University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

policies are accompanied by company success this could also mean that CR is a
luxury only successful companies can afford.
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The quantitative empirical studies that are investigating the correlation of a
company’s social and financial performance additionally suffer from problems in
response and existing knowledge gaps of the respondents. On the one hand, those
companies that actively and successfully practice CR show a higher participation in
surveys. Besides, with strongly normative topics like CR the “socially desired”
answers of the respondents can easily be identified.
On the other hand, qualitative studies time and again show the limits of selfevaluation
of company actors. Not only reputation effects are hard to measure but
also other positive effects attributed to CR such as employee motivation, improved
communication, higher capacities for learning and innovation etc. Interviews with
corporate actors clearly showed that activities usually are neither purposefully
employed nor are the supposed success factors measured. The positive effects
brought into play by scientists and consultants are merely reproduced verbatim. This
repeats findings of empirical environmental management studies (e.g. Walther 2004).
Regarding the current and potential stakeholder demands and stakeholders’
willingness to penalise and reward companies we think it is important to differentiate
between CR as a necessary and as a sufficient condition for success.
Against the background of stakeholder pressure CR already is regarded as a
necessary condition by large companies. This trend will most likely accelerate. Of
growing importance in this process are social and ecological problems along the
supply chain (e.g. EIRIS 07). Next to the threat of scandalisation, it is expected that
the mass market will increasingly consider social and ecological aspects. This won’t
take the form of an expansion of today’s actively sustainability-oriented group of
consumers, but will manifest as the activation of a different consumer segment.
Today’s small group of sustainability-oriented consumers is marked by a high level
of knowledge and an intensive concern for social and ecological questions. The
consumer segment moving up, on the other hand, will be characterised by an
acceptance of social and ecological aims in the form of minimum standards and a
(limited) willingness to pay for them. However, they will also have a lower level of
knowledge, a lesser willingness to search and less reservations concerning big
business.
Furthermore, trading firms can promote CR on the market side. For consumers the
image of certain trading firms plays an important role. Certain characteristics are
attributed to trading firms that both influence and are influenced by the entire
perception of the range of products offered. Trading firms can take the role of a
gatekeeper for sustainability issues. It is to be expected, that trading firms will
increasingly consider the orientation of their product line-up on CR criteria as
relevant for success (HDE 2007).
Product labels and process certificates will play a major role. To work with or
respectively participate in labels/ certificates requires an organisational foundation
(and in many cases makes this foundation itself a part of the certification). Besides, a
stronger sustainability orientation is more and more intensively discussed in the field