Corporate Social Responsibility or Corporate Social Responsiveness - Case study of CSR in top Swedish firms

Abstract

In recent years, the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have become more important than ever before, due to the non-proportional relation between the increase in power of companies and the level of their social responsibilities. Today, corporations appear to expand their accountability in social issues by internalizing such concerns into their enterprises in order to prevent potential crisis resulting in negative media debates. The aim of our thesis is analyze the role of CSR in large Swedish corporations. The qualitative and quantitative methods given by interviews and statistics analysis of survey data lead us to identify the influence of CSR departments within the organizations. The theoretical findings indicate that the influence of a department vary according to their power status, and the departmental power could be gained by having control over three determinants to the strategic contingencies theory; uncertainty, non-substitutability, and centrality. The empirical results point out that CSR departments have low level of influence on strategic decision-making. Even though CSR managers have the necessary expertise, awareness and determination to make changes in corporate behavior regarding social issues, still at CSR departments their influence continue being imperceptible. The CSR-movement today appears as a business answer to social conflicts and is in that sense similar to a marketing strategy. Nevertheless, it presents corporations as responsible and accountable to society in their new role as societies’ rulers but the influence of CSR departments will remain the same unless there are more profound changes in the organizational perceptions and approaches towards social issues.