This book sets out on a welcome endeavor – namely to provide a Nordic Perspective on CSR. As such it seems logical to ask what the Nordic countries are doing to CSR and what CSR is doing to the Nordic countries? The Nordic countries are often ranked at the top of international lists of ethics, transparency and accountability, and performance indicators like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Global 100 indicate that the Nordic countries are more highly represented than their relative small size justifies (Midttun et al., 2006; Morsing et al., 2007; Gjølberg, 2009; Strand, 2013). Also, Matten and Moon (2008) have in their seminal paper – with input from Atle Midttun who is specifically acknowledged – proposed that European countries seem to adhere to an “implicit approach to CSR” vis-à-vis “an explicit approach to CSR” attributed to Anglo-Saxon countries. While we appreciate that European countries historically share much in terms of political, social and economic development, we also believe that there is something else that defines a specific northern European – or Nordic – perspective in terms of CSR. Like many other scholars, we are curious to understand better what this is and what an “implicit approach to CSR” implies within a Nordic Perspective. Therefore we believe this book is likely to find a highly interested audience, expecting to be informed about empirical realities and analytical reasoning behind the Nordic CSR experience.
The book consists of an exemplary collection of 17 chapters written by colleagues from a variety of disciplines, who Midttun has invited to demonstrate with him how CSR makes sense in a Nordic context. Let us start by applauding Midttun for this achievement in itself. It is unusual in the same book to have contributions from scholars within political science, management, communication, economics, philosophy, accounting, law and the technical sciences as well as corporations. Nevertheless this is what Midttun has done and this achievement is in itself a demonstration of one of the defining aspects of CSR in the Nordic Perspective to our minds: interdisciplinary, working across, collaboration or what has been labelled a “Scandinavian Cooperative Advantage” (Strand and Freeman, 2013). Not because these countries are harmonious entities of sharedness and collective agreement but because historically they have experienced the necessity to collaborate politically, socially and economically to thrive and survive.
In the first chapter, Midttun positions CSR as a central dimension in his vision of “civilized capitalism”: “CSR, as I see it, is thus part of a long-term process of ”civilizing capitalism” or reclaiming social and environmental responsibility for business in the global market economy” (Midttun, p. 18). Civilized capitalism implies a re-acknowledgement of the interdependency between actors of state, business and civil society – and according to Midttun it is a particular call for a montesquieu’ian reinforcement of “civil society as a significant force alongside the classical polity and the liberalist economy” (Midttun, p. 429). Midttun reminds us how, in fact, the modern corporation originating in the USA started out performing public functions like education, housing, infrastructure. And therefore “the corporation” was given privileges such as monopoly rights and exemption on liability (Midttun, p. 19). So, Midttun asks the highly relevant question to what extent it is conceivable today to think that the corporation could regain some of this public-mindedness? (Midttun, p. 30).
While Midttun in his introductory chapter speaks about his aspirations for western society in general, the notion of “civilized capitalism,” he says at the very last page of the book, is a “distinctively Nordic approach” (Midttun, p. 432) that builds on the ground pillars of the model for the Nordic welfare societies with reliance on open economies and strong traditions for close collaboration between state, business and civil society. This is also noted in the foreword by Freeman who points out how the Nordic countries “for the most part” (Freeman, p. 16) seem to have avoided the “separation fallacy” where business is separated from society. While there is no doubt that Midttun has strong opinions about the need for corporations to step up and take into account their social and environmental responsibilities to ensure the planet's long-term survival, he avoids moralizing but instead shows strong encouragement and hope for the future.
And this is a defining trait of the book. In the treatment of CSR, all contributors are carefully and almost all with a certain optimism – describing the mechanisms, techniques and social dynamics that characterize various important aspects of CSR: corporate governance, CSR communication, sustainability reporting, the role of employees, global supply chains, life cycle analysis, human rights, corruption, also. The authors are all internationally acknowledged scholars who have contributed to international research as well as practice on CSR in the Nordic countries. This is an excellent background for the book. It provides an overview of some of the major issues, the latest developments and some of the more advanced techniques of CSR and many but not all chapters build on empirical insights and examples from a Nordic context, such as for example Brønn's chapter on CSR communication (Chapter 3), Brun and Thornam's chapter on sustainability reporting (Chapter 4) and Magerholm Fet's description of environmental performance improvement strategies (Chapter 8).
Being delighted with the publication of this book and intrigued by its central message about “civilized capitalism” related to a Nordic Perspective, however, we note with some surprise how the promise in the title regarding the Nordic Perspective is approached in fragmented pieces and never really collected into a new and coherent narrative about CSR in a Nordic Perspective. Most of the scholars, many of the references, and a good deal of empirical examples are rightly from the Nordic countries. But being Nordic is, of course, no guarantee for delivering an analysis of the Nordic. As part of a Nordic research environment on CSR ourselves, we have oftentimes discussed with our colleagues what is the Nordic approach to CSR and why such self-analysis and assessments of the Nordic is difficult. Perhaps this is the reason for the understatedness of the Nordic Perspective in this book.
In many chapters there is an empirical richness of insights into the Nordic that are intelligent, knowledgeable and descriptive, and the reader closes the book much more well informed about facts, numbers and regulations of CSR in the Nordic. That said, the book on our desks still leaves us curious to know more about what the Nordic has done to CSR in terms of understanding how the Nordic countries have influenced and changed the definitions and behaviors of CSR via development and enactment of certain “Nordic” techniques, mechanisms and social dynamics. Also, we wonder if CSR has changed the Nordic. While Monbiot and Bakan (Chapter 17) are likely to answer that politicians and citizens of the Nordic countries are victims of the neoliberal seduction of CSR, perhaps the Nordic people embedded in high-trust, social democratic traditions will answer that question differently?
