Corporate Social Responsibility
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and Value Creation among Large Firms Lessons from the Spanish Experience Bryan W. Husted and David B. Allen
Can corporate social responsibility (CSR) be a source of good and a wellspring of innovation, competitive advantage and value creation for the firm? Although CEOs and government leaders insist in public that CSR projects create value for the firm, privately they admit that they do not know if CSR pays off. To address this question and drawing on experience for the Spanish context, we test one of the few efforts to model how the strategic management of CSR may contribute to improving firm profitability (Burke and Logsdon, 1996). To do this, we examine the impact of three strategic CSR variables -.visibility, appropriability, and voluntarism - on value creation among large Spanish corporations. The conclusions from these findings suggest that managers need to understand how CSR is similar to and different from other traditional corporate market activities if they are to pursue value creation through CSR. We also suggest avenues for future research to explain how CSR may be integrated into firm processes to create resources (assets) and capabilities (routines) that may lead to competitive advantage and superior economic performance.
Introduction Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been defined in myriad ways. A common feature of many of the definitions is the proviso that firm activities can be considered as CSR when the firm under- takes ‘‘actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law’’.1 However, this traditional definition, which clearly separated market from non-market (or social) activities, has given way to a new understanding driven by growing stakeholder pressure for greater CSR: firms are being asked to provide more and more social pro- grams designed to alleviate the world’s ills as they are told that this will also lead to
Can corporate social responsibility (CSR) be a source of good and a wellspring of innovation, competitive advantage and value creation for the firm? Although CEOs and government leaders insist in public that CSR projects create value for the firm, privately they admit that they do not know if CSR pays off. To address this question and drawing on experience for the Spanish context, we test one of the few efforts to model how the strategic management of CSR may contribute to improving firm profitability (Burke and Logsdon, 1996). To do this, we examine the impact of three strategic CSR variables -.visibility, appropriability, and voluntarism - on value creation among large Spanish corporations. The conclusions from these findings suggest that managers need to understand how CSR is similar to and different from other traditional corporate market activities if they are to pursue value creation through CSR. We also suggest avenues for future research to explain how CSR may be integrated into firm processes to create resources (assets) and capabilities (routines) that may lead to competitive advantage and superior economic performance.
Introduction Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been defined in myriad ways. A common feature of many of the definitions is the proviso that firm activities can be considered as CSR when the firm under- takes ‘‘actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law’’.1 However, this traditional definition, which clearly separated market from non-market (or social) activities, has given way to a new understanding driven by growing stakeholder pressure for greater CSR: firms are being asked to provide more and more social pro- grams designed to alleviate the world’s ills as they are told that this will also lead to
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