The irony of stakeholder management in Germany: The difficulty of implementing an essential concept for CSR

Fifka, Matthias S.

doi:10.1007/s00550-013-0268-1

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Some studies support, for instance, that extrinsic CSR in Europe is mainly a topic for large companies (Spence et al 2003;Steurer et al 2012;Fifka 2012) and SMEs are intrinsically motivated by their tradition/family capitalism and rely on their longstanding informal networks rather than on formal, extrinsic policies (Matten and Moon 2008;Brammer et al 2012;Gebauer and Mewes 2015;Looser and Wehrmeyer 2015a). The local church, the "Stammtisch", membership in Chambers of Industry and Commerce (Matten and Moon 2008; Steurer 2010), and the traditions of the dual education system (Looser and Wehrmeyer 2015b) are, among others, the driving forces within SMEs.…”

Section: Csr In Switzerlandmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Doing well or doing good?

Looser

Wehrmeyer

2015

uwf

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of mission and value-set and the sociological tradition of the stewardship concept. This contrasts the extrinsically motivated approach of the large companies under research. In sum, this study showed that CSR is meaningful and justifiable even if it is not profitable in the first place.Zusammenfassung Verschiedentlich wurde aufgezeigt, dass punkto gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung von Unternehmen (Corporate Social Responsibility -CSR) intrinsischer Motivation eine nachhaltigere Wirkung attestiert werden kann als dies für die entsprechenden extrinsischen Anreize zu postulieren ist. Begründet wird dies vor allem dadurch, dass letztere, die von einer Profitmaximierung durch CSR ausgehen, als unlauter und irreführend eingeschätzt werden. Dies verdeutlicht, welche Bedeutung den Motiven im Zusammenhang mit gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung beigemessen werden muss -nicht nur im Hinblick auf die Gestaltung der organisationalen Gegebenheiten von CSR ganz allgemein mehr noch bezüglich der Effektivität der entsprechenden Aktivitäten. Die vorliegende Studie diskutiert diese Motive in vier Fokusgruppen mit je sieben Grosskonzernen und sieben SchweizerKlein-und mittelgrossen Unternehmungen (KMU). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass grosse Firmen vornehmlich extrinsisch motiviert sind und CSR als Managementfunktion ansehen. In KMU herrschen hingegen intrinsische Motive vor, die auf ein soziales Werte-Set des Unternehmers und einen Zusammenschluss von Tugenden und Mission im Unternehmen zurückzufüh-ren sind. Dies beweist, dass CSR auch ohne direkten Bezug zu Gewinnmaximierung oder dem Profitmotiv bedeutsam, gerechtfertigt und insbesondere vertretbar ist.Abstract Arguably, within Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) the intrinsic motive is more significant than the extrinsic because the former induces a stronger involvement. Others showed that a behaviour attributed to extrinsic motives is mostly perceived as dishonest and misleading. This highlights how important the underlying motivation is for the perception, and thus, design and effectiveness of CSR frameworks. This study discusses these divergent motives with two focus groups: together with seven ownermanagers of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) and seven managers of large companies. The results show that CSR implementation in Swiss SMEs is related more strongly to moral commitment than to profit-maximisation. Accordingly, small business CSR emerges from the nexus

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Section: Csr In Switzerlandmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Many companies and their leaders, indeed, have a business culture making CSR a moral duty to them driven primarily by an intrinsic motive (Lüth and Welzel 2007;Graafland and Mazereeuw-Van der Duijn Schouten 2012;Fifka 2012;Story and Neves 2015). Here, CSR has the power to evolve "social goods" (Osuji 2011).…”

Section: Intrinsic Vs Extrinsic Motives For Csrmentioning

confidence: 97%

Doing well or doing good?

Looser

Wehrmeyer

2015

uwf

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“…On the other hand, in the CSR literature, differences between Germany and Sweden are noted. The German model, with paternalistic tendencies, based on implicit CSR (Antal et al, 2009;Fifka, 2013) would provide fertile ground, and indeed social expectations, for a corporate response in relation to the such a large event as the 2015 refugee crisis. Sweden, on the other hand, based on clear divisions of the role of the state, and the role of the corporations, where the state is the general provider of welfare (De Geer et al, 2009), no such expectations could be presumed.…”

Section: Generation Of Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate social responsibility accounting for arising issues

Weber

Larsson-Olaison

2017

JCOM

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Purpose Arising societal issues challenge corporate social responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how corporations account for arising issues under different institutional settings: the stakeholder oriented corporate governance model of Germany is hypothesized to produce a different response than the more state dominated Swedish welfare model. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes the reported CSR response of the largest corporations in Germany and Sweden, in relation to the 2015 European refugee crisis, as its case. In total, 157 annual reports are investigated by means of text analysis for statements in relation to the European refugee crisis. Findings Empirically, German corporations are more prone to communicate on this emerging issue, and deploying corporate resources to an emerging societal crisis. Based on that finding, this study concludes that the German model is more in line with international CSR-discourse than the Swedish. Research limitations/implications This study has implications for institutional theory perspectives on CSR accounting-related issues. By comparing two economies that would be characterized as “coordinated market economies” a somewhat different set of topics becomes apparent. Further considering country context could be useful when expanding the debate on CSR accounting. Originality/value This study is the first to empirically investigate corporate diplomacy with regard to the European refugee crisis. Besides others, corporations are important societal players. Therefore, corporations bear both, the obligation to deal with arising issues and the potential to participate in public opinion-forming with regard to those issues.

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“…Beginning in the 1950s, so-called "co-determination", which is also referred to as Mitbestimmung, has gradually been introduced in Germany. Co-determination means that workers have a say on the factory level through works councils, and on company level-in case of incorporated companies with more than 500 employees-through representation on the supervisory board (Fifka, 2013b).…”

Section: The Political Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to identify how a company can use its individual strengths, it needs to communicate more closely with its stakeholders, especially its clients and suppliers. As pointed out above, stakeholder dialogue in Germany is strongly focused on political institutions as well as on employees and unions (Fifka, 2013b), and business will have to improve the exchange with other stakeholders. However, the prerequisite for increased dialogue is also a change of perception on the side of business.…”

Section: Concluding Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%