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Understanding and Responding to Societal Demands on Corporate Responsibility (RESPONSE)

Understanding and Responding to Societal Demands on Corporate Responsibility (RESPONSE)

Programme description:
The research programme aims to study the nature of societal demands on business organisations' decisions and actions from a business strategy perspective. Two are the overarching questions that will be asked. First, what do companies understand as their responsibilities towards society, and how does that differ from the actual expectations from social actors? Two, how can companies cope with both rising societal demands on their activities and with a consequently wider gap between what they are prepared to contribute and what society expects from them?
The programme plans to tackle these research questions from two distinct levels of analysis: the business organisation and the individual manager. In the former perspective, the research partners will leverage on recent developments in organisational sociology, evolutionary economics and business strategy in order to focus on how the company perceives and manages the different types of societal demands coming from a diverse group of actors (government and local authorities, social pressure groups, social rating agencies, employees and unions, supply chain partners etc.). At the individual level of analysis, they will rely on recent advancements in cognitive and social psychology, in fields as diverse as the psychology of emotions, neurology, ethical decision-making and consciousness studies.
In addition to leveraging on cutting-edge knowledge from diverse areas of social science, the research objectives and methodology have been designed to pursue academic contributions not only to the debate on corporate social responsibility, but also to at least some of the disciplines the programme is building on. Among them, business strategy, evolutionary economics, organisational sociology (institutional theory in particular), business ethics and organisational behaviour. At the same time, the programme is conscious of the significant impact that the expected results might have for managerial practice. It also has designed a series of initiatives to diffuse the insights derived from the academic work to all the relevant audiences, including one research objective specifically dedicated to the development of a "tool-box" in order to help companies assess and tackle these issues in the context of their normal activities.
Programme objectives
The programme has the following objectives:
  • To understand how large corporations all over the world define their social responsibilities, and to what degree their definition differs from that offered (implicitly or explicitly) by their stakeholders. Study particularly the impact of regional and industry context of the type and magnitude of these discrepancies
  • To understand how a company's institutional environment, the strength and influence of advocacy groups, the type of industry and the company's actions affect the social risk to its normative legitimacy
  • To understand how the way a company manages knowledge on a systematic and routinised basis influences its ability to interpret the nature of societal demands and to effectively respond to them
  • To test the degree, to which managerial decision-making and behaviour can be influenced towards higher levels of social consciousness through the adoption of introspection practices
  • To develop a 'tool box', which can be used by companies in their efforts to understand and respond to societal demands.
Project organisation
A consortium of organisations carries out the project. Apart from Copenhagen Business School, the consortium consists of:
INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France
The Wharton School (Wharton), Philadelphia, USA
Haute Etudes Commerciales (HEC), University Geneva, Switzerland
Corporate Meditation (CM), Brussels, Belgium
Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (UCLB), Milano, Italy
International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), London, UK
Leon Kozminski Academy (LKA), Warshaw, Poland
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Geneva, CH
Common Sense (CS), Antwerpen, Belgium.
The European Commission supports the programme.
I you need further information, please contact:
Department of Operations Management, Copenhagen Business School
Peter Neergaard, 38 15 24 04
Esben Rahbek Pedersen, 38 15 27 41
Anton Plesner, 38 15 29 62

Last updated by Webmaster 02/04/2009