University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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alert to the strategic importance of CSR, seeing it as critical to their public image and
part of their efforts to achieve competitive advantage (see for example, WBCSD
2002).
Academic interest in CSR and the role of stakeholders is equally long-standing (see
for example, Carroll 1979 and 1999; Freeman 1984: Evan & Freeman 1993;
Clarkson 1995; Donaldson and Preston 1995; Mitchell et al. 1997) and has also
undergone a similar rejuvenation. Recently published research by scholars located in
the fields of management studies and business ethics encompasses both empirical
studies and concept formulation. Notable are those surveys which have focused on
the relationship between business, government and civil society in formulating CSR
policy and practice and which have highlighted the role of government as a driver for
CSR (Lozano et al. 2008; Albareda et al. 2008). This international comparative work
is impressively wide ranging in terms of its geographical scope, covering fifteen EU
member states. Using their extensive database the authors have constructed a useful
analytical framework, labelled the ‘relational model’ that identifies four ‘types’ of
CSR public policy model. This paper builds on this work, adopting the relational
model as one of its underpinning structures.
However, the relational model, as developed in the research above does exhibit a
number of limitations. For example, despite highlighting civil society as one of the
three key elements of the relational model, the published work neglects this
dimension. We contend that it is important to assess the role played by both the
government and civil society as crucial stakeholders and, therefore, we also draw on
the work that has explored the part played by civil society and non-governmental
actors (Doh & Guay 2004 and 2006; Doh & Teegan 2002).
Furthermore, given that most research on CSR has focused on western industrialised
countries in Europe (i.e. Western Europe) and the Americas (i.e. the USA and
Canada), we contend that there is a gap in the empirical research. One geographical
region that has received much less scrutiny is Eastern Europe. From within that
region we have chosen to focus on Russia. Russia provides an interesting test case
for the development of CSR public policy and private practice, given the country’s
strikingly distinctive economic and political history (Brown 2001; Remington 2004;
White et al. 2001; Waller 2005).
Building on the streams of literature noted above, we have structured our research
around the following questions:
• What is the content of Russian public CSR policy?
• To what extent and how has the Russian government driven CSR business
practice in Russia?
• What role has Russian civil society played in promoting and shaping CSR
public policy and business practice in Russia?
Given the Soviet legacy, we anticipate strong government direction and limited civil
society influence. These propositions are examined via two case studies, both
situated in a remote part of northern Siberia. The first case study concerns the
behaviour of Vankorneft (a subsidiary of Rosneft, a partially government-controlled
oil conglomerate) that has recently developed a new oil field. The second centres on