Contextualizing Individual Competencies for Managing the Corporate Social Responsibility Adaptation Process: The Apparent Influence of the Business Case Logic

Abstract

Companies committed to corporate social responsibility (CSR) should ensure that their managers possess the appropriate competencies to effectively manage the CSR adaptation process. The literature provides insights into the individual competencies these managers need but fails to prioritize them and adequately contextualize them in a manner that makes them meaningful in practice. In this study, we contextualized the competencies within the different job roles CSR managers have in the CSR adaptation process. We interviewed 28 CSR managers, followed by a survey to explore the relative importance of the competencies within each job role. Based on our analysis, we identified six distinct managerial roles, including strategic, coordinating, and stimulating roles. Next, we identified per role key individual CSR-related competencies as prioritized by the respondents. Our results show that the context, as indicated in this study by CSR managers’ job roles, indeed influenced the importance of particular CSR-related competencies, because each role seems to require a different combination and prioritization of these competencies. Moreover, the results suggest that the relative importance of these competencies within each role may be driven by business logic rather than an idealistic logic. The results are presented as a competence profile which can serve as a reflection tool and as a frame of reference to further develop the competence profile for CSR managers.

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“…Hemingway (2005) More positively, it also seems like sustainable entrepreneurs use the business case logic to engage stakeholders who might have a different vision (Osagie et al, 2016). By speaking the same language they can involve others better, which also came back in the interviews.…”

“…There are researchers who have integrated moral competencies into more context specific business domains that deal with sustainable development, for instance in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Osagie et al, 2016;Wesselink et al, 2015) and the field of sustainable entrepreneurship ; this dissertation).…”

“…Whereas the previously discussed studies address the concept of normative competence from a theoretical/conceptual perspective, other scholars in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship or corporate social responsibility have addressed it from an empirical point of view as well (Rieckmann, 2011;Hesselbarth & Schaltegger, 2014;Lans et al, 2014;Osagie et al, 2016Osagie et al, , 2017Ploum et al, 2017a). In addition, these empirical studies also take the specific work context into account.. Interestingly, not all of these work context studies result in the recognition of normative competence as being a key competence.…”

“…In addition, these empirical studies also take the specific work context into account.. Interestingly, not all of these work context studies result in the recognition of normative competence as being a key competence. Even though normative competence is taken into account in the studies by Rieckmann (2011) and Osagie et al (2016) and are considered important from a theoretical point of view, they cannot underpin the importance of normative competence from the empirical results of their studies.…”

“…Also the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) experts in the study of Osagie et al (2016) did not indicate the importance of the ethical normative competence, when looking at their job roles in the adaptation process of CSR. There seems to be a discrepancy between the apparent importance of normative competence from a theoretical and conceptual point of view and the perceived importance in CSR related practices.…”