Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Malawi is becoming a significant issue not only because of the complexity of the social, economic and political environment in which companies operate, but also because of the social and environmental impacts which business operations have on the wider Malawian society. In this chapter, it is shown that the CSR agenda currently pursued by companies in Malawi takes both the normative and instrumental forms, and is largely shaped by the political and socio-economical factors at national and global levels. The chapter is structured as follows: the first section addresses the historical development of CSR and perceptions various actors hold about the forms of responsibilities companies can assume in Malawi; a discussion of the various antecedents of CSR in Malawi. This is followed by an intermediate section which provides CSR themes and priority issues. The final two sections explore the different approaches companies pursue in the implementation of CSR agendas—but also examine the perceived barriers to CSR in Malawi. The chapter concludes by mapping out the future prospects of CSR in Malawi.
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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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In dit artikel worden de posities van verschillende actoren, die actief zijn op het gebied van maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen en assurance, geïdentificeerd en geanalyseerd. De nadruk wordt momenteel gelegd op vrijwillige activiteiten op het gebied van maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen en het rapporteren over deze activiteiten, ondanks dat een nieuwe richtlijn op Europees niveau bepaalde Nederlandse ondernemingen verplicht te rapporteren over maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen. Door het vrijwillige karakter van rapportages over maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen en het ontbreken van formele regelgeving is er een verhoogd risico dat bedrijven misbruik maken van mvo-rapportages voor bijvoorbeeld zakelijk of persoonlijk gewin. De verwachting is echter dat het belang en de kwaliteit van mvo-rapportages zal toenemen in de nabije toekomst om transparantie te verhogen binnen verschillende branches en sectoren. Hierdoor kunnen mvo-rapportages en de controle hierop ingezet worden om onethisch gedrag te verminderen en meer openheid van zaken te geven hoe ondernemingen te werk gaan.
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Using a case study of the tea producer Eastern Produce Malawi, this research investigates which factors which influence companies upstream in the global supply chains to adopt a corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda. Although external pressures, such as demands from Western consumers or international organizations and their related initiatives, may have shaped Eastern Produce Malawi's CSR agenda, strong internal organizational contingencies, including transformational leaders who recognize the significance of ethical issues and strong organizational values, led it to adopt this CSR agenda in practice. This study underscores the significance of using an integrative framework to explain various CSR drivers for companies. It concludes with managerial and public policy implications, as well as areas for further research.
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When corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sensemaking process is assessed from a corporate governance perspective, this implies that stakeholders do not only influence companies by promoting and enforcing regulations and other corporate guidelines. They also influence companies by promoting regulation on influence pathways, by demanding that companies develop formal mechanisms that allow companies and stakeholders to discuss and in some cases agree on changes to principles and policies. This perspective suggests that regulation is an outcome of power relations and is, as such, a reflection of certain mental models. As such, mental models reveal the political bias in corporate governance perspectives. For this reason, CSR research needs to be clear about the underlying assumptions about corporate governance, and corporate governance research needs to disclose which mental models of CSR influence the outcomes. Taking a governance perspective on the development of mental models of CSR helps to understand the interaction between CSR and processes of sensemaking at the institutional, organizational and individual levels.
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The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise the extent to which partnerships with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are a necessity for successful efforts of businesses in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The main findings are based on an analysis of existing literature on NGO typologies and strategies for CSR and illustrated with examples from the Dutch National Research Program on CSR. Based on three different strategies towards CSR, the suggestion is that NGOs tend to become involved in partnerships with companies that have an interest in postponing concrete results, while partnerships with companies that have the potential for the biggest contribution to the ambitions of NGOs have the highest risk of diminishing NGO-legitimacy.
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Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) is 'a way of doing business' so that all staff in any given organisation (public, private or third sector) are fully aware of their role, responsibility and contribution to the sustainable socioeconomic enhancement of their organisations and the communities in which they live and work. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), on the other hand, is often understood as “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. (…) It opens a way of managing change and of reconciling social development with improved competitiveness.” (CEC, 2001, p.7). Whereas there is an overlap between CSE and CSR and a similarity of concept, they are on very different trajectories. CSE is not just another form of CSR, it is a process for invigorating and advancing the development of CSR. CSE provides an approach that will accelerate the CSR journey. The fundamental purpose is therefore to accelerate companies’ organisational transformation into a more powerful generation of societal betterment (Austin and Reficco 2009, p.2). CSE includes: creating an enabling entrepreneurial environment, fostering corporate social intrapreneurship, amplifying corporate purpose and values as well as building strategic alliances in order to solve economic and social problems and to promote the success of emerging innovative business strategies. This paper presents the journey, the pathway, the process, tools and techniques that will enable organisations to successfully progress from CSR to CSE.
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Corporate reputation is becoming increasingly important for firms; social media platforms such as Twitter are used to convey their message. In this paper, corporate reputation will be assessed from a sustainability perspective. Using sentiment analysis, the top 100 brands of the Netherlands were scraped and analyzed. The companies were registered in the sustainable industry classification system (SICS) to perform the analysis on an industry level. A semantic search tool called Open Semantic Desktop Search was used to filter through the data to find keywords related to sustainability and corporate reputation. Findings show that companies that tweet more often about corporate reputation and sustainability receive overall a more positive sentiment from the public.
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Although there has been an enduring interest in corporate identity and image management, there is relatively little systematic empirical research on the topic. Large due to the diffuse interpretations, and dubious denotation that have characterized the subject of corporate identity so far, the authors present an integrative conceptual framework of dimensions and determinants of corporate identity management. This framework and its constructs specify the concept of corporate identity and can be used to a predictive basis to guide, frame and model empirical research
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