Standardizing responsibility through the stakeholder figure

Abstract

Through a multi-sited study of the Norwegian state-owned renewable energy corporation Statkraft, this article explores how the increasing embedding of corporate social responsibility in international guidelines impacts the way responsibility is handled when large energy corporations operate overseas. Focusing on one of Statkraft’s projects in Turkey, we detail how standards are used to guide both operations in the field and external reporting, in the process distancing the corporation from its Norwegian origin. We argue that the application of standards results in much less standardization than is often assumed. “Stories” become as important for reporting as standards, and the elusive figure of the “stakeholder” plays an important role in holding together the heterogeneous field of corporate responsibility.

The Nordic Model and Management in International Corporations:A Scoping Review

“…Authors, journals, and disciplines The articles were mainly within the sociology and business fields, with eight and five articles in each discipline, respectively. The last two articles (Lange 2020;Knudsen et al 2020) were in the field of social anthropology. There was some consistency in these different studies about terming the model in singular and labeling the model 'Nordic', for instance, the Nordic model (Knudsen et al 2020;Sippola 2012;Tienari et al 2005) Overall, there was a high degree of consistency in these studies regarding which parts of the models were examined.…”

“…The last two articles (Lange 2020;Knudsen et al 2020) were in the field of social anthropology. There was some consistency in these different studies about terming the model in singular and labeling the model 'Nordic', for instance, the Nordic model (Knudsen et al 2020;Sippola 2012;Tienari et al 2005) Overall, there was a high degree of consistency in these studies regarding which parts of the models were examined. Workplace democracy (Nightingale & Clarkson 1982) referred to industrial relations, employment relationships, employment relations, employee participation, and collective bargaining.…”

“…Indirect and direct participation were the main topics studied. Two articles focused on the Nordic model concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Knudsen et al 2020;Lange 2020), while one article related the Nordic model to gender equality (Tienari et al 2005). The main focus across all the studies was how international organizations interacted within Nordic countries' regulations, or within national contexts abroad.…”

“…Workplace democracy refers to labor relationships, labor-management partnerships, collective bargaining, corporation unionization, and participation. By contrast, two articles studied the Nordic model concerning CSR, either by emphasizing the transfer of unionization (Lange 2020) or by highlighting the impact of the model on the transfer of CSR abroad (Knudsen et al 2020). There were variations in locations where the studies in these eight articles were carried out: Poland (Kvinge & Ulrichsen 2008), Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) (Sippola 2009;, Singapore (Cordeiro-Nilsson & Hawamdeh 2011), Canada (Rolfsen 2013), Russia (Sippola 2019), Turkey (Knudsen et al 2020), and Tanzania (Lange 2020).…”

“…Sippola's latest article focused on whether and to what extent Nordic management relationships emerged in Nordic-owned industrial enterprises in Russia (Sippola 2019). The focus of the remaining articles was how the Swedish model of management was transferred to Swedish-managed organizations in Singapore (Corderio-Nilsson & Hawamdeh 2011) and the impact of the Nordic model on the transfer of CSR to Norwegian-owned companies in Turkey (Knudsen et al 2020).…”