What is Corporate Social Responsibility? - InnoTrain CSR

8. Corporate culture is conscious and unconscious
Values and codes of conduct are memorised both intellectually as well as emotionally
by the employees.
9. Corporate culture is not directly discernible
Industrial enterprises can be analysed with economic and quantitative methods and
described anecdotically as well as interpretively. A specific aspect of the culture is
recorded, depending on the method. However, the entire appearance of a culture
only becomes visible with the public use of many parts and methods.
10. Corporate culture is a result and a process
Every company has a specific culture. While working, acting and living in the
company, this culture is constantly changed and re-created.
In many cases, companies describe their social responsibility in direct correlation with
their corporate culture. For example, Deutsche Telekom headlines their Corporate
Responsibility report 2010 on the internet site as follows: "Our corporate culture -
living responsibility on a daily basis." Reference to the corporate culture is again
made in the first paragraph of the company's CSR report: "Today it is more important
than ever that our corporate culture is value-oriented and sustainable and a
responsible corporate management is established."
For employees in a company, the corporate culture is a crucial factor for the
motivation and identification with their own scope of work and responsibilities. CSR
can be convincingly supported by the employees if it is perceived as part of the joint
corporate culture. In these cases, employees personally back the CSR of the
company and help bring it effectively to the outside. This helps increase the interest
and commitment of the employees to develop new forms of corporate culture and to
contribute for example to CSR measures such as "Corporate Volunteering".
Exercise 3.1. (approximately 45 minutes)
Discuss with your participants the question whether certain "un-cultures" in a
company have the potential to exclude Corporate Social Responsibility.
You may wish to work in small groups and assign a sector of your choice to every
group (e.g. textile industry, food wholesalers, gastronomy, insurance industry, media
sector, construction business etc.). The participants are given 30 minutes to define 5
possible characteristics of a poor corporate culture. The groups will subsequently
present the "un-cultures" of their industry.
Then discuss with the entire group whether CSR is excluded in the respective
companies due to their corporate culture and which CSR measures might
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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InnoTrain CSR
www.csr-training.eu