When corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sensemaking process is assessed from a corporate governance perspective, this implies that stakeholders do not only influence companies by promoting and enforcing regulations and other corporate guidelines. They also influence companies by promoting regulation on influence pathways, by demanding that companies develop formal mechanisms that allow companies and stakeholders to discuss and in some cases agree on changes to principles and policies. This perspective suggests that regulation is an outcome of power relations and is, as such, a reflection of certain mental models. As such, mental models reveal the political bias in corporate governance perspectives. For this reason, CSR research needs to be clear about the underlying assumptions about corporate governance, and corporate governance research needs to disclose which mental models of CSR influence the outcomes. Taking a governance perspective on the development of mental models of CSR helps to understand the interaction between CSR and processes of sensemaking at the institutional, organizational and individual levels.
This paper develops propositions on the added value of normatively-based, employee-oriented corporate social responsibility, specifically on the issue whether an individual owner-manager can add value within a foreign subsidiary by means of normatively-based, employee-oriented CSR. We suggest that this emerging research area sheds light on managerial discretion within a foreign environment and on the question if globalisation of business, based on economic rationality, inevitably leads to a race to the bottom or that normative resources - the view of owner-managers on the role of employees within their company - add value as well.Based on five case studies, this study develops propositions about the impact of international employee oriented CSR policies on mutual value creation within multinational SMEs. We detect conditions under which employee-oriented CSR adds value, what the influence is of the host country institutional environment and suggest differences across sectors and investment motives. The results suggest that not only motives but also the skills of the owner/manager as an institutional entrepreneur are critical in dealing with institutional variance.Conference paper bij het: 1st Interdisciplinary Conference on Stakeholders, Resources and Value Creation, Barcelona, 7-8 juni 2011
This chapter calls for greater scholarly attention to business association initiatives in international corporate social responsibility (CSR) governance. Economic globalization has led to the proliferation of private governance initiatives created to address social and environmental issues. Most existing scholarship has focused on those created by multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), an organizational form of CSR coalition driven by NGOs. Yet growing empirical evidence suggests that in most global industries, CSR initiatives created by a different type of coalition, led and composed exclusively by businesses, appears to dwarf MSIs in scale, scope, and influence. More research is needed to examine these overlooked goliaths, particularly their antecedents, organizational and governance forms, and effects on global CSR outcomes. Management and international business scholars are particularly well positioned to contribute new insights on this important phenomenon.
