Unknown Knowns and Known Unknowns: Framing the Role of Organizational Learning in Corporate Social Responsibility Development

Abstract

International audienceCorporate social responsibility (CSR) is now widely seen as an increasingly significant concern for firms because of moral, relational and instrumental motives. Nevertheless, practical aspects and challenges associated with CSR development in firms remains only partially understood. In this setting, the organizational learning (OL) discipline is recurrently put forward as key in the pursuit and successful development of CSR, but the existing literature remains disjointed. This study critically reviews the existing literature to conceptualize how research to date has approached CSR development in terms of OL, and to provide a two-dimensional structuring framework of the role of OL in CSR development that emphasizes key OL-related aspects supporting CSR development and goes beyond an organization-centric viewpoint to consider not only learning within the organization, but also from others, and with others. In particular, the authors identify key learning processes and sub-processes and critical areas that remain understudied. Overall, the authors propose a macro view of the work done to date at the intersection of OL and CSR, and in doing so help make the ‘OL for CSR development’ scholarship more recognizable as a sub-discipline

The Dark Side of Stakeholder Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility: Tensions and Micro‐level Undesirable Outcomes

“…These two sources of tensions can be central to the development of CSR activities from an organization‐centric perspective (Fortis et al . ; Hahn et al . ; Ozanne et al .…”

“…Learning tensions arise from the innovation and transformation that surface when organizations seek to adjust, renew or change. These two sources of tensions can be central to the development of CSR activities from an organization-centric perspective (Fortis et al 2018;Hahn et al 2018;Ozanne et al 2016), but we focus on the performing and belonging tensions, which relate more directly to the stakeholder-centric, micro-level focus that we adopt in this paper.…”

Mapping the conceptual structure of environmental management: a co-word analysis

“…The study of firm/corporate environment performance (i.e., Escrig-Olmedo et al 2017, Hartmann andVachon 2018) and its relationship to other topics such as environmental management systems (i.e., Martín-de Castro et al 2016) has significant development. Other topics of interest are corporate social responsibility (i.e., Fortis et al 2018) and environmental management systems (i.e., Biscotti et al 2018).…”

CSR processes in governance systems and structures: The development of mental modes of CSR

“…al. ; Fortis, Maon, Frooman, & Reiner, ; Parmar, ; Werhane, ). Such models or logics evolve over time, however, and different givens can contradict one another.…”

“…Within the development of corporate social responsility (CSR) as a sensemaking processes in which mental models play a key role (Daniels, Johnson, & De Chernatony, ; Fortis, Maon, Frooman, & Reiner, , Hartman, Werhane, Clark, Vansandt, & Sud, ; Parmar, ; Werhane, ), the concept can look fuzzy, strongly political, and very difficult to grasp. In this article, I contribute to organization theory by advancing a corporate governance perspective on CSR as a sensemaking process.…”