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Corporate social responsibility, governance and stakeholders: a bank in the upbeat of the crisis

Frank Jan de Graaf (Centre for Applied Research on Economics & Management, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and University of Amsterdam Business School, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Critical Perspectives on International Business

ISSN: 1742-2043

Article publication date: 3 October 2016

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Abstract

Purpose

Using the global financial crisis as a critical event and based on institutional theory and stakeholder theory, this paper aims to explore the relationship between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The question is how stakeholders can influence corporate responses to societal change by using their position in the governance structure.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis is based on a historical analysis of data collected mainly between 2002 and 2004. The historical perspective enables an understanding of the response of the company to environmental changes.

Findings

The approach enables researchers to relate the normative component of CSR to specific governance mechanisms. These governance mechanisms are specified in direct and indirect influence pathways. Historical data shed light on how, in the upbeat of the crisis, stakeholders have influenced the principles and policies of the ING Group, a Dutch financial company.

Research limitations/implications

The paper suggests that stakeholders influence principles – normative assumptions that guide corporate decisions – mainly in dialogue-based meetings (direct influence pathways). Companies are made accountable in indirect influence pathways such as regulations. The author also demonstrates that a historical approach enables an understanding of long-term historical developments and the linking of corporate policies to the normative assumptions of stakeholders.

Practical implications

If stakeholders wish to assess the social responsibility of a company, then they should assess the governance structure in relation to the principles and policies. The power structure within a company and that within the institutional framework in which the company operates (the governance system) strongly influences how a company executes its social responsibilities.

Social implications

The paper demonstrates how stakeholders can use the governance structure to influence a bank. If society – or a specific group in society – wants banks to play a different role, this paper points to what could be the levers of change in the governance system and the governance structure.

Originality/value

Insights into the complex relationship between corporate governance and the processes in which the social responsibilities of a company are developed.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author thanks two reviewers, the editor Matthew Haigh, Johan de Jong and Franz Josef Gellert for comments on earlier versions of this article, and Eline van der Steen for preparing the final draft.

Citation

de Graaf, F.J. (2016), "Corporate social responsibility, governance and stakeholders: a bank in the upbeat of the crisis", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 388-412. https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-11-2013-0048

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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