The Role of ‘High Potentials’ in Integrating and Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

The Samenleving and Bedrijf (S&B) network of Dutch organizations seeks to embed corporate social responsibility (CSR) within business practices but faces challenges with regard to how to do so across various organizational practices, processes, and policies. The integration of CSR demands cultural change driven by senior management and other change agents, who push CSR principles throughout the organization. This study examines the change processes that S&B member organizations have initiated, with a particular focus on the role of high potentials-those persons who have been selected for the fast track into senior management. Interviews with nine S&B organizations document their levels of CSR integration and implementation, the role of senior managers, and the effects of high potentials' competencies on the realignment process. High potentials have the ability and opportunity to act as CSR change agents, but organizations' expectations of their purposes as future senior managers prevented them from doing so. In the existing organizational cultures, leadership focused on economic success, and the CSR implementation process had just initiated. Therefore, a measure of CSR embeddedness might refer to the performance measurement and expectations of high potentials as potential CSR change agents.

Behavioural competencies of sustainability leaders: an empirical investigation

“…There are numerous definitions of sustainability cited in the literature (Lindgreen et al, 2011, Maon et al, 2008Wilson and Holt, 2003); and the wide field of leadership is replete with dozens (if not hundreds) of over-lapping definitions of leadership (Northouse, 2010;Yukl, 2009). In their comprehensive review of literature on leadership theory published since the turn of the century in ten top tier academic journals, Dinh et al (2014) identify 66 discrete theory domains discussed in more than 750 papers.…”

The Human Resources Contribution to Responsible Leadership: An Exploration of the CSR–HR Interface

“…Beyond this 'implicit' role, HR contribute directly to the development of a set of new practices located at the CSR-HR interface, such as gender equality programs or policies aimed at integrating disabled people in the workplace, that are central to the exercise of responsible leadership (Maak and Pless 2006). Finally, in some corporations, HR professionals and employees themselves play a proactive and leading role in the deployment and support of innovative responsible practices involving employees and managers, such as corporate community involvement programs (Lindgreen et al 2008;Pless et al 2011). HR professionals through their own practices and their support of other departments' practices have thus direct and indirect roles to play in transforming corporations into 'agents of world benefit' ).…”

Examining the CSR strategy of MNCs in Bangladesh

“…In order to move from philanthropy to strategic CSR, companies typically pass through various stages, each of which has distinctive patterns of strategic intent, concepts or stakeholder relationships (Lawrence & Weber, 2008;Lindgreen et al, 2011;Porter & Kramer, 2006). Mirvis and Googins (2006) identify five stages in this process of moving from philanthropy to strategic CSR: (i) Elementary: CSR concept-CSR is underdeveloped, strategic intent-legal compliance and stakeholder relations-unilateral, (ii) Engaged: CSR concept-philanthrophy; strategic intent-license to operate and stakeholder relations-interactive, (iii) Innovative: CSR concept-stakeholder management, strategic intent-business case and stakeholder relations- It is important to note that a company might not traverse all stages at once or these stages may progress simultaneously or sequentially (Lindgreen et al, 2011). However, the boundaries between stages are porous: an organization can stay at more than one stage at the same time (Mirvis & Googins, 2006).…”

“…One of the difficulties associated with examining MNCs' CSR strategies in developing countries has resulted from the vagueness in defining CSR (Jamali, 2010), which is a "multifaceted and contested concept" (Jamali & Karam, 2018: p.48). While examining MNCs' CSR strategies in China, Yin et al (2016) ignore how CSR orientation appears in an organization's mission statement, which is critical to understanding the level of integration of CSR within the organization (Lindgreen et al, 2011). Therefore, researchers such as Yin et al (2016) call for more comprehensive investigations of how CSR activities are integrated within companies, and also call for further exploration of the relationships between CSR and the firm's strategic interests.…”