Managing CSR Stakeholder Engagement: A New Conceptual Framework

Abstract

As concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue to evolve, the predicament facing CSR managers when attempting to balance the differing interests of various stakeholders remains a persistent management challenge. A review of the extensive literature in this field reveals that the conceptualisation of corporate approaches to responsible stakeholder management remains underdeveloped. In particular, CSR practices within the specific context of the pharmaceutical industry, a sector which particularly dramatically depicts the stakeholder management dilemmas faced by business managers, has been under-researched. To address this gap, this paper utilises qualitative, exploratory data, obtained via multiple research methods, to investigate the CSR practices of major pharmaceutical companies in the UK and Germany. The data are employed to critically re-examine and revise a previously published explanatory framework which identifies the management steps involved in CSR stakeholder engagement. The resulting revised explanatory framework is the main contribution of this paper. By abstracting those factors which influence CSR practice, it provides an analytical tool which is designed to be of practical use for business decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. Given that the research addresses values and ideals and prescribes practical recommendations for practitioners, it is essentially applied and normative in nature. Ultimately, the framework proposes a set of steps for developing CSR strategies which could help CSR professionals to make a 'mindset transition' from a narrower 'traditional' approach to CSR to a more innovative way of thinking.

Corporate sustainability and responsibility: creating value for business, society and the environment

“…Freeman (1984); Hillman and Keim (2001); Sen et al (2006); Morsing and Schultz (2006) Bhattacharya et al (2009) ;Henisz et al (2014); O'Riordan and Fairbrass 2014;Camilleri (2015); Yasser et al (2017).…”

Illustrating Conflicts among Project Stakeholders in Sustainable Project Management

“…This naturally entails the higher amount of intimacy of the closer stakeholder group and lower amount of engagement of the outer stakeholder group in the project management scenario resulting in a conflicting gap (Ni et al, 2014;Oriordan & Fairbrass, 2014). ISSN 2326-0297 2017 In this context as per Figure 2, thus stakeholders in the in-group receive more information, influence and confidence from the project team than that of the out-group stakeholders (Northhouse, 2013).…”

“…With this evolutionary, emerging and changing properties of conflicts in the project management context (Tukiainen et al, 2010), therefore understanding the different set-ups of conflict also becomes significant for the sustainable project management (Adderley & Mellor, 2014;Ayuso et al, 2014;Carlon & Downs, 2014;Chakhar & Saad, 2014;Garriga, 2014;Golob & Podnar, 2014;Hörisch et al, 2014;Moriarty, 2014;Ni et al, 2014;Oriordan & Fairbrass, 2014;Retolaza et al, 2014;Scheer et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). Okoye et al (2013) have examined the nexus of corporate disclosure of social performance on corporate stakeholder conflict management where stakeholder groups represent divergent interests in the activities of any corporation.…”

“…Having said this, such different phenomena of stakeholder-centric constructions and compositions of conflicts pose an interesting research exploration into the project management landscape and contemporary literatures laying the foundation for prototyping the potential typology of conflicts from multifaceted perspectives (Adderley & Mellor, 2014;Ayuso et al, 2014;Carlon & Downs, 2014;Chakhar & Saad, 2014;Garriga, 2014;Golob & Podnar, 2014;Hörisch et al, 2014;Moriarty, 2014;Ni et al, 2014;Oriordan & Fairbrass, 2014;Retolaza et al, 2014;Scheer et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). The problem formulation thus depicts the clear-cut research gap in understanding the typology, categorization and classification of conflicts relevant to the project management domain at a meso level of analysis as focused on an organization's project management context.…”

Digital Reflections of Pharmaceutical Companies and their CSR Communication Strategies

“…stakeholder information strategy, stakeholder response strategy and stakeholder involvement strategy). The enhancement of stakeholder engagement is necessary and has not yet been rigorously investigated in the pharmaceutical industry (O'Riordan & Fairbrass, 2014).…”