Critical Essay: The reconciliation of fraternal twins: Integrating the psychological and sociological approaches to ‘micro’ corporate social responsibility

Abstract

Aguinis and Glavas’ call for a deeper understanding of the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility has spurred a growing number of empirical micro-CSR (corporate social responsibility) studies. Micro-CSR scholars share the common goal of developing a clear picture of the microfoundations of CSR—a holistic theoretical and empirical understanding of how individual actions and interactions drive CSR-related activity—but pursue this objective from a variety of angles. Our research suggests that although many scholars work under the same ‘micro-CSR’ banner, they approach their goal from a wide range of disciplines, use different methodologies, and study different phenomena. In this critical essay, we show that most micro-CSR research can be classified in one of two distinct sub-fields: ‘psychological micro-CSR’ and ‘sociological micro-CSR.’ We compare the differences between these orientations (including their distinct empirical approaches, and contributions of both fields of micro-CSR) and explore possible opportunities for cross-fertilization between the psychological and sociological approaches. Finally, we suggest ways in which micro-CSR scholars could exploit the complementarities and eliminate the blind spots common to the two dominant micro-CSR approaches.

There is no need to shout to be heard! The paradoxical nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in a Latin American family small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)

“…Religious motivations of family members should not be underestimated in CSR reporting. As the choice of CSR activities was based around the social ethics of business owners (Cornwall and Naughton, 2003), then the variety of cultural dimensions and faith systems around the world can motivate researchers to revisit personal values, beliefs and motivations behind CSR reporting (Blindheim, 2015;Gond and Moser, 2019). Future studies could explore to what extent the variability of CSR reporting is influenced by cultural expectations, and the level of adherence to religious beliefs (Ibrahim, Howard and Angelidis, 2008;Miller and Ewest, 2015).…”

The Moral Microfoundations of Institutional Complexity: Sustainability implementation as compromise-making at an oil sands company

“…The moral underpinnings of such interactions may play a key role in the deployment of sustainability strategies within organizations and thus explain their capacity to become successfully deployed (Hengst et al, 2019) or embedded in a lasting manner within organizational structures (Brès et al, 2019;Soderstrom & Weber, 2019). By investigating individuals' moral engagement with sustainability within organizations, the concepts of justification work and compromise-making, therefore, contribute by extending the moral microfoundations of sustainability and CSR (Gond, El Akremi, Swaen, & Babut, 2017b;Gond & Moser, 2019) and respond to calls for qualitative investigations of how individuals make sense and interpret the moral and human issues surrounding these notions (Glavas, 2016). The reference to the 'main goals' (industrial world) clearly point to the importance of the formal goal system as an object which can embed both the environment (green world) and the community (social world).…”

Opening Constructive Dialogues Between Business Ethics Research and the Sociology of Morality: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium

“…O’Mahoney 2007 ), and other professionals such as consultants (e.g. Gond and Moser 2019 ) is one of the important sources for the transformation of organizational normative culture that have received so far relatively little attention. Complementing and broadening the existing psychological concepts in this domain, this promising dialogue between the sociology of morality and business ethics studies would shed new light on the subjective perception of morality in the real world of organizational relations.…”