RESPONSE - Insead

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Findings: External factors and cognitive alignment (Objective 2) The impact of geography on the size of cognitive gaps greater cognitive alignment between executives and stakeholders than firms in regions marked by slower economic change (e.g. southern Europe). While all regions demonstrate economic and structural change, liberal economies such as North America and the United Kingdom are characterised by more radical innovation than the social democratic countries of Northern Europe (Hall and Soskice, 2001). The central and northern European economies, in contrast, are distinguished by more incremental innovation. This may lead to more routinised behaviour (and an acceptance of the status quo) and less active scanning of the environment. However, when we distinguish high CSP (‘great’) companies from lower CSP (‘good’) companies, we notice a different pattern in the data. Whereas, the high performing AngloSaxon companies confirm the greatest alignment across most gaps, the lower CSR AngloSaxon companies actually show the reverse, a lower alignment across some gaps than their peers in continental Europe. This suggests a high withinregion variation across the social performance dimension, especially in AngloSaxon regions, and varying degrees of correlation between regional features and cognitive alignment in different CSP segments of the population of companies. Table 19. Cognitive gaps by geography (high CSP companies) Geography Gap 1: sequential order of stakeholders Gap 2: stakeholder impact on company Gap 3: company impact on stakeholders N.Europe 26% 36% 60% 5% S.Europe 28% 25% 23% 6% Anglo Saxons 19% 19% 24% 0% AVERAGE 24% 27% 36% 4% Table 20. Cognitive gaps by geography (lower CSP companies) Geography Gap 1: sequential order of stakeholders Gap 2: stakeholder impact on company Gap 3: company impact on stakeholders N.Europe 26% 33% 33% 14% S.Europe 28% 29% 35% 2% Anglo Saxons 33% 29% 41% 6% AVERAGE 29% 30% 36% 6% Gap 4: firm social performance Gap 4: firm social performance Two additional points arose from the interviews. First, whilst where the company is headquartered plays a role, managers stressed the need to adapt policies and behaviour to the local context. As one American manager stated, “You have to live by the basics of what it is to do business in all those different countries. You first of all have to honour their laws, their rules, their regulations, their policies and their procedures, even though it’ll be vastly different from country to country to country… I came here 18 months ago and I found the laws, the rules and the regulations quite different in the various countries of Europe than what we have in the United States.” Finally, the generally poor reputation of southern European versus northern European firms is not borne out by our findings. Though this may be partly explained by the small sample of southern European firms, an analyst at one of the social rating agencies mentioned a clear distinction in the quantity of publicly available information provided by northern and southern European firms. Additionally, northern European firms are more likely to have codes and formal procedures in place. The question remains: does the availability of public information necessarily result in the implementation of higher standards? RESPONSE: understanding and responding to societal demands on corporate responsibility 50
Findings: Internal factors and cognitive alignment (Objective 3) Introduction 6 Findings: Internal factors and cognitive alignment (Objective 3) 6.1 Introduction This Chapter presents quantitative and qualitative findings on the relationship between cognitive alignment and a number of potential explanatory factors internal to the firm. The results of this section thus examine a number of potential internal explanations of cognitive alignment and address research Objective 3. Figure 8: RESPONSE model The internal factors that can potentially explain why certain companies have wider gaps than others can be found either in the characteristics of the CSR process, or in general firm factors. In this chapter, we will focus on the following ones: General firm factors CSR process Firm origins (6.2.1) Firm strategy (6.2.2) Knowledge management (6.2.3) Stakeholder engagement (6.3.1) Integration of CSR into business processes (6.3.2) Innovation as motivation for CSR (6.3.3) We also provide information on the relationship between cognitive alignment and other variables, such as 1) leadership commitment, 2) organisational structure, 3) organisational values and 4) the strength of influence of the CSR department within the organisation, in Exhibit 4. 6.2 General Firm Factors 6.2.1 The impact of firm origins As company founders differ in their sensitivity to social issues, the values expressed by founders are a first candidate in explaining the variation in cognitive alignment. Some features of organisations persist over time. In particular, the choices of an organisation’s founder and its early entrepreneurs often have an indelible effect on the evolution of the organisation’s behaviour (Boeker, 1989; Bettis and Prahalad, 1995). Founders that were sensitive to social issues are likely to have established a set of principles and procedures (including HR recruitment and promotion criteria) that influence RESPONSE: understanding and responding to societal demands on corporate responsibility 51
Page 1 and 2: SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME PRIORITY
Page 3 and 4: Contents Executive summary 6 1 Intr
Page 5 and 6: Tables Table 1. Typology of factors
Page 7 and 8: Executive summary Recommendations c
Page 9 and 10: Executive summary Recommendations l
Page 11 and 12: Executive summary Recommendations r
Page 13 and 14: Introduction Aims of this study “
Page 15 and 16: PART I: CSR AND COGNITIVE ALIGNMENT
Page 17 and 18: A model of cognitive alignment and
Page 25 and 26: Methodology Scope 3 Methodology 3.1
Page 27 and 28: Methodology Company case studies Th
Page 29 and 30: Methodology Case comparison Analysi
Page 31 and 32: Methodology CrossPair Comparison
Page 33 and 34: Findings: Managers’ understanding
Page 45 and 46: Findings: External factors and cogn
Page 47 and 48: Findings: External factors and cogn
Page 49: Findings: External factors and cogn
Page 53 and 54: Findings: Internal factors and cogn
Page 59 and 60: A Model of Social Consciousness and
Page 65 and 66: Methodology Experiment Settings 8.3
Page 67 and 68: Methodology Experiment Protocols ev
Page 69 and 70: Findings: Developing Social Conscio
Page 77 and 78: Conclusions from study findings Ass
Page 79 and 80: Conclusions from study findings Dev
Page 81 and 82: Conclusions from study findings Dev
Page 83 and 84: Recommendations Recommendations for
Page 101 and 102:
Recommendations Recommendations for
Page 103 and 104:
Recommendations Recommendations for
Page 105 and 106:
Recommendations: Recommendations fo
Page 107 and 108:
Recommendations: Recommendations fo
show all

RESPONSE - Insead

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?