University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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CSR practices help at all? And will there be any major differences between for
example OECD countries? In July 2008, Denmark was the first European country to
declare that it was steeping into economic recession in 2008 (Reuters UK 2008).
Thus, the question now is whether or not the Danish corporations are handling and
managing the credit crunch. If there are some Danish corporations that are more
buffered by the effects of the recession than others, what then are the reasons for that?
We await the 2009 version of the Responsible Competitiveness Index with bated
breath. Until then, we decided to take a closer look at both some Danish business
actions and the new public policies that are to support the country in maintaining its
top ranking in both theory and practice.
Outset and Methodology
This research focuses on the CSR practice within the Danfoss Group, a leading
global manufacturing company based in Denmark. As a Denmark‐based company,
the Danfoss Group enjoys a comparatively more conducive socio‐political
environment for the development of ideas such as that of CSR, than most other
countries (Chapple and Moon, 2005). The relatively strong political environment in
Denmark further promotes stability for its economic and social environments. In
addition to this, Danish corporations have always practised democracy even within
the organization, in which consensus is usually sought in certain stages of
decisionmaking (Morsing 2003). The Danish government exerts pressure as well on
the corporations and has even made it mandatory for the top 1,100 largest enterprises
to describe their CSR practices (Greenbiz News 2009). Many of the larger
corporations are pressured into following international CSR reporting guidelines
such as the UN Global Compact (Brown et al. 2007) and the Danfoss Group is no
exception. These could be the reasons why Danish companies have always been the
front runners in the development of exemplary CSR practices. Thus, an investigation
on the integration of CSR and also how CSR is implemented in the Danfoss Group is
of common interest. Its mechanism in CSR policy making and its capacity to react to
changes that may be caused by major events and pressures from the international
fields, and thereby framing Danfoss as a multi‐standard organization (Røvik 1998),
are central in this research.
The research is conducted in several stages. The objective of the first stage is to gain
an understanding of the company’s efforts in CSR. The annual reports and CSR
reports of Danfoss A/S will be thoroughly examined. Information will also be
gathered from its website, the company policies, current news and so forth.
The second stage is intended to measure the extent of penetration or the level of
integration of CSR practices in the organization, based on the management’s
perspective. This has been done through a questionnaire mainly and follow‐up
communication with Danfoss at management level (Nordborg offices, Denmark).
In the third stage, a range of personnel is targeted and asked to participate in a
written questionnaire on Corporate Social Responsibility Practices at Danfoss. The
questionnaire was in multiple‐choice‐answer format with close‐ended questions. The