Corporation's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts have so far been labeled across several dimensions, including five phases of organizational learning (defensive, compliant, managerial, strategic, civil), the four stages of issue maturity (latent, emerging, consolidated, institutionalized) and the four virtue zones (compliance, choice, and structural, strategic). Each of these tools helps illustrate how a corporation is handling its social responsibilities. Unfortunately, these models are static and do not help in determining how to evolve from stage to stage. In fact, the breaking down of barriers delving between the different phases of organizational learning may be the best way to convince corporations to extend their use of CSR.

Are the barriers facing corporate management then obvious?

In order to convince corporations to adopt more socially conscientious policies and eventually implement an innovating approach, corporations must be convinced of the following:

• The business care for CSR does exist
• Society accepts corporate attempts the take responsibility

The arguments for the business case are numerous and the power to convince depends on whom we are trying to assure. A chief executive would be more interested in stock and financial performance while an HR manager would be more focused on employee satisfaction, retention and recruitment.

The fact that CSR's wingspan is so extensive suggests that managers may associate it with different advantages/disadvantages causing the CSR debate to be much unfocused.

In order to properly address the CSR debate in an attempt to shift the managerial mindset we must examine the big picture by differentiating the discussion based upon the individual manager's situation.

A Penny's worth

The following exemplifies an argument towards an Executive focused on financial performance and human resource management.

Based on the idea that CSR is an influential tool towards attracting and retaining talented individuals (see this study - in Danish) a simplified illustration for CSR's business case can be postulated:

Albert, a talented individual and Homer, a not so talented individual are seeking a job at two companies, GOOD and BAD. Company GOOD is proactive and socially responsible, while company BAD does not comply with society's demands. Given that Albert and Homer both prefer working for a company with a good reputation they will prefer working for GOOD. Assuming that the two companies need the best employees to gain a competitive advantage both will prefer Albert. Therefore, if GOOD employs Albert it will gain a competitive advantage and in the long run perform better than BAD.

Expanding this example to include continuous hiring opportunities, where each hiring opportunity entails employing a talented or less talented individual and all other factors remain the same, then GOOD will always end up with the talented employee while BAD would be left with the less talented individuals. If each talented individual was a competitive advantage, then GOOD will always outperform its competitor, eventually leading to BAD going out of business. If BAD then chose to offer higher wages, then GOOD would end up with a higher cost structure, which in itself would be a significant blow to its financial performance.

How does active citizenship relate to shifting managerial mindset?

Active citizenship is merely the instrument with which you can place your corporate vote. The tools of democracy should not be limited to contributing to the political agenda but expanded to towards to contributing to the corporate agenda. Dollar votes are just one way of doing so. Nevertheless, when looking at the previous example our corporate vote can also take the form of our own career decisions. If all newly educated people were to prefer working in corporations that use CSR actively then Adam Smith's “invisible hand” would eventually “smack” irresponsible firms out of the market.

Conclusively, it can be said that the most powerful tool to shift the managerial mindset perhaps is by making students, undertaking tertiary education, aware of the concept of CSR. If the most talented individuals of our society are aware of how corporations engage in society's problems then corporations will be forced to move down the CSR learning curve.

Interesting studies

“Talenter tænder på et godt omdømme” “Talented students enthusiastic about good reputation”(in danish)