In the book a number of highly interesting observations from the Nordic countries are reported. They are professionally described, but we are left wanting more as they are not yet put into an analytical framework that brings us closer to a theoretical understanding and coherent explanation of The Nordic Perspective. For example, we learn that there is “widespread skepticism toward explicit CSR communications throughout the Nordic business environment” (Brønn: p. 70) and that corporate CSR claims have been “deemed illegal” in Norway (Brønn: p. 71). This is highly interesting. But we are left wanting to understand this further – why this is so and what it means for the Nordic Perspective and the Nordic society? Blindheim et al. state that “the importance of collective-level responsibility mechanisms in bringing about improvements on the ground, and the role of business in developing such mechanisms […]” (Blindheim et al., p. 187), but we are left wondering how this relates to the Nordic Perspective or to discuss how the tax evasion techniques of Swedish owned IKEA (Blindheim et al., p. 177) relate to the Nordic Perspective. Also Magerholm Fet helpfully unfolds how the life cycle analysis carefully developed by a group of Norwegian stakeholders within a “holistic perspective” (Magerholm Fet, p. 193), which is most interesting indeed, but we are left with a desire for greater understanding regarding why this exemplary model perhaps was more likely to happen in a Nordic context than elsewhere. The jigsaw pieces are presented, the reader is alert to know what they mean, but they are not put into a jigsaw puzzle that takes the reader the next step to analytically understand better the Nordic Perspective in a comprehensive framework – and relate it to the idea of “civilized capitalism.” We find ourselves on the edge of our seats wanting to see where this leads.
Also, a number of chapters reflect on CSR without reference to the Nordic. It does not make these chapters irrelevant or uninteresting from a CSR angle, but it makes the reader (still thinking about the title of the book) wonder how they connect to further our understanding of the Nordic Perspective. For example Joly (Chapter 16) brings an interesting critical analysis of western companies’ engagement with corruption in the south as if it is a matter of “[…] corrupt Third-World states forcing solid western companies to pay money under the table” (Joly, p. 392). It is a well-structured chapter (edited by Toporowska) that brings Joly's refreshing historical and legal perspective on corruption into the debate of CSR. However, unfortunately it does not bring any light on the Nordic Perspective. Also, Blindheim et al. reports on global supply chains and brings in highly relevant observations from a study of Swedish-owned H&M. But Blindheim et al. do not reflect on the “Nordicness” of H&M's work with global supply chains, but interestingly they report that “What the CEO is doing is placing the primary responsibility for the wage issue on the Bangladeshi government, and thus remove the responsibility for Hennes & Mauritz for acting on the issue themselves” (Blundheim et al., p.186). Again, this is a highly interesting observation and possibly counter-intuitive to what we like to think of as the Nordic Perspective, and hence we are intrigued to know how the authors’ see this in relation to the Nordic Perspective. Another chapter that is (relatively) unrelated to the Nordic Perspective yet presents a potentially thought-provoking contribution to a Nordic Perspective, is the philosophical chapter by Dybvig building on Rousseau (Chapter 14). Dybvig proposes “Zoon Politicon” as the unit of analysis rather than “Homo Economicus” as he argues that in contemporary society no matter if we are businessmen, politicians or employees – all our actions are “already always” political (Dybvig, p. 360). We think this provides a conceptually rich idea for digging deeper into the Nordic and Midttun's “civilized capitalism,” where politics seems at the center of balancing state, business and civil society.
The two chapters with the most explicitly stated Nordic Perspective on CSR is Chapters 11 and 12. Chapter 11 is authored by Midttun and a group of Nordic colleagues, Gjølberg, Kourala, Sweet and Vallentin. And Chapter 12 authored by Gjølberg. In these two chapters the reader is given a very concrete take on the Nordic Perspective from a public policy angle (Chapter 11) and a business angle (Chapter 12). These two chapters provide data to demonstrate the “frontrunner status” of the Nordic countries on CSR in some respects, while they are also critically questioning the future development of this position. The Nordic welfare states are challenged and the Nordic model is changing.
Perhaps this is here we will look forward to see Midttun's “civilized capitalism” unfolded. As we leave the detailed and necessary descriptions of CSR in the Nordic, next step is to know more about the challenges that lie ahead. How are the balances shifting between state and corporate engagement in the Nordic for being responsible for social and environmental affairs, and what role does CSR play in this? What happens when affairs that used to be the domain of government in the days of strong welfare states are changed into corporate territory? What action or theories can assist us in understanding the mobilization of civil society to counterbalance the powers of business and states? As Beckman et al. (2006) as well as Strand et al. (forthcoming) have pointed out tensions are likely to occur when the implicit Nordic approach, where CSR is embedded into the societal and institutional foundations, is confronted with the demands to more explicit approaches, where corporations are expected to demonstrate their engagement in CSR as a function separate from the state. In other words: “talking the walk” is not a straightforward process of disseminating what you are doing but leads a number of social dynamics influencing the way citizens perceive of business in society. So, there is a research agenda to be explored further: what are the Nordic countries doing to CSR and what is CSR doing to the Nordic countries?
In summary, this book delivers rich material for stimulating the ongoing debate of the role of business in society in the world – and in particular in the Nordic countries. We applaud Atle Midttun and his colleagues for taking one more step in the direction of understanding the complex and changing phenomenon of CSR and for bringing in the Nordic Perspective in a collective effort. It is a timely and relevant book for scholars and practitioners in our further strive to expand not only our understandings, but also our debate on what defines the Nordic Perspective on CSR and to investigate if there is a future for what Midttun has proposed as “civilized capitalism.”
