Jorge A. Arevalo, Itziar Castelló, Simone de Colle, Gilbert Lenssen, Kerstin Neumann and Maurizio Zollo
The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue, conceptualized and realized by a group of scholars engaged in the Global Organizational Learning and Development…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue, conceptualized and realized by a group of scholars engaged in the Global Organizational Learning and Development Network (GOLDEN) for Sustainability programme. It aims to adopt the overarching research question of the GOLDEN research programme “How do firms learn to integrate and manage sustainability in their business models, including their organizational purpose, strategy, processes, systems and culture?” as the guiding principle for case selection.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first presents the key ideas underpinning the previous research question and illustrates the research approach and agenda of GOLDEN for Sustainability. Second, it introduces the eight case studies presented in this special issue.
Findings
The cases offer good illustrations of the ongoing transition by both medium‐sized and multinational corporations dealing with learning and change challenges posed by the identification and management of sustainability issues. The selected cases represent firms operating in diverse contexts and industries, and are developed by scholars specializing in various fields connected to corporate responsibility and sustainability.
Originality/value
The paper presents cases of organizations that have made sense of the sustainability challenge and also the different approaches taken to tackle the challenge, and the results stemming from their efforts..
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Itziar Castelló and Josep Lozano
The purpose of this paper is to understand whether firms evolve towards more comprehensive postures of CSR and what strategic factors drive the change.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand whether firms evolve towards more comprehensive postures of CSR and what strategic factors drive the change.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is deductive‐inductive research based on six critical case studies and supported by extensive review of related literature. The paper provides historical analysis of six firms leaders in their industry (Nike, Shell, General Electric, 3M, CEMEX and IBM) combining primary and secondary data.
Findings
Firms evolve over time towards more complex CSR postures. This evolution is driven by some key strategic factors. The article sets out a three‐stage framework connecting CSR evolution and the strategic change factors.
Practical implications
The paper provides managers with a framework to promote strategic CSR change in their organizations.
Originality/value
The paper is a joint research study on the evolution of CSR and strategic drivers of change.
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The British retailer Marks & Spencer aspires to be the world's most sustainable major global retailer by 2015. This paper seeks to examine how the company is embedding…
Abstract
Purpose
The British retailer Marks & Spencer aspires to be the world's most sustainable major global retailer by 2015. This paper seeks to examine how the company is embedding sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is written as part of an ongoing investigation into how businesses do this. It is based on direct dialogue with corporate sustainability specialists inside and outside the company; participation in company stakeholders' briefings held regularly since the launch of Marks & Spencer's Plan A for sustainability in January 2007; and analysis by the company's own corporate sustainability specialists about how they are embedding.
Findings
This case demonstrates that, in order to speed their journey, Marks & Spencer have aligned sustainability with core strategy. Top leadership is driving the strategy, which is overseen by the board. M&S have made a very public commitment: Plan A with measurable targets, timescales and accountabilities. The strategy is being integrated into every business function and strategic business unit; and involves suppliers, employees and increasingly customers. To enable implementation, the company is developing its knowledge‐management and training; engaging with wider stakeholders including investors; building partnerships and collaborations; and has evolved its specialist sustainability team into an internal change‐management consultancy and coach/catalyst for continuous improvement.
Originality/value
The value of the case study is that it provides an analysis of how one company, which has been active in progressing corporate sustainability, has evolved its approach in recent years.
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Daniel Arenas, Jeremie Fosse and Matthew Murphy
This teaching case seeks to explain the main aspects of Acciona's sustainability strategy and the process of transformation of the company after the new CEO took office in 2004…
Abstract
Purpose
This teaching case seeks to explain the main aspects of Acciona's sustainability strategy and the process of transformation of the company after the new CEO took office in 2004. It also aims to present some possible difficulties of maintaining such strategies in the new economic and political environment. The purpose of the case is to show how three aspects play a relevant role in a company's transformation towards sustainability: cultural change; collaboration with external stakeholders; and the innovations introduced.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a case study that narrates the process of six years of transformation towards sustainability of a company. The case was constructed through the analysis of company documents and several interviews with key actors in the company as well as external stakeholders.
Findings
The paper shows how cultural change, collaboration with external stakeholders and innovation form a vital combination in the transformation process towards sustainability. It also reveals that acquisitions and internationalization can help accelerate or consolidate this process.
Practical implications
The paper is presented as a teaching case with discussion questions at the end. The aim is to engage readers and participants in educational and training programmes in discussions about the factors that may contribute to start and maintain a transformation towards sustainability. The practical implication of the paper is to show how cultural factors, collaboration and innovation form a vital combination for changing the way businesses do things.
