Browsing Working Papers (CBSCSR) by Title
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How Managers in Multinational Corporations perceive Stakeholders and Societal ResponsibilitiesRahbek Pedersen, Esben (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The stakeholder approach has become a popular perspective in mainstream management and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature. However, it remains an open question how real‐life managers actually view their stakeholders and what rationales are used for making judgments about their relative importance. This article will try to answer these questions by examining who managers in multinational corporations (MNCs) consider as their stakeholders and how they value them. It is concluded that managers still tend to hold a rather narrow (managerial) view of the firm and primarily give priority to stakeholder groups which are directly involved in the core transformation system. The conclusions are derived from interviews and surveys of in total 662 managers in four MNCs. The data is collected as part of RESPONSE: a large EU‐ and corporate‐funded initiative on corporate social responsibility (CSR). URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7936 Files in this item: 1
wp cbscsr 2009-5.pdf (567.6Kb) -
Reflections on the “Dark Side” of Impact AssessmentLund-Thomsen, Peter (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper considers the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) standard impact assessment in global value chains. CSR standards have proliferated in recent years, and several studies have attempted to assess their effects on local producers, workers, and the environment in developing countries. However, much less attention has been paid to the “dark side” of impact assessment – the ethical and political dilemmas that arise in the process of carrying out impact studies. This paper addresses this gap in literature, arguing that impact assessments of CSR standards may do more harm than good to the intended beneficiaries - developing country firms, farmers, workers, and communities - unless these ethical and political dilemmas are given serious consideration. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8804 Files in this item: 1
Lund-Thomsen_2.pdf (1.084Mb) -
Crone Jensen, Elisabeth; Thusgaard Pedersen, Janni; Neergaard, Peter (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
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Business Model Opportunities and Barriers for Fashion LibrariesRahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen, Esben; Netter, Sarah (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore barriers and opportunities for business models based on the ideas of collaborative consumption within the fashion industry. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on a multiple-‐‑case study of Scandinavian fashion libraries – a new, clothes-‐‑sharing concept that has emerged as a fashion niche within the last decade. Findings: It is concluded that fashion libraries offers interesting perspectives, e.g. by allowing people to experiment with styles without having to pay the full cost and becoming a meeting place for young designers and end consumers. However, at present fashion libraries remain a small-‐‑scale phenomenon with difficulties reaching the mainstream market, not least due to limited financial and human resources as well as conventional fashion consumption patterns. Research limitations/implications: The study is limited to the new phenomenon of fashion libraries and does not cover other types of collaborative consumption within the fashion industry (Swap-‐‑parties, etc.). Originality/value: The paper is one of the first attempts to examine new business models of collaborative consumption in general and the fashion library concept in particular. The study contributes to the discussions of whether and how fashion sharing and collaboration holds promise as a viable business model and as a means to promote sustainability. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8819 Files in this item: 1
Netter_Pedersen.pdf (607.9Kb) -
The Case of Nike in PakistanLund-Thomsen, Peter; Coe, Niel (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This article examines the circumstances under which CSR initiatives facilitate and/or constrain labor agency in GPNs. Using a case study of Nike’s CSR approach in the football manufacturing industry of Pakistan, we explore how the CSR measures advocated in a new, emerging policy paradigm on CSR in GPNs affect labor agency at Nike’s main football supplier factory in Pakistan. We argue that international companies may undermine labor agency in GPNs through their sourcing policies, but that their CSR policies could have a potential, albeit limited, positive impact on labor agency in GPNs which is significantly shaped by national-level contextual factors. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8803 Files in this item: 1
Lund-Thomsen_1.pdf (915.7Kb) -
Vallentin, Steen; Murillo, David (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Modern governmental approaches to CSR (corporate social responsibility) have two distinguishing traits: they tend to define competitiveness as their primary concern and to make use of liberal and indirect means of steering. Contributing to a political understanding of CSR and focusing empirically on developments within the EU, this paper approaches CSR governance in general and competitiveness-driven CSR governance in particular from the point of view of an analytics of governmentality – thus introducing governmentality studies to the field of CSR. The aim of the paper is first, conceptually, to make sense of the governmentality approach in terms of the practical brand of critique it embodies and its positioning vis-à-vis other comparable contributions to our understanding of the government of CSR. And second, analytically, to propose a framework for analyzing the governmentalities of CSR. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7908 Files in this item: 1
