University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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The right amount of CR is when it becomes profitable today or maybe tomorrow,
because “if you focus on the things that will become profitable 2025 you will
eventually die because you will not be profitable”, an interviewee mentions. This
factor can be referred as the law of market – firms must be profitable and
competitive.
These findings support the proposition, i.e. that the context of the key stakeholders
have an influence on the amount of CR activities, through the key stakeholder values.
In addition, three multi-level drivers beside stakeholder demand were detected: the
law of nature on global level, the law of society on macro level, and the law of
market on the meso level. The key stakeholder values functioned as a driver for CR
supply on the micro level.
The fourth proposition
[P4] A responsible identity is built upon the whole value chain of the
firm.
The role of CR is substantial in the case company’s identity. The identity is seen to
be parallel with the key stakeholders’ identity. However, guests (external key
stakeholders) have little effect on the corporate identity because they come in some
many roles. The team members (key internal stakeholder), especially the
management, are the ones that are the identity of a company, and create hence the
corporate values.
“Values are something that should be reflected throughout the business”, a key
informant stresses. Therefore identity is not something that changes over a week, or
two, or not even a year. It was found that it is crucial that the whole value chain
agrees with the values of the case company. At Scandic, image building as well as
identity, are seen as internal dialogue processes, in which absolutely everybody in
the value chain takes part. The reasons for this are: 1) firstly because it is much more
motivating for team members if they can participate and contribute to the identity
building; and 2) secondly, guests meet with team members and they have to have a
lingua franca, a common understanding. “Otherwise an image from an agency says
that this is the most sustainable company in the world, and then the team members
saying that well we haven’t heard that”.
These findings support the fourth working proposition. As well as any identity, a
responsible identity is built upon the whole value chain of a firm. The key internal
stakeholders create/are the identity of a firm since the reflection is based on the
corporate values of whole value chain.
The fifth proposition
[P5] If a demand for corporate responsibility does not exist, firms can
create it by supplying corporate responsibility.
This fifth proposition seems to have some value as the case company started to
supply CR without existence of actual demand for it. Within a time frame of three