Originality/value
The value of the case lies in showing how business efforts of embedding sustainability into business practice can be more effective by combining cultural factors, collaboration and innovation.
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This case study aims to single out two companies in Norway belonging to the NCE Subsea cluster in the Bergen region, which are in the process of developing internationalization…
Abstract
Purpose
This case study aims to single out two companies in Norway belonging to the NCE Subsea cluster in the Bergen region, which are in the process of developing internationalization strategies. Most of the companies in the Subsea cluster are small to medium‐sized companies. Until recently they have not seen or felt the need to make their own understanding or actions regarding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) explicit, even though knowledge about what CSR entails – now often shortened to CR or even SR (Social Responsibility) – may very well already exist in the mindset of managers and employees. However, to respond to potential international customers' demands – often coming from the larger oil companies – SMEs in the Subsea sector are seeking now a way to resolve this by starting a process within their own organizations, using the new process standard ISO 26000. For this reason, the central element of this study focuses on describing such internal processes, which embed CSR knowledge in the respective companies as part of an organizational learning process.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopted a case study method known as Appreciative Inquiry (AI).
Findings
The findings show that the initial phases of such processes are extremely important. It is crucial to view the embedding process of CSR/CR as part of a strategic implementation process, which is capable of interlinking and interlocking business goals with human, social and environmental objectives in order to foster a financially and socially responsible business.
Originality/value
The two cases provide insights into how ISO 26000 can be adapted by SMEs in order to embed a deeper understanding of CSR into the organization, using a participatory dialogue process. The cases can serve as a model for other SMEs who want to live up to the expectations of their main stakeholders, using a process where strategy, business innovation, personal development and continuous learning are interlocked with understanding social responsibility.
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Mark Lee Hunter and Luk N. Van Wassenhove
This paper aims to answer the following questions: Is corporate responsibility only a cost, or is it also a profitable business strategy? If so, can the strategy work in a B2B…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to answer the following questions: Is corporate responsibility only a cost, or is it also a profitable business strategy? If so, can the strategy work in a B2B context, as well as in the B2C context typically covered by research on corporate responsibility? Finally, how does the geopolitical context of a developing Asian nation affect corporate responsibility, from both a managerial and a stakeholder perspective?
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a case study approach, building from observed data to grounded theory.
Findings
In a firm where trust and transparency are both ingrained and enforced among managers, Hayleys PLC used those values as tools to transform relations with key stakeholders from costs to marketing assets. In the process, it created an ethical market network in which membership depends on adherence to the same values. Thus emergent ethical marketplaces are directly related to the spread of CR practices.
Research limitations/implications
The effects of transparency beyond financial disclosure or sustainability reporting on stakeholder relations would be a particularly valuable object of further research. The structure of ethical markets, and the costs and benefits of participating in them, require and justify further study.
Practical implications
An ethical markets strategy can lead to stable long‐term relationships with major buyers. However, in the present circumstances, it also entails dependence on a limited number of major customers. Another issue is that, if “the factory becomes a sales tool”, it may also kill a sale if and when standards slip or a stakeholder creates conflict.
Social implications
A corporate responsibility strategy may transform not only managerial practices, but also the social environment, by enabling or disabling stakeholder partners or adversaries. The means to this objective include providing services and empowerment to stakeholders (in this case, workers) who cannot obtain them from their traditional interlocutors.
Originality/value
This paper adds insight into the implications of corporate responsibility for firms involved in B2B markets, as well as for Asian multinationals. It also contributes to answering the question of how corporate responsibility adds value, by demonstrating how corporate responsibility may strengthen key productive and commercial relationships with stakeholders essential to the sustainability of the firm.
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The purpose of this research is to provide an insight into the learning process leading to the integration of company responsibility, in companies that are moving from a generic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to provide an insight into the learning process leading to the integration of company responsibility, in companies that are moving from a generic approach of Corporate Social Responsibility towards a holistic approach of stakeholder management. The analysis of a case study of a multinational Italian company, Autogrill Group S.p.a., will be explored as an organizational learning process using the framework of a recent approach of Total Responsibility Management.
Design/methodology/approach
The method of qualitative research is based on the analysis of the theory of the subject and through the use of various techniques to study the case to give a longitudinal perspective.
Findings
The use of the case study suggests that the path from a CSR perspective toward a stakeholder management model of responsibility is a “gradual” learning process that requires vision, commitment, integration, innovation, competence, management systems and resources. This learning process is also very important as a “catalyst” of innovation and for the continuous improvement of the company.
