Fostering Corporate Responsibility through Self- and Co-regulation

Method and research design
Method and research design
This study is largely based on the book Corporate
Responsibility in Europe: Government Involvement
in Sector-specific Initiatives by Thomas
Beschorner, Thomas Hajduk and Samuil Simeonov.
The explorative study was jointly conceptualised
by the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany)
and the Institute for Business Ethics at
the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland).
We used a two-step research design: The first
phase included an online survey, a snap poll
and telephone interviews with experts. The second
phase focused on examples of sector-specific
CR initiatives and how they work.
The online survey addressed national CR experts
in the eight countries. The aim was to
gather information about sector-specific CR initiatives.
Furthermore, national trade associations
were polled with regard to their views on
CR. The respondents were asked about the importance
of CR in their industry, about the most
relevant challenges and issues their industry
faces, and about their preference regarding certain
types of government involvement. Lastly,
telephone interviews with international CR and
industry experts were conducted in order to obtain
an international perspective. In total, 42
national CR experts and 34 national industry
experts participated in the online survey and
the snap poll, respectively. Moreover, 16 telephone
interviews with international experts
were conducted.
School of Business) for France; Anja Schäfer
(The Open University Business School) for the
UK; Steen Vallentin and Andreas Schmiegelow
(Copenhagen Business School) for Denmark;
and Christoph Weber-Berg, Sabrina Stucki and
Sandra Huber (HWZ University of Applied Sciences
in Business Administration, Zurich) for
Switzerland. Desk research was conducted in
parallel with these phases.
The sample of countries was determined on the
basis of political and socioeconomic differences
in Europe and the consequently different approaches
to CR. It includes seven EU member
states representing different types of market
economies and one member of the European
Free Trade Association (Switzerland).
We chose sectors that have a broad range of
differences (in terms of business models, economic
structures, consumers and other factors).
Moreover, they are significant to their country's
economy (understood as a share in the country’s
GVA). It is noteworthy that the five sectors
are on a fairly high level of aggregation,
which noticeably differs from the everyday use
of these terms and sometimes even from companies’
understanding of them. For example,
financial services include financial transactions
as well as insurance and pension funding,
while the manufacture of chemicals includes
the pharmaceutical industry, which is not a subject
of this study.
The second part builds on close collaboration
with leading European CR scholars in the relevant
countries. These scholars included: Marta
de la Cuesta González and Eva Pardo (National
Distance Education University Madrid)
for Spain; Tobias Gössling (Tilburg University)
for the Netherlands; Janusz Reichel (University
of Łódź) for Poland; Julia Roloff (ESC Rennes
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