Global Compact International Yearbook 2013
189
By Francesco Perrini, Angeloantonio Russo, Antonio Tencati, and Clodia Vurro
The continuing financial crisis calls for different managerial paradigms and a broader
definition of business success. The narrow and exclusive focus on short-term monetary
results has led to counter-productive and negative consequences for business and society.
All over the world, different approaches are emerging. Thanks to innovative corporate
social responsibility (CSR) practices, a great number of firms have been working with
stakeholders in order to support broad and shared value-creation processes that are able to
benefit the different constituencies, including not only shareholders but also employees,
customers, suppliers, the community in which the company operates, and others.
The real impact of CSR efforts on corporate performance is
still questionable. In fact, for four decades, research on the
role and responsibilities of business has centered on the
business case for CSR. As a result, an increasing number of
studies have appeared on the ties between corporate social
performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP).
Yet, the business case for social responsibility and the related
link between CSP and CFP remain the most controversial areas
in studies on business-in-society.
As a consequence – and in order to keep research aligned
with business practice and growing practitioner interest in
CSR – the shift away from a simplistic assumption over the
link between CSP and CFP has become increasingly stringent,
along with a growing request to reorient empirical investigation
toward a deeper understanding of what it means to succeed
in CSR, disentangling its specific dimensions.
Based on an extensive review of the literature on the CSP-CFP
link, our work aims at providing a comprehensive organizing
framework for systematizing the performance effects of specific
CSR-related efforts. In particular, adopting a stakeholder-based
view of a firm’s engagement in CSR, we delve into the various
dimensions underlying the relationship between stakeholder-
related CSR policies and specific performance outcomes. In
so doing, we point out the drivers of the relationship, thus
advancing the existing debate over the need for a contingency
approach to the business case for CSR.
In more detail, our contribution provides a guide that is
useful for understanding better the mechanisms by which
certain activities may translate into improvements in a firm’s
performance, leveraging on specific drivers of market and
operational results. Thus, it moves beyond a straightforward
view of the CSP-CFP link, underlining the limits of paying
disproportionate attention to “black box” approaches to both
CSR and the performance of firms.
Deconstructing the CSP-CFP relationship:
A stakeholder approach
Rooted in the stakeholder theory of the firms, recent research
has been appreciating the impact of CSR, both at different
levels of analysis and in specific management domains and
stakeholder interactions. In this context, research has started
to focus on organizational, market, consumer-based, and/or
environmental outcomes of specific areas of responsibility.
Moreover, emerging theoretical and empirical accounts have
started to investigate the impact of specific tools and practices
of CSR management in a stakeholder setting, based on a con-
ception of CSR as a new governance model rooted in the value
of stakeholder relationships and in the capacity of a firm to
meet stakeholder needs beyond mere legal compliance. Thus, a
clear understanding of CSR performance consequences should
disentangle different management areas and investigate how
specific activities translate into organizational, managerial, or
market gains according to a multiple-bottom-line perspective.
Agenda
ISO 26000
Integrated Reporting