This book contains 11 chapters covering various topics relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a popular management idea. The book investigates how CSR has become a prevalent concept, as well as discusses the various actors and organizations shaping the way CSR is diffusing into organizational life. The book is written in a clear, accessible style and its contents should be of interest to students, practitioners and the broader academic community.
The book opens with a chapter outlining the authors’ premise for “CSR as a Management Idea”. They purport that the concept of management ideas can be applied to the context of CSR to better understand what CSR is, how it is spread and how it is practiced. Interestingly the chapter notes that the demand for CSR programmes and practices can be largely attributed to acts of corporate irresponsibility. However, I would have enjoyed hearing more about how CSR is understood to be a bastion of corporate reputation in the wider CSR literature, or indeed, understood differently amongst the practitioner and consulting community.
Chapter 2, “Similarities and differences between management ideas”, by Mats Jutterstrom deals with management ideas and how they affect organizations. The chapter gives details of how CSR has many similarities with other management ideas such as total quality management and lean production – concepts which have also diffused widely. This chapter offers a number of interesting distinctions between CSR and other management ideas and later, in Chapter 10, Jutterstromm and Norberg return to this analysis and explore it in more detail.
Chapter 3, on “Talking and taking responsibility from a historical perspective”, by Peter Norberg begins to unpack CSR as a theoretical concept, its meaning(s) and its principal contributors. The chapter also presents a historical review of CSR in Sweden – a location in which the empirical chapters of the book are largely situated. Norberg articulates a fundamental difference between talking responsibility (how CSR is presented to stakeholders) and taking responsibility (what companies do in practice). He concludes this chapter by expressing that Swedish firms have historically “taken responsibility” rather than talked responsibility, which he argues stands in sharp contrast to US firms – who are generally more concerned with communicating their efforts. The distinction between “being a socially responsible corporation” and simply “doing CSR” is a point I felt was articulated incisively and a central issue for CSR as a discipline to address.
Chapter 4, “Organizations that set CSR standards”, again by Mats Jutterstrom, deals with organizations that produce CSR standards. The chapter first describes the growth of CSR standards since the mid-1970s as significant and increasing, leading to a multitude of CSR variants in the form of different sets of standards and certification. Using case studies, he then describes the standard-setting work of three CSR organizations: the International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI), the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and the United Nations Global Compact (UN GC). Jutterstrom suggests that CSR companies, in the main, have rehashed or build upon the existing standards of others – a point, I sense, should have greater acknowledgement.
Chapter 5, “CSR and the consultancy sector – what is offered, and by whom?”, is a collaborative effort by Staffan Furusten, Andreas Werr, Matilda Ardenfors and Sabine Walter. Here the authors describe how CSR is generally perceived as both a broad and vague idea – enabling consultants to connect a variety of services to it. Again, using the context of Swedish firms, this chapter looks at the types of CSR services offered and describes the “sellers of CSR”. I particularly liked the author's typology of CSR “sellers” based on their preference between motives of profit and commitment to CSR as an ideal. They describe three categories of CSR supplier, which (although seem somewhat rigid) are useful classifications for distinguishing between the types of disseminators of CSR.
Chapter 6, “CSR consultants in interaction with industry”, by Tommy Borglund addresses the question of why companies hire CSR consultants and what the collaboration between companies and consultants can look like. Borglund invites us to think about CSR like Jorgensen et al. (2000): “as a discourse, that is, as a ‘certain way of talking about and understanding the world’” (p. 94). The chapter investigates the role of investors and consumers as key influencers driving the demand for CSR services, referring to the Swedish market context throughout. From this, the author notes that less attention is often paid to the appreciation of “what CSR is” rather than how it can be used in broader business operations. Yet interestingly, Borglund also highlights that because there remains a sense of confusion around the concept further demand for CSR knowledge is subsequently created. He concludes the chapter with his thoughts regarding the role of CSR consultants as carriers of discourse, their importance, and the potential role they could play in the shaping of knowledge.
Chapter 7 deals with “Conflicts surrounding the CSR manager”, in which Tommy Borglund and Peter Norberg assess how companies organize their CSR work at the management level. The chapter takes a closer look into the relatively new CSR function and those who operate within them. The authors go on to describe the tensions and conflicts between the new CSR function and more established ones, namely the traditional finance department. This chapter was interspersed with insights into the day-to-day work of the CSR manager, points which I very much enjoyed reading.
Chapter 8, “CSR travels into the organization”, by Magnus Frostenson focuses on the implementation of CSR. The focus here is how CSR knowledge is “translated” when it is implemented (p. 126). The process of knowledge and standards “adaption” is illustrated using a case study, which, the authors developed some stimulating inferences about how organizations view CSR and ethics as “separate and mutually exclusive” (p. 133). Frostenson's valuable conclusion is that for organizations to “embrace CSR” there must be a degree of “synchronization” between pre-existing organizational beliefs and business goals (p. 138).
Chapter 9, “CSR as a practice: conflicting principals – a practical dilemma”, by Markus Kallifatides and Niklas Egels-Zanden looks at the “day-to-day” activities of CSR in organizations. The author goes on to discuss the CSR work of organizations in non-developed regions of the world, using ABB's attempt to apply the UN Global Compact principals in rural Africa to illustrate the challenges that arise when broad management ideas such as CSR react in applying them to varying social, economic and cultural conditions. The case study gave an interesting insight into the complexities of applying our (western) standards to foreign contexts.
Chapter 10, “Results on similarities and differences”, by Mats Jutterstrom and Peter Norberg revisits the question of the similarities and differences between CSR and other popular management ideas. It was necessary to return to the topic here to allow for a clearer transition to the discussion in the final chapter of the book. I liked the table this section included – which synthesized the main differences and similarities concluded from the empirical chapters of the book. Whilst these conclusions were derived predominantly from the Swedish context, they felt, on the face at least, realistic and true of others more generally.
The final chapter, written by Mats Jutterstrom and Peter Norberg, is titled “CSR as a management idea – discussing the contribution”. The authors draw together the central areas of discussion and thread them into a coherent narrative and logic for studying CSR as a management idea. From this they propose more work which draws together management ideas and CSR.
In sum, the text offers a ready source of reference for students, practitioners and researchers with an interest in both CSR and management ideas. Whilst written as a collection of essays the book navigates between various ideas fluidly and is credited by an accessible style which makes the book highly readable. The authors draw together insights from empirical work to inform the discussion throughout. Whilst the book was light on reference to the broader CSR literature, this proved beneficial and conducive to a more accessible style of writing and did not distract from the central thrust of the book. To conclude, I would recommend this book particularly to students and practitioners, as well as the non-specialist, broader academic community interested in aspects CSR and management ideas.
