Theorising Corporate Social Responsibility as an Essentially Contested Concept: Is a Definition Necessary?

Okoye, Adaeze

doi:10.1007/s10551-008-0021-9

Cited by 307 publications

(196 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Regarding the issue of "mandatory vs. voluntary", it should be pointed out that most of the definitions of "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR) proposed by institutions and the literature are clearly based on a voluntary approach [10,11]. The assumption of voluntariness is also found throughout the analysis of the global spread of sustainability reporting over the years.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directive 2014/95/EU: Are Italian Companies Already Compliant?

et al. 2017

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According to Directive 2014/95/EU on disclosure of non-financial information from 2017 onwards, large companies (exceeding 500 employees) headquartered in Member States will be required to provide a series of social, environmental, and governance statements. The Directive was transposed into Italian law by Legislative Decree 254 of 30 December 2016.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the information gap for Italian companies and, consequently, the adjustments required by the new Directive on non-financial information. In order to analyze the level of non-financial and diversity disclosure, we created an assessment model called "Non-financial information score", which records the required information as a percentage. We apply it to a sample of 223 large companies. The results (with an average NFI score of about 49%) show that, in spite of what has previously emerged in the European debate about the application of the Directive on the part of large companies, an information gap remains, although the implementation of the directive should help to fill it in the coming years. In this sense, the potential contribution of the EU directive to non-financial disclosure in Italy appears to be greater than we had expected. Thus, in accordance with the literature, this paper appears to confirm the role of regulation in improving the quality of disclosure of non-financial information.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directive 2014/95/EU: Are Italian Companies Already Compliant?

et al. 2017

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“…Beyond defining CSR, which is a very problematic task fraught with contestations (Amaeshi and Adi, 2007;Okoye, 2009), it is recognised in the extant literature that CSR is driven by many factors including managerial values (Hemingway and Maclagan, 2004;Visser, 2007), organizational characteristics (Aguinis and Glavas 2012), and institutional pressures and configurations . At the managerial level, powerful personalities within organisations are constructed as moral change agents who leverage their legitimacy and personal values to sway organisation level agenda and actions (Visser, 2007).…”

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Corporate Social Responsibility in Challenging and Non-enabling Institutional Contexts: Do Institutional Voids matter?

2014

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“…If stakeholders' expectations of corporate responsibility-on a general level-deal with the societal role of business and how an organization is performing as a member of the society (cf. Dahlsrud, 2008;Matten and Moon, 2008;Okoye, 2009), expectations that concern sector-based corporate responsibilities deal with the specific consequences of doing a certain type of business and the broader issues and processes a certain business is connected to, both from the liability perspective and social connection perspective (cf. Young, 2006;Timonen and Luoma-aho, 2010;Vidal et al, 2010;Schrempf, 2012;Olkkonen, 2015a).…”

Section: Olkkonen: a Conceptual Foundation For Expectations Of Corpormentioning

confidence: 99%

A conceptual foundation for expectations of corporate responsibility

Olkkonen

2017

CCIJ

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Purpose -Ability to identify and meet stakeholder expectations is seen as imperative for succeeding in corporate responsibility (CR). However, the existing literature of CR communication treats expectations predominantly as positive constructions. The article addresses this positivity bias and offers insights for a more profound conceptual and empirical understanding of stakeholder expectations.Design/methodology/approach -The article presents findings from a targeted literature search and empirical illustrations from a thematic analysis of interview data with a focus on the media sector.Findings -The conceptual understanding of expectations is advanced by exploring positive (optimistic and hopeful), and negative (cynical and pessimistic) expectations. The empirical examples portray expectation analysis and how it becomes more complex when expectations turn negative.Research limitations/implications -The data is limited to one sector but implications are discussed with a wider lens to aid future studies in addressing expectations of CR with less positivity bias and, instead, with more conceptual and empirical precision. IntroductionThere is a wide-spread agreement in the literature of corporate responsibility that identifying and meeting stakeholder expectations and societal expectations is an important factor for succeeding in corporate responsibility (e.g., introductions to literature by Scherer and Palazzo, 2007;2011).More specifically, corporate responsibility is often explained as conformance to societal expectations or as anticipation of societal expectations (e.g., . Essentially, the value in fulfilling expectations of moral and ethical behavior is the trust and legitimacy it can generate (Adams et al., 2010). Trust, by definition, is based on positive expectations despite a possible risk (Lewicki et al., 1998;Rousseau et al., 1998).However, trust is not automatically generated by CR actions and by actively communicating (or Olkkonen: A conceptual foundation for expectations of corporate responsibility advertising) them-instead, efforts to communicate CR can backfire due to perceived hypocrisy, spin or lack of credibility (Waddock and Googins, 2014 Expectations as a forward-looking phenomenon are an area that can explain both the success and pitfalls of this negotiation as they set the frame for assessing CR efforts, their communication and future development. This article departs from this background.The article has a conceptual tone as it aims to investigate the details of expectations as a concept and how to approach expectations in empirical research. First, a targeted literature search in communication journals is presented to map the use of expectations in the current literature of CR communication. As will be discussed in the article, despite the wide circulation and use of expectations in the literature, the conceptual understanding of expectations tends to be narrow and biased in the sense that expectations are understood solely or, at least, predominantly as positive anticipations that ...

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Theorising Corporate Social Responsibility as an Essentially Contested Concept: Is a Definition Necessary?

Abstract: Corporate social responsibility, essentially contested concepts, business, society, definition,

Cited by 307 publications

References 69 publications

Directive 2014/95/EU: Are Italian Companies Already Compliant?

Directive 2014/95/EU: Are Italian Companies Already Compliant?

Corporate Social Responsibility in Challenging and Non-enabling Institutional Contexts: Do Institutional Voids matter?

A conceptual foundation for expectations of corporate responsibility

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