What is Corporate Social Responsibility? - InnoTrain CSR

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
1.8. New profession: CSR manager
In short
The management of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming more
professional. More and more companies are now using CSR specifically to
boost their competitive edge and trustworthiness. This generates a new field of
further training and degree programmes for CSR. Until now, people in charge
of CSR at their work place came from the most diverse of professional
backgrounds with a variety of experiences. However, in the past few years,
professional expertise on CSR with own methods and scientific research has
evolved. A new CSR manager profession is emerging.
Learning targets
� Assess and discuss the profession and labour market for CSR
CSR learning contents
Within only a few years, the number of scientific publications, studies, theses and
technical literature concerning CSR has risen dramatically. At the same time, the
number of corporate CSR and sustainability reports is constantly growing. In the
media, ecological topics such as climate change but also the profound loss of trust
for example into the banking system have been achieving almost historic significance
since the beginning of the global financial crisis.
Managers are increasingly asked to take responsibility for the long-term effects of
corporate decisions and to expand the strategic focus of the companies with
ecological and social aspects aside from purely economical factors. In order to
secure a positive development in the national and international competition, CSR
experts are consulted or own CSR commissioners appointed within the company.
Compared to the growing professional interest in CSR especially on the part of young
university graduates and in view of an enormous increase of professional CSR
consulting offers in the service sector, the demand and labour market for this field
continues to develop slowly. So far only a manageable number of the generally
largest companies of a country are using their own CSR commissioners, partly with
an associated smaller speciality department. In some cases, global company groups
are also cooperating with "CSR branch offices" at different locations to help them
bolster their CSR strategy in the national environment.
The project "InnoTrain CSR" is organized by GILDE GmbH and has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the
views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 12/2010
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