“Implicit” and “Explicit” CSR: A Conceptual Framework for a Comparative Understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

We address the question of how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) differs among countries and how and why it changes. Applying two schools of thought in institutional theory, we conceptualize, first, the differences between CSR in the United States and Europe and, second, the recent rise of CSR in Europe. We also delineate the potential of our framework for application to other parts of the global economy. In this paper we address the question of why forms of business responsibility for society both differ among countries and change within them. We do so by comparative investigation of corporate social responsibility (CSR), historically and contemporarily, in the United States and in Europe. 1 The paper is inspired by two commonplace observations. The first observation is that while many U.S. corporations have both been attributed, and ready to claim, social responsibilities, this has not been so common elsewhere. Comparative research in CSR between Europe and the United State has identified remarkable differences between companies on each side of the Atlantic. This pertains, first, to the language companies use in describing their involvement in society. In a comparative study of corporate self-presentations on the internet, Maignan and Ralston (2002) found that while 53 percent of U.S. companies mention CSR explicitly on their websites, only 29 percent of French and 25 percent of Dutch companies do the same. But these differences clearly transcend language: in a recent study of voluntary codes of conduct in the global coffee sector between 1994 and 2005, Kolk (2005a: 230) identified a total of fifteen corporate codes globally, of which only two were European (both by the same company, Nestlé), while the remaining thirteen codes were issued and adopted by exclusively U.S. corporations. In a similar vein, Brammer and Pavelin (2005) found, in a United States-United Kingdom comparison of one of the most long-standing areas of CSR-corporate community contributions-that the value of contributions by U.S. companies in 2001 was more than ten times greater than those of their U.K.

The Relationship between Femininity and Sustainability Reporting

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Nouvelles perspectives sur l'engagement des parties prenantes : enjeux, acteurs, recherches

“…Or, aujourd'hui, la question des relations entre l'entreprise et la société se pose dans le monde entier, favorisant progressivement une meilleure prise en compte des différents contextes nationaux dans l'analyse des relations entre l'entreprise et la société. Au cours des dernières années, plusieurs recherches ont notamment souligné les spécificités des pratiques et réflexions sur la responsabilité sociale de entreprises en Europe (Habisch et al, 2005 ;Matten et Moon, 2008) et en particulier en France (Berthoin Antal et Sobczak, 2007) et en Allemagne (Berthoin Antal, Oppen et Sobczak, 2010). Mettant ainsi en évidence que les relations entre l'entreprise et la société peuvent se définir de différentes manières, ces recherches s'inscrivent dans un mouvement plus large visant à élargir les perspectives sur la responsabilité sociale des entreprises et la théorie des parties prenantes pour tenir compte des évolutions récentes dans les débats et les pratiques.…”

How corporate social responsibility can effect on the consumers` attitude and behavior?: a conceptual study

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