Many global challenges cannot be addressed by one single actor alone. Achieving sustainability requires governance by state and non-state market actors to jointly realise public values and corporate goals. As a form of public-private governance, voluntary standards involving governments, non-governmental organisations and companies have gained much traction in recent years and have been in the limelight of public authorities and policymakers. From a firm perspective, sustainability standards can be a way to demonstrate that they engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a credible way. To capitalise on their CSR activities, firms need to ensure their stakeholders are able to recognise and assess their CSR quality. However, because the relative observability of CSR is low and since CSR is a contested concept, information asymmetries in firm-stakeholder relationships arise. Adopting CSR standards and using these as signalling devices is a strategy for firms to reduce these information asymmetries, by revealing their true CSR quality. Against this background, this article investigates the voluntary ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility as a form of public-private governance and contends that, despite its objectives, this standard suffers from severe signalling problems. Applying signalling theory to the ISO 26000 standard, this article takes a critical stance towards this standard and argues that firms adhering to this standard may actually emit signals that compromise rather than enhance stakeholders' ability to identify and interpret firms' underlying CSR quality. Consequently, the article discusses the findings in the context of public-private governance, suggests a specification of signalling theory and identifies avenues for future research.
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on some important limitations of the ISO 26000 standard for corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the credible communication of corporate CSR claims. The paper aims to identify and explore firm-level strategies to signal adherence to the standard effectively and their legitimacy consequences for the standard. Design/methodology/approach – The identification of firm-level signaling strategies is mainly derived from an institutional description of the ISO 26000 standard and based on anecdotal evidence from current business practice, initiatives that have been taken worldwide by organizations such as national standards institutes, the ISO 26000 text and adjacent ISO documents, including ISO post-publication surveys. The paper is grounded in signaling theory. Findings – Five signaling strategies for firms are derived and explored which may reduce information asymmetries and engage in efficacious signaling of their underlying CSR quality and thus guide the communication of firms’ adherence to the ISO 26000 standard. Research limitations/implications – The findings urge to empirically investigate the use of ISO 26000 signaling strategies including their legitimacy consequences for firms. Practical implications – The findings of this paper have implications for decisions firms make when considering working with ISO 26000 and communicating their adherence, notably regarding the enhancement of the credibility of their CSR claims. Also, it offers suggestions for certification organizations, national standards bodies and policy makers that want to encourage the adoption of CSR standards, ISO 26000 in particular. Social implications – This paper may have implications for evaluating the CSR claims of firms by stakeholders and broader society. Originality/value – This paper is the first one to address inherent signaling problems of ISO 26000 and to identify signaling strategies to counter these problems in a structured way.
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Purpose – This paper aims to examine the definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as propagated by ISO 26000, the global comprehensive guidance standard for CSR, compare it to and position it vis-à-vis other contemporary interpretations of CSR and formulate a critique on the standard’s definition of CSR. Methodology/Approach – This paper aims to examine the definition of CSR as propagated by ISO 26000, the global comprehensive guidance standard for CSR, compare it to and position it vis-à-vis other contemporary interpretations of CSR and formulate a critique on the standard’s definition of CSR. Findings – ISO 26000’s definition of CSR is ‘out of the ordinary' when compared to instrumental CSR definitions that are currently dominant, as it propagates an explicit moral perspective on corporate responsibilities towards society. While it resembles aspects of earlier definitions of CSR, this paper argues that the standard, being the end result of a global stakeholder dialogue, tries to make a strong plea for the return of morality in the CSR debate. Also, it is concluded that the ISO 26000 definition of CSR has several shortcomings, especially on the subject of corporate governance, which are addressed. Practical/implications – While the main gist of this paper is of a theoretical nature, it may have implications for practice as well. For instance, it may inform critical examinations of corporate commitments to CSR through adopting ISO 26000, and may inform future revisions of the standard. Originality/Value – This paper is the first to examine the ISO 26000 definition of CSR in a structured and detailed way.
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De doelstelling van dit onderzoek is duidelijkheid krijgen over hoe een duurzame financial denkt en handelt. De centrale vraag die wij hierbij stellen is: “Hoe denkt en handelt een duurzame financial?”. Op basis van deze hoofdvraag zijn wij gekomen tot drie deelvragen.De eerste deelvraag luidt: “Wat is MVO?” Deze vraag stellen wij om het theoretische kader van het onderzoek te definiëren. In de ISO 26000 zijn de richtlijnen voor MVO vastgelegd. De definitie van de ISO 26000 van MVO is: “maximaliseer je bijdrage aan natuur en milieu, mens en economie.” “Je houdt rekening met de behoeften van nu en van toekomstige generaties.” De ISO 26000 kent zeven kernthema’s die van belang zijn voor elke type organisatie. Deze kernthema’s zijn: behoorlijk bestuur, mensenrechten, arbeidsomstandigheden, milieu, eerlijk zaken doen, klant/consument-aangelegenheden en maatschappelijke betrokkenheid.
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Collaborative governance (CG) is becoming the common currency of decision-making, able to surmount existing institutional constraints to effectively address challenges related to sustainability and social and environmental corporate behavior. CG approaches may however result in institutional complexity. As an illustration of CG in the domain of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the ISO 26000 standard is a legitimate point of reference for organizations worldwide. The standard represents a pluralistic institutional logic that resonates several tensions arising from the domain it tries to standardize, the nature of its development process, its interpretation of CSR and the type of standard it represents. This article aims to identify and examine strategic responses to ISO 26000 by various standards-related organizations (including national standardization institutes, certification organizations, and service providers) and to contribute to the understanding of strategic responses of organizations to pluralistic institutional logics that result from CG.
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This paper explores the integration of indicators that reflect the concepts of sustainability into business cases and business case evaluation methods. It is based on the observations that sustainability is one of the most important challenges of our time and that sustainable development requires change of the way we use resources, produce products, share our wealth, and so on. And as change is inescapably related to innovation and projects, sustainable development is related to projects. Business cases of projects should therefore reflect this relationship and include criteria for the assessment of sustainability aspects. Based on an identification of business case evaluation methods, and an overview of frameworks for sustainability indicators, an analysis is made of the inclusion of the indicators and principles of sustainability in business cases and business case evaluation methods. The analysis will conclude that the integration sustainability considerations into business cases of projects, is more than a set of additional criteria to be considered. Integration of sustainability considerations suggests a more holistic and elaborated perspective on business case evaluation than the Return on Investment question, that is dominating business cases and business case evaluation today.
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It is becoming clear that the project management practice must embrace sustainability in order to develop into a 'true profession' (Silvius et al., 2012). In project management, sustainability can be gained in both the product of the project and in the process of delivering the product. (Gareis et al., 2010) Nine sustainability principles have been identified that should be implemented in the project management practice. These nine principles are: (1) values and ethics; (2) holistic approach; (3) long term view; (4) large scale; (5) risk reduction; (6) participation; (7) accountability; (8) transparency; (9) stakeholder interest. In a case study it is researched which project and program management roles can exert an influence to have the sustainability principles implemented in the project management practice and how they can accomplish this implementation.
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