University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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before it was made mandatory. It is also apparent that Danfoss has been quick in
responding to government and international developments, which in part may have
been due to Danfoss’ support and commitment in the various initiatives in both
environmental and social matters. This international exposure is believed to have
helped Danfoss in the development of its CSR practices. What may have contributed
to its competitive advantage could have been its salient ability to cope with the
various sources of pressures (local governments or the international arena) at
different points in time, and subsequently translating these pressures into actions.
Throughout Danfoss’ lifespan until present time, Danfoss has shown that it faces new
challenges positively and is able to respond to different requirements, whether it is
environmental, social or climate change issues. It makes changes to adapt and
assimilates these changes into its organisation, all the while maintaining its focus on
its employees.
Conclusions & Perspectives
Due to the fact that Denmark is a developed country, Danfoss as a large company
located in Denmark, was found to be at an advanced level of CSR engagement,
engaging more in the second and third waves (Products & Processes and Employee
Relations) of CSR development, where more emphases were placed. The activities in
these two waves are more involved in the Code & Polices mode, which indicates a
higher level of institutionalization, compared to the Community Involvement wave.
For Danfoss, the most important stakeholder is the employees as corporate social
responsibility for Danfoss is ‘very much about caring for their employees’. Issues
related to employees such as the concerns on their safety and health can be found in
the Products & Process wave. Similarly, this can also be seen in the Employee
Relations wave whereby there are emphases on employees’ welfare and engagement.
Further analyses showed that the development of CSR practices in Danfoss is largely
propagated by Danfoss’ commitment to pursue issues related to CSR, with employee
relations and environmental issues being foremost in its focus. The analyses on the
cultural, structural and external factors suggest that Danfoss possesses a strong CSR
capacity that would enable an organization to react positively to changes and for
improvements to be mobilized. Danfoss is able to continuous improve its CSR
practices and this can be seen from the several revisions of its CSR policy to adapt to
new developments. Its capacity to adapt and the willingness to change indicate that
Danfoss can be resilient enough when facing adversity. This provides the company a
strong foundation to learn, and to be proactive whereby problems are resolved so as
to avoid a reoccurrence in the future, rather than only focusing on just solving
problems as they happen. Its learning process is enhances by its striking ability to
absorb the requirements from various sources of pressures and translating them into
actions appropriate for its organisation. Therefore, it was found that for CSR to
progress, there needs to be a strong relationship between the CSR capacity and the
learning process. The commitment and the CSR capacity to learn are believed to be
the two most important aspects that have contributed favourable to the development
of Danfoss’ CSR practices. These aspects could be particularly important for less
advanced companies that are looking at improving their CSR practices. Additionally,
it is believed that companies stand to gain as much benefit as Danfoss appeared to