wp cbscsr 2009-4.pdf (213.7Kb) -
Advantages of strategic ambiguityMorsing, Mette; Langer, Roy (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In this paper we analyze the construction of corporate social responsibility in the business press as an act of strategic ambiguity. While corporate social responsibility (CSR) generally evokes positive associations in public opinion, this paper demonstrates that these associations are based on a broadly encompassing and ambiguous definition of CSR. Our empirical data shows how the business press in its discourse on CSR provides no clarity on the definition of CSR in terms of a coherent motive, a dominant stakeholder or a consistent issue, but rather maintains ambiguity and imprecision about the meaning and content of CSR. While ambiguity and imprecision may be seen as an act of uncertainty in a passing stage when a new phenomenon emerges and develops, our longitudinal data demonstrates how ambiguity is preserved during a ten year period in four different daily newspapers. Ambiguity is systematically maintained in the business press. We refer to this process as strategic ambiguity. The paper discusses the potential value and limitations of framing CSR in a state of strategic ambiguity in the context of the concurrent rethinking of the role of business in modern welfare societies. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7125 Files in this item: 1
wp-2007-001-csr.pdf (204.5Kb) -
An Analysis of Donor-financed Management ToolsLund-Thomsen, Peter; Jamali, Dima; Vives, Antonio (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for more than 90% of the world’s enterprises and 50-60% of employment. Their contribution to national and regional economic development and GDP growth is well-recognized (Morsing & Perrini 2009, Srinivasan & Bolar, Under Review). In fact, SMEs are thought to have enhanced local productive capacities, fostered innovation and entrepreneurship, and attracted foreign direct investment in both developed and developing countries (Raynard and Forstater 2002). However, whereas SMEs account for more than 60% of employment in developing countries, and although they are sometimes portrayed as key vehicles in the struggle against poverty in Southern contexts, (Luetkenhorst 2004), there is still a critical lack of knowledge about to the extent to which these firms may contribute to achievement of broader objectives of sustainable and equitable development (Fox, 2005). In fact, when it comes to their role in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries, the verdict is still out there in terms of the extent to which SMEs engage in CSR, and whether their CSR involvement makes any difference to the profitability of firms, workers, and the environment in the South (Jamali et al., 2009; Sachdeva & Panfil, 2008). URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8805 Files in this item: 1
Lund-Thomsen_3.pdf (1.072Mb) -
Ney, Caroline Julie (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: As sustainable development practices expand among companies, innovation appears more and more as a required path to progress towards the integration of ecological concerns at the very heart of business activities. Ecodesign not only requires this integration but can also be a concrete tool for its implementation (Le Pochat, 2005). Our results show that while implementing ecodesign practices, companies mobilize existing competences, that they combine with new ones. These new competences originate from exploration-orientated external cooperations. This original combination of competences paves the way for an internal research, made mostly of exploitation but still including some exploration projects. Long-term continuous innovation (Verona, Ravasi, 2003) requires an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation. The litterature refers to this balance as « ambidexterity ». The present paper provides evidence for a competence development process associated to the implementation of ecodesign. By combining contextual and network ambidexterity, this process promotes a continuous stream of innovation. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7118 Files in this item: 1
wp cbscsr 2008-4.pdf (605.8Kb) -
Thompson, Grahame (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Many formulations of contemporary globalization suggest that citizenship is being radically transformed by processes of transnationalism. And the business world is reacting to this sense of change by firms claiming to be ‘global corporate citizens’. But what exactly does global corporate citizenship mean and what are its implications? In this paper a preliminary response is made to these questions by situating corporate citizenship within the wider framework of constitutional debates about private economic law and the juridicalization of the international sphere more generally. The paper poses the issue of whether there is a quasi-constitutionalization of the international corporate sphere underway and the possible governance consequences of this process. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7379 Files in this item: 1
wp cbp 2008-50.pdf (136.0Kb) -
