Follow the leader: how corporate social responsibility influences strategy and practice in the business community

Purpose: Companies face increasing pressure from stakeholders to play a leading role in addressing a wide array of environmental, social, and governance issues. What are the relevant and responsible contributions that corporations are expected to provide in support of defining solutions to sustainability issues? This paper shows how corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a negotiation process to help corporations manage uncertainties through collaborative work and alignment with stakeholders. From that angle, CSR is a process that generates standard and acceptable business practices. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses both an adductive as well as an interpretative approach of CSR and looks at CSR as a collaborative process that builds rules and norms. Findings: CSR is defined as a contractual process between stakeholders in order to drive decision making processes and agree on commitments between business and society. Interestingly, all studied examples depict the development of standard and acceptable business practices with very little involvement of stakeholders, which is not the understood way of driving changes to business strategy as defined by the CSR negotiation processes. Practical implications: A framework is presented linking CSR business practices research findings to empirical market isomorphism. The paper is of practical relevance for management practitioners. The limitations of recent research are also discussed. Originality/value: Our examples show that CSR is no more than the achievements of fragmented initiatives led by companies showing limited transparency toward external stakeholders. There is no overall coordination. The paper is original in its recommendation that public authorities play a strategic role showing clear direction, and establish themselves as a strategic platform enabling more engagement between stakeholders.