stakeholder groups (Zyglidopoulos, 2002). Stakeholders’ CSR expectations, however, are not only inconsistent (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003) but also inexorably evolve over time (Jawahar and McLaughlin, 2001). Thus, CSR issues and practices require constant reassessments and dialogue between the organization and its stakeholders. Finally, people likely belong to different stakeholder groups at the same time (Fassin, 2008; Post, Preston, and Sachs, 2002). For example, a consumer who evaluates a given product’s sustainability might also be an employee with the organization that produces the particular product (Greening and Turban, 2000). Similarly, a financial investor with an economic interest in the organization might be a member of the local community in which the organization operates. Thus, the beliefs and expectations about organizations’ CSR programs not only differ among different stakeholder groups but also within the same stakeholder, depending on which ‘hat’ he or she is wearing at the time.

Third, within the organization, strategic, organizational, and managerial implications associated with the design, development, and implementation of CSR-related commitments and policies differ among the various functional units and departments (i.e., supply and logistics, research and development, marketing, human resources, communication, finance). In this sense, the beliefs of organizational members with regard to their organization’s social responsibilities often vary according to functional/departmental factors, as well as their own managerial fields of knowledge (Maon, Lindgreen, and Swaen, 2008).

In summary, CSR constitutes a complex notion for the various corporate and non-corporate actors that are concerned with the impact of business activities on society. The multiple lenses and perspectives of CSR make it an intrinsically plural notion—one that seems almost irrelevant to approach from a single or narrow viewpoint. To approach CSR in a comprehensive, responsible way, we must seek to understand the many-sided nature of organizations’ relationships with business and wider society.

Overall objective and topics

The overall objective of this edited text (‘research anthology’) is to provide a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that may lead to a multi-faceted understanding of CSR among different stakeholders, the pressures and conflicts that result from these different understandings, and some potential solutions for reconciling them.

Therefore, we imagine the representative topics for this text in three main categories. Examples of research in each category include, but certainly are not limited to, the following:

1. Pressures:
   1. Exerted by different external stakeholders.
      1. Investing in international high-profile charity causes (e.g., Red Cross) to yield higher share value, in response to pressures from investors.
      2. Investing in the local community (e.g., a sports center, schools) to bolster employee satisfaction.
      3. Investing in more expensive equipment (e.g., solar panels) in response to pressures from environmental NGOs.
   2. Exerted by different internal stakeholders (functional departments).
      1. Investing in causes that fit the core business of the organization may have the most direct effect on consumer perceptions of the organization and purchase intention (i.e., marketing objectives).
      2. Investing in improved employee working conditions may have the most direct effect on employee satisfaction and turnover (i.e., human resource objectives).
2. Conflicts:
   1. Within the same stakeholder.
      1. Consumers’ personal values may not be the same as those of the organization that employs them. Thus, the criteria they use when acting as consumers (e.g., buying from companies with a good CSR reputation) may differ from the criteria they use as employees of an organization (e.g., selecting a less expensive rather than a sustainable supplier).
      2. Consumers may face conflicting appeals, such as supporting Fair Trade policies in underdeveloped nations versus buying only local produce.
   2. Across different stakeholders.
      1. Employees may demand a living wage; consumers may prefer products that are priced to be accessible to underprivileged buyers.
      2. Government regulations may not support the most responsible practices by firms.
3. Reconciliation:
   1. How do organizations reconcile the different pressures they confront?
   2. How do stakeholders reconcile their different roles?

Any contribution will need to provide an integrative approach that involves at least two stakeholders.

Regardless of the specific CSR topic, we hope to receive two types of contributions:

1. Literature reviews that survey critical points in current literature relevant to the topic. Literature reviews should describe, summarize, and critically evaluate previous work relating to the topic. These reviews must make a significant contribution to our understanding of the topic by providing integrative framework(s) and/or paths for further research.
2. Conceptual, methodological, or empirical studies, such as meta-analyses, qualitative studies, experiments, or surveys, that contribute in some of the following ways:
   1. A conceptual study might improve conceptual definitions of original constructs, develop an improved theoretical rationale for existing linkages, identify and conceptually define additional constructs to include within existing conceptual frameworks, or develop theoretical linkages along with an accompanying rationale that suggest more comprehensive integrative frameworks for understanding the topic.
   2. Methodological entries might examine changes in the design of prior studies or modifications in experimental procedures that, for example, enhance the validity of statistical conclusions or increase the experimental realism of the experiment.
   3. An empirical study could examine how, at a practical level, organizations deal with the complexities of stakeholders’ varying demands and perspectives when they design, develop, implement, or make incremental changes to their CSR programs. Such examinations should span the corporate, organizational, and managerial levels, as well as different functional departments.

