Understanding and Responding to Societal Demands on Corporate Responsibility (RESPONSE)

Abstract

SMART Objective 1: Understand how large corporations define their social responsibilities, and to what degree their definition differs from that offered by their stakeholders. Study particularly the impact of regional and indus¬try contexts on the type and magnitude of these discrepancies (thereafter referred to as ‘cognitive gaps’, or in the positive sense as ‘cognitive alignment’). Since the initial proposal, RESPONSE has addressed an additional objective, related to the above, that seeks to assess the impact of these discrepancies on the perceptions of the firm’s social performance:Objective 1b: Assess the impact of cognitive alignment on the perception of the firm’s social performance.Also, the impact of regional and industry contexts are considered part of the external factors that are addressed in SMART Objective 2.In the second step we study how external factors affect the cognitive alignment. SMART Objective 2: Understand how external factors such as the firm’s institutional environment, the strength and influence of advocacy groups and type of industry affect the perceived social risk to its normative legitimacy.Subsequent to the initial proposal, we have developed a framework that calls for a broader assessment of external factors and a definition of the objective of the analysis focused on cognitive alignment; this is in line with the other research objectives and the overarching goal of the work. Hence, we aim to understand how external factors such as the firm’s institutional environment (the strength and influence of advocacy groups and the overall industry regional context) influence the cognitive alignment between managers and stakeholders on the content of CSR.Our third objective assesses how factors internal to the firm influence the cognitive alignment of its executives and stakeholders.SMART Objective 3: Understand how a firm’s management of knowledge – including stakeholder-engagement and learning processes, and the role of CSR departments - influences its ability to interpret and respond to society’s demands. Since the initial proposal, we have broadened the conceptual and empirical definition of the internal factors beyond the knowledge management processes, to include other potentially relevant characteristics of the firm, such as origins, strategy, structure and leadership. Empirically, the study draws on the qualitative analysis of cases to support SMART Objectives 1, 2 and 3. A portion of the structured interviews in each of the selected companies is dedicated to the assessment of how information is gathered within the participating company, how it is transformed in applicable knowledge and then put into practice throughout the organisation.SMART Objective 4: Test the degree to which training techniques can develop managers’ social consciousness in order to produce socially responsible behaviour and decision making.