Research limitations/implications
In this research the aim is to inquire: How do companies learn to integrate their responsibilities in the process of management, moving from a generic approach of CSR toward a holistic approach of stakeholder management?
Originality/value
The stakeholder management model of Total Responsibility Management in this research is used to assist understanding the importance of managing the company responsibly and to show a way of reading the progress of a multinational company, which is on the path towards a more stakeholder‐oriented model of responsibility.
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Sabaf, a world‐leading manufacturer of components for domestic gas cooking appliances, went through a transformation process between 1993 and 2005 to develop a strategic approach…
Abstract
Purpose
Sabaf, a world‐leading manufacturer of components for domestic gas cooking appliances, went through a transformation process between 1993 and 2005 to develop a strategic approach to corporate responsibility that embedded social, environmental and governance issues into its organisation, its approach to business and its overall performance. This case describes the learning and change process within the company that set the ground for today's success.
Design/methodology/approach
This teaching case builds on data gathered through sites visits, interviews and company materials. The case research protocol explored the notion that the company was learning how to interact, and respond to its changing context, while its responses were creating the ground for internal organisational change that in turn would impact the relationship between the company and its context.
Findings
While on the surface the change process which Sabaf experienced can be regarded as a move from an implicit to a more explicit approach to corporate responsibility, it is also possible to take the view that the company was engaged in developing a more “humanistic” approach to management that permeated the whole organization. What became explicit at Sabaf was not corporate responsibility but rather the term “corporate responsibility” used to describe much older concepts of business that valued people and the natural environment alongside economics. The case also shows the process of organizational leadership for learning, management innovation and change that supported the processes through which this approach was developed and integrated into the company.
Originality/value
This case provides unique insights into the approach Sabaf adopted in its pioneering transformation to become a leading corporate responsibility company and a world leader in its sector. This case can be used as a benchmark for other companies that might embark on the process of integrating corporate responsibility and business performance as a strategic process that has effects that cut across the business as a whole.
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Josep F. Mària SJ and Emmanuelle Devuyst
This case study seeks to present the CSR activity of a mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the conflict between the company and its local stakeholders. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This case study seeks to present the CSR activity of a mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the conflict between the company and its local stakeholders. The company promotes an enlightened CSR, focused on the promotion of individuals' rights; but the local population has inherited a paternalistic mindset, which clashes with this enlightened approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The conflict is presented and analyzed at three levels: company‐government, company‐local communities, and company‐local employees. The cultural change necessary to address the conflict involves fundamental questions in SGM's business model: strategy, structure and mainly purpose, processes and culture.
Findings
The company needs to design individual and industry‐wide strategies to tackle the problems with the Central Government; develop dialogues with key leaders of local communities in order to promote with them an enlightened culture of CSR and of development; and change the processes to diffuse and eventually modify the company values affecting local employees.
Originality/value
Research on CSR in the Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically in the Katanga province, is very scarce, even if mining companies are starting to operate in that Province, raising important problems in terms of development and cultural change. In spite of several problems, SGM is a case of good practice that can inspire other mining companies or extractive industries in developing countries.
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This paper aims to provide an insight around operationalising CSR and sustainability activities within an Asian‐Pacific subsidiary of a leading CSR global third‐party logistics…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide an insight around operationalising CSR and sustainability activities within an Asian‐Pacific subsidiary of a leading CSR global third‐party logistics company; Deutsche Post DHL.
Design/methodology/approach
An in‐depth single case‐study approach was adopted for this study. Using semi‐structured interviews with managers, the research maps various strategic CSR activities from the European corporate centre across to activities within this Asian subsidiary's different business units.
Findings
The research provides evidence of activities and issues around this subsidiary's internalisation of CSR by selectively highlighting local initiatives and solutions that help address and contribute towards the global CSR strategic objectives. It describes some issues and opportunities around global policies and local activities that affect the subsidiary's present scope for decision making and management accountability. Along with the issues and challenges from this loose fit tactic of bottom‐up with top‐down engagement, it highlights influential aspects of social, cultural and business management models and the interpretations, context and limitations of the subsidiary's CSR contributions to date.
Originality/value
Little has been written around the empirical operationalisation of CSR and sustainability from third‐party logistic companies; even less so from the Asia Pacific region. The activities, themes and challenges serve as useful references for practitioners. With new, original data sets, for academic scholars, the findings also serve to provide deeper and more explanatory contributions as complementary theory development resources.