University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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by companies in order to contribute” to a better society including its environmental
conditions”. Thus Corporate Responsibility Innovation is seen as any new
product/service, manufacturing process, marketing and organizational innovation that
contributes to this better society and environmental conditions and is carried out by
companies. We see that CR is not necessarily the starting point for CR-innovation.
Other types of business innovations might be source of innovative CR solutions as
well. Yet the emphasis must be in changing existing business models and developing
new ones.
Halme and Laurila (2009) have constructed an action oriented typology of CR
activities. In the typology they claim that some innovations can contain activities
previously done only for the concerned company but can later be integrated in CR
wise innovative new business models. In the action oriented typology of these
previous CR activities can be divided into a philanthropic activity and CR integration.
Philanthropy indicates firm’s action towards charity and using resources to do good
(Halme & Laurila, 2009: 329). CR Integration emphases firms responsibilities in
relation to primary stakeholders e.g. customers, employees and suppliers by
integrating CR issues to everyday business operations and to perform them in more
responsible manner (Halme and Laurila 2009). This could mean rather normal
responsible code of conduct towards such issues as wages, diversity-orientation in
recruiting, paying in time to suppliers, or supporting responsibility measures in
supply chain management e.g. banning child-labor and demanding and implementing
self environmentally sound practices and policies (ibid.: 330).
We also share the idea of contextuality brought recently forward in CR research 10 .
By this we mean that companies as any other organizations are embedded in societies
and communities in different geographical, cultural, political and economic frames in
particular material environment. All these factors affect at least partially the ideas
and practices of CR (Halme, Roome & Dopers 2009, 2). Hence something that has
worked in our industrial markets may and probably does not work in different
context of a developing country and vice versa.
In this article we illustrate shortly of how corporate responsibility has changed over
time in chemical industry and present a case where CR issues has created new
business models which has many characteristics of being CR Innovation, namely
chemical management services (CMS). As an example we illustrate the case of new
BASF Success CMS services 11 . Chemical management services are new type of
business that aim to align the service provider’s and customer’s actions to reduce
chemical usage and waste, improve supply chain management and increase resource
efficiency. Arguably, they also create new business and higher profit margins
compared with merely selling chemicals or handling industrial waste. CMS range
from the management of the chemical supply to operations, waste reduction,
combined logistics services, process management, ICT and other technologies
(Anttonen 2008).
10 Broader discussion on subject in Halme, Roome and Dobers 2009.
11 The data on CMS, material- and eco-efficiency services have been collected in MASCO (Materials Service
Company) 1-3 research projects during 2005-2008. Data includes an interview of BASF Success manager in
2007. All MASCO projects were funded by TEKES - the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and
Innovation. More information on the MASCO-projects can be found for example from Anttonen (2008),
Anttonen, Halme, Kuisma and Kautto (2009).