Hockerts, Kai; Wüstenhagen, Rolf (København, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper proposes a model of how incumbents and new entrants engage in sustainable entrepreneurship. We suggest that in the early stages of an industry’s sustainability transformation, new entrants (‘Emerging Davids’) are more likely than incumbents to pursue sustainability-related opportunities. Incumbents react to the activities of new entrants by engaging in corporate sustainable entrepreneurship activities. While these ‘Greening Goliaths’ are often less ambitious in their environmental and social goals, they may have a broader reach due to their established market presence. This paper analyses the interplay between ‘Greening Goliaths’ and ‘Emerging Davids’ and theorizes about how it is their compounded impact that promotes the sustainable transformation of industries. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7122 Files in this item: 1
wp cbscsr 2009-1.pdf (996.7Kb) -
Towards An Analytical FrameworkPyke, Frank; Lund-Thomsen, Peter (Frederiksberg, 2015)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In this article, we explore the relationship between industrial clusters and social upgrading in developing countries. Our article focuses on the hitherto little-considered influence of the economic and regulatory environment on the social upgrading of a cluster and on its governance system. In doing so, we develop an analytical framework that seeks to explain how the enabling environment and different actors in cluster governance can either facilitate and/or hinder the process of social upgrading in cluster settings in developing countries. Finally, the conclusion outlines our main findings, the research and policy implications of our analysis. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9155 Files in this item: 1
Pyke_Lund-Thomsen.pdf (293.8Kb) -
A Comparative Study of Workers Conditions in Football Manufacturing in China, India and PakistanLund-Thomsen, Peter; Nadvi, Khalid; Chan, Anita; Khara, Navjote; Xue, Hong (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: A critical challenge facing developing country producers is to meet international labour standards and codes of conduct in order to engage in global production networks. Evidence of gains for workers from compliance with such standards and codes remains limited and patchy. This paper focuses on the global football industry, a sector dominated by leading global brands who manage dispersed global production networks. It assesses the work conditions for football stitchers engaged in different forms of work organisation, factories, stitching centres, and home-based settings, in Pakistan, India, and China. It draws on detailed qualitative primary field research with football stitching workers and producers in these three countries. The paper explains how, and why, work conditions of football stitchers differ across these locations through an analytical framework that interweaves both global and local production contexts that influence work condition. In doing so, it argues that current debates on the role of labour in global production networks have to go beyond a narrow focus on labour standards and CSR compliance and engage with economic, technological and social upgrading as factors that could generate sustained improvements in real wages and workers conditions. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8938 Files in this item: 1
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Value Chain Struggles, Work Organization, and Outcomes for Labor in the Football Manufacturing Industry of Jalandhar, IndiaLund-Thomsen, Peter; Khara, Navjote (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Recent academic writings have emphasized that an increasing proportion of world-wide manufacturing is taking place through extensive subcontracting networks that connect consumers in the United States and Europe with workers laboring in the informal economies of developing countries where they often lack social protection or legal recognition under national labor laws. In this article, we make a contribution to this literature by exploring how three different forms of work organization – factory-based, center-based, and home-based football stitching - came into being in the brand sensitive, export-oriented football manufacturing industry of Jalandhar in North India. We argue that the evolution of supply chain linkages and work forms within this industry can best be understood through the ‘prism’ of value chain struggles between the intra-chain actors such as international buyers and local suppliers and the extra-chain actors such as national governments and international NGOs. In particular, struggles over supplier upgrading and labor standards first led to the creation of football stitching as a cottage industry in the latter part of the 20th century and then its re-establishment as industrial factory-based work in the early parts of the new millennium. We conclude that shifting preferences of the upstream buyers and the global consumers, somewhat ironically, offer a Hobson’s choice to the Jalandhar football manufacturers: either insource football stitching within factory-based settings, adopt new technologies, and comply with labor laws/standards, or perish in the highly competitive global market. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8937 Files in this item: 1
Lund_Thomsen_Final_WP_2011_2.pdf (340.1Kb) -