The text will be published in English. To ensure an engaging text for the target audience (see below), chapters should be accessible; something similar to Harvard Business Review’s style would be ideal. Although the methodology should be described, especially in conceptual, methodological, and empirical papers, the focus should be less pronounced than it would be in traditional academic articles; part(s) of the methodology even might appear in an appendix. All chapters should include theoretical contributions and implications for different stakeholders (e.g., practitioners, consumers, financial investors, policymakers, unions, the media). The editors will be happy to discuss whether a particular chapter is of an appropriate style.

Target audience

This text will target various different readers, including the following: academics who teach and/or research in CSR fields; doctoral students in the discipline; practitioners who want to know more about CSR, especially in terms of managerial consequences for organizations; and others who could benefit from the research presented in such an anthology, including consumers, financial investors, policymakers (e.g., government, city councils), unions that advocate for CSR from a worker’s perspective, civil societies, and the media (e.g., journalists, writers).

Submission process

Potential authors are invited to submit, on or before May 31, 2010, a brief, two- to five-page proposal that clearly explains the intended contributions of their chapter, as well as their intended methodology/approach.

Chapters submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or under consideration for publication anywhere else. Proposals should be submitted via e-mail in a single Word file attachment to:

Adam_Lindgreen@hotmail.com
j.vanhamme@ieseg.fr

The first page of the proposal should contain the title of the intended chapter, as well as the authors’ names and full contact details.

The purpose of reviewing the proposals is to identify those potential chapters that fit the overall theme of the book. In some cases, we may propose suggested changes to align the proposed chapter better with the book; such changes will take place only in a dialogue with the authors.

By June 30, 2010, potential authors will be notified about the status of their proposed chapter and, when accepted, receive further information regarding the submission process, including the formatting guidelines. Full chapters should be submitted via e-mail in a single attached Word file to:

Adam_Lindgreen@hotmail.com
j.vanhamme@ieseg.fr

by the final deadline of November 30, 2010. Final submissions should be approximately 5,000-6,000 words in length, excluding references, figures, tables, and appendices. All chapters will be double-blind reviewed by colleagues knowledgeable about CSR and related disciplines; authors therefore should not identify themselves in the body of their chapter.

Questions

Please address any questions to:

Professor Adam Lindgreen, Ph.D.
Co-editor of Journal of Business Ethics’ section on corporate responsibility
Hull University, United Kingdom
(as of July 1, 2010: University of Birmingham, United Kingdom)
Adam_Lindgreen@hotmail.com

References

Bielak, D.B., Bonini, S., and Oppenheim, J.M. (2007), “CEOs on strategy and social issues”, The McKinsey Quarterly. http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com (accessed April 2009).

Business for Social Responsibility (2003), Overview of Corporate Social Responsibility. http://www.bsr.org (accessed April 2009).

Carroll, A.B. (1991), “The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders”, Business Horizons 34, 39–48.

Dawkins, D. and Lewis, S. (2003), “CSR in stakeholder expectations and their implication for company strategy”, Journal of Business Ethics 44, 185-193.

Fassin, Y. (2008), “Imperfections and shortcomings of the stakeholder model’s graphical representation”, Journal of Business Ethics 80, 879-888.

Greening, D.W. and Turban, D.B. (2000), “Corporate social performance as a competitive advantage in attracting a quality workforce”, Business and Society 39, 254-280.

Jawahar, I. and McLaughlin, G. (2001), “Toward a descriptive stakeholder theory: An organizational life cycle approach”, Academy of Management Review 26, 397-414.

Kotler, P. and Lee, N.R. (2005), Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause, Wiley, Hoboken, N.J.

Maon, F., Lindgreen, A., and Swaen, V. (2008), “Thinking of the organization as a system: the role of managerial perceptions in developing a corporate social responsibility strategic agenda”, Systems Research and Behavioral Science 25, 413-426.

Post, J., Preston, L., and Sachs, S. (2002), Redefining the Corporation: Stakeholder Management and Organizational Wealth. (Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.)

World Business Council for Sustainable Development (2001), “Corporate social responsibility: Narrowing the focus”, WBCSD News, 12 July. http://www.wbcsd.org (accessed April 2009).

Zyglidopoulos, S. (2002), “The social and environmental responsibilities of multinationals: evidence from the Brent Spar case”, Journal of Business Ethics 36, 141-151.

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