Corporate social responsibility and strategic management: the prospects for converging discourses

Abstract

᭹The discourse of strategy is an ongoing project, as evidenced by recent attempts to introduce a sociological element to research and practice by the European academy in response to perhaps more traditional epistemologies rooted in rational economic thought.᭹ This paper proposes that the development of strategy from its rational roots has seen increasing prospects for convergence with the developing discourse of corporate social responsibility (CSR) through notions of stakeholder management, knowledge management and the meta-narratives of collaboration and complexity. ᭹ It is further proposed that such a convergence offers prospects for a holistic approach to CSR arguably lacking in the predominantly discipline-based lenses currently deployed.strategy as a rational, top-down, linear process has been the subject of detailed critique from within the field for some time. Even the most cursory examination of the strategy literature will show that commentators, calling upon a range of disciplines, have critiqued the rational approaches to strategic management that manifest themselves in strategic plans presuming to predict and somehow manage future eventualities (see, for example, Mintzberg, 1984;Simon, 1987;Stacey, 1993). A wider critique of rational detachment and over-reliance on quantification in strategy is most recently evident in recent calls from the European Academy to conceive of strategy more overtly as a social practice (see, for example, Whittington, 2004).An examination of the literatures referring to corporate social responsibility (CSR) reveals a breadth of disciplinary interest that, while perhaps providing evidence of the importance Strat. Change 14: 401-411 (2005) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

Competitiveness as a Strategic Outcome of Corporate Social Responsibility

“…improvement of customer loyalty and better relations with the general community/public authorities), most of these activities are occasional and unrelated to business strategies (European Commission, 2008). CSR constitutes an opportunity for companies to manage risk, enhance brand perception and ameliorate stakeholder needs (Brooks, 2005). A better understanding of the role of CSR and its effects will also help managers to better formulate, implement and communicate their firms' CSR policies.…”

Reconciling Corporate Citizenship and Competitive Strategy: Insights from Economic Theory

“…Questions about the marriage of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitive strategy are widely discussed among practitioners and passionately argued in scholarly forums (Brooks, 2005;Longley, 2005;McWilliams and Siegel, 2006). Recent studies (Hillman and Keim, 2001;Husted and Salazar, 2006) find ''it is wiser for the firm to act strategically than to be coerced into making investments in corporate social responsibility.'…”

Corporate social responsiveness in the Korean electronics industry

“…The ongoing debate on corporate social responsibility in the last three decades has been on whether corporations should or should not carry out corporate social responsibility (McGuire, 1963;Greenwood, 1964;Klein, 2000;Brooks, 2005). What should companies be responsible for?…”