Hockerts, Kai (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper draws on interviews with 12 investor relations directors. These were used to elicit the mental models respondents used when explaining their firms’ motivation to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Four dimensions of CSR-induced competitive advantages emerged: risk, efficiency, branding, and new markets. Respondents from firms with lower social performance drew on less differentiated and less balanced cognitive frameworks (focussing on risk and efficiency). Respondents from firms with higher social performance reported not only more links between CSR and competitiveness, their underlying cognitive models were also more balanced across the four dimensions. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7117 Files in this item: 1
wp cbscsr 2007-3.pdf (302.0Kb) -
Strand, Robert (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The metaphors of strategic management are predominantly rooted in competition in support of the objective to achieve a “competitive advantage.” Drawn from military, sport, and (oftentimes incomplete) interpretations of evolutionary biology, these metaphors imply that business is a zero-sum competitive game. Metaphors are not “just” words but, rather, they impact thoughts and actions. Hence the use of competitive metaphors encourages competitive behavior in business. We argue that this misdirects the purpose of business from being about value creation and, moreover, that value creation is most effectively achieved by approaching business as a fundamentally cooperative endeavor. Furthermore, these “survival of the fittest” sorts of metaphors inhibit considerations toward ethics, humanism, and sustainability. We call for a shift toward metaphors rooted in cooperation and as a means to do so we also call for a shift in focus from achieving “competitive advantage” toward achieving “cooperative advantage” as the objective of strategic management. We conclude by laying out some promising research avenues for further considerations. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8880 Files in this item: 1
Robert_Strand.pdf (772.6Kb) -
Rahbek Pedersen, Esben (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to develop a model of how managers perceive the responsibilities of business towards society. The article is based on the survey responses of more than 1,000 managers in eight large international firms. It is concluded that the managerial perceptions of societal responsibilities differ in some respects from the mainstream models found in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics literature. The article is an output of RESPONSE: an EUand corporate-funded research project on managerial perceptions of CSR. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7126 Files in this item: 1
wp cbscsr 2008-1.pdf (650.6Kb) -
Casanova, Lourdes; Crone Jensen, Elisabeth; Sloan, Pamela; Gradillas, Maria; Hockerts, Kai (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This report summarizes selected findings of a three‐year research effort undertaken by INSEAD, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Bocconi University, and the Leon Kosminski Academy. It is part of a larger European Commission‐funded study, entitled "RESPONSE”. This project has aimed at understanding how multinational firms see their responsibility towards society and how this is aligned (or not) with the expectations of their stakeholders. Preliminary findings were developed in a final report which was presented at a conference in autumn 2007 at INSEAD, Fontainebleau (please find link in the appendix). URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7120 Files in this item: 1
wp csr 2008-06.pdf (1.271Mb) -
Yokoyama, Keiko (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The growing practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has led to increasing research attention in the literature to the role of CSR strategy. CSR strategy is a concept for maximizing profits or benefits for both society and the company. Studies of CSR strategy during the 1990’s and the early 2000’s were mainly limited to examining the concept of CSR, and merely discussed the needs and importance of the strategic development of CSR. Recently, strategy researchers have proposed more specific CSR strategies by applying their knowledge of strategic management. This paper first summarizes these CSR strategy studies and then proposes an approach to CSR strategy from a new perspective. This paper also identifies issues that a company may face when implementing CSR and suggests approaches to CSR strategy to overcome these issues. To overcome the CSR issues, the paper discusses (1) a framework for recognizing the contribution that CSR activity makes to corporate performance, and (2) approaches to CSR strategy for resolving tradeoffs inherent to the CSR activity. This paper proposes that a company design its CSR activity so that it expands the company’s stakeholders, resources and capabilities. Secondly, because the impact of CSR activity occurs both through external factors, such as legitimacy and reputation, and through internal factors, such as implementation and learning, efforts to stimulate the processes are discussed. Lastly, based on the above considerations, the outcome of CSR, corporate performance and the resolution of tradeoffs inherent to CSR are further examined. This paper concludes by pointing out that, from the perspective of CSR strategy, it is most important for a company to implement CSR activity regarding it as a social business, based on a careful review of its core business. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7124 Files in this item: 1
wp csr 2008-05.pdf (276.4Kb) -
Roepstorff, Anne (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
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