Corporate social responsibility and dimensions of organizational structure

Abstract

In der Diplomarbeit werden der Einfluss und die Auswirkungen einer strukturellen
 Implementierung von Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), d.h. verantwortliches
 unternehmerisches Handeln in der eigentlichen Geschäftstätigkeit, auf die einzelnen
 Variablen der Unternehmensstruktur analysiert. Die Grundlagen von CSR,
 Unternehmensstrategie und -struktur werden in den Kapiteln 1 bis 4 dargestellt. Die aus der
 umfassenden organisatorischen Integrierung von CSR Strategie und operativen Tätigkeiten
 resultierenden Prozesse werden in den Kapiteln 5 bis 7 erläutert und bilden die Basis für die
 weitere Analyse der Auswirkungen auf die Strukturvariablen in Kapitel 8.

The relationship between business and society, which has been intensively debated over the
 past decades, is one of the most important economic issues of the 21st century. Governments,
 ethical groups, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders are watching,
 evaluating, and judging each business activity of companies, while shareholders and business
 leaders are putting pressure on corporations to grow continuously and maximize their
 financial returns. In this vast area between different interest groups, the term corporate social
 responsibility (CSR) arose in business literature - the entitled concept of reconciling social,
 environmental, economic, and corporate business issues.
 The first part of the thesis deals with the definition of CSR and gives an overview of current
 research trends on corporate integration and measurement of CSR efforts. The findings should
 illustrate the existing problems and discrepancies in literature, whereas common approaches
 are identified in order to elaborate a definitional construct of the CSR topic.
 Further, the constituents, processes, and outcomes of CSR implementation are framed and
 analyzed. On the basis of current CSR guidelines and principles, key activities of CSR
 practices are highlighted, that build the fundament for further investigation on the impacts of
 CSR implementation on corporate strategy and structure. After a brief evaluation of the
 strategic aspects of CSR, the main part of the thesis discusses the interrelations between the
 various factors and dimensions that constitute corporate structure. The correlations between
 design variables are drawn and the effects of structural implementation of CSR tasks and
 processes on the dimensions formalization, specialization, configuration, centralization, and
 coordination are analyzed.