Managing Corporate Social Responsibility in Action. Talking, Doing and Measuring

Citation

Mesure, H. (2007), "Managing Corporate Social Responsibility in Action. Talking, Doing and Measuring", Society and Business Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 332-334. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465680710825532

The book is made of 12 interdisciplinary essays about CRS in action or practice that were written by nineteen contributors who are youth scholars or PhD students who belong – except four – to north Europe institutions. So, two of the three editors are Dutch, one is Danish.

As R.E. Freeman writes it in his foreword “the scholars who have written the essays are committed to putting business, ethics, and society together into a conceptual whole that makes for better business and better civil societies.” Therefore, since the CSR is now well defined it is important to establish and explain the differences between discourses and practices and between practices at operational level.

In their introduction (Chapter 1), the three editors consider that CSR is nowadays a major societal and academicals question. But if the CSR is well defined theoretically, “in its diverse applications the concept loses much of its definitional pertinences” (p. 2). To try to make sense of the difference between practice and reality, the CSR is studied from three angles – talking about it, doing it, and measuring it – that correspond to the three parts among witch the contributions are split.

The first part of the volume “Talking: CRS in discourse” is made of three contributions that treat the CSR discourses at a general and abstract level of analysis. The Chapter 2 stresses on the relations between the business press and the corporate annual reports as “Making the meaning” of CSR in the business media. The Chapter 3 analyses the role of consulting industry in the social construction and in the diffusion of CSR. The Chapter 4 presents a longitudinal and lexicological study of the annual reports of major stock listed companies in Sweden, The Netherlands and Canada in order to catch the evolution of the firms' representations of their relationships with their societal and ecological environments. At the discourse level, those three contributions show the “homogeneity of the CSR concept” (p. 6).

By contrast, the second part “Doing: CRS in practice” focuses on CSR as it can be implemented in specific contexts. The Chapter 5 manages with the motives, costs, benefits and barriers that companies face when they implement CRS. Above all, this chapter argues that the measurements problems and the heterogeneous nature of CSR make it highly unlikely that academics and practitioners will ever be able to give a definitive answer to why the companies engage themselves into CSR. The Chapter 6 describes and analyses how the Swedish insurance firm Skandia Insurance Company Ltd translated existing practices into CRS activity to fit new societal demands and management trends. The Chapter 7 adopts an original point of view to study the implementation of CSR since it analyses it from non‐managerial employee. It suggests that the differences in efficacy and implementation of CRS among firms can be explained by non‐managerial employees' representations of the CSR that is lead in their company. The Chapter 8 provides a highlight on how the Norwegian multinational Norske Skog manages to diffuse its CSR knowledge and values abroad within its foreign subsidiaries. As the editors notice to determine whether CSR practices achieve their objectives some form of measurement is required. That leads us to the third part of the book.

This third part – “measuring: CSR in scales” – is made on the idea that the measurement of CSR might play “a mediating role between the talking and the doing as conceptual definitions are contrasted with practices” (p. 8). The Chapter 9 argues that the need of measurement in CSR matters has lead to the development of a “CRS reporting industry” that plays a real role in the diffusion of CRS. The two contributors esteem that legitimacy and feasibility – through measurement‐ are the two pillars of the institutionalization of the CSR. The Chapter 10 focuses on the role that play Social Rating Agencies in France in the CSR movement and insists on the national institutional dimensions as a key factor. The CSR reporting in the context of small non for profit organizations is treated in the 11th chapter. A two dimensional taxonomy is proposed to understand the differences between social reporting practices in the context of non‐profit organizations.

In their conclusion, the editors propose an explanation for the existence of a homogenous global discourse about and on CSR. Their also suggest an explanation for the diversity of CRS practices at the operational level hat is much more important “than generally assumed: not only across countries, and across and within industries, but also within firms and over time” (p. 205). In practice, CSR is something that continually evaluate according to the specific contexts. The editors insist on the CSR report systems as a “mediators” between “contradicting trends at both level” (p. 205). They finish with suggestions for further researches.

This scholar collective book is very interesting because it analyses the CSR by contrasting the discourses about CSR and the infinite diversity of CSR practices, by tackling it at three levels (societal, industrial and organizational), by mobilizing several disciplines and theories to studies CSR (even if the institutional references are the most numerous), by trying to reconciling “rhetorical harmony and practical dissonance” through measurements practices. This book – rich of theoretical suggestions and case studies – brings also a new tone and spirit in studying the place of firms in our contemporary capitalism societies. It can be warmly recommended to those who are interested by the society and business field and it may become a reference in the field (as the collection it suits in). At last, this book suggests, one time more, that an original anglo‐scandinavic management thought (that includes Benelux) is emerging thanks to objects such as CRS, SMEs or employment.

Other book reviewed on the same subject: Andrew Kakabadse and Mette Morsing (Ed.) (2006), Corporate Social Responsibility. Reconciling Aspiration with Application, Palgrave Macmillan/EABIS, London.