University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

Alongside the literature on the strategic value of CSR, there is a second line of
research that concerns itself with analyzing the CSR management process, the tools
companies can use to communicate their efforts in the CSR arena, and the
organizational roles and departments which can be instituted to support the
systematization and formalization of CSR activities. In this connection, a number of
standard management systems have been developed by national and international
bodies and organizations, relating to different aspects of CSR (e.g. environmental
and quality standards from ISO) or to the process for auditing and reporting CSR
data (e.g. AA1000).
In the literature, the integration of CSR into business strategy and the adoption of
formal tools for its management are often explored as two facets of implementing
CSR within a firm, on the assumption that they must of necessity progress in parallel.
In practice, though, companies can attribute strong strategic import to CSR without
formalizing its managerial process or, conversely, they can adopt formal systems of
management and reporting without fully exploiting the strategic advantages afforded
by CSR. This may depend on a number of variables, such as the industry in which a
firm operates, its critical success factors, its corporate culture, etc. The goal of the
present work is therefore to first examine the strategic relevance and formalization
aspects separately, and then put them in relation with each other to identify the
different approaches that companies can take to implementing CSR. More
specifically, the detailed objectives of the study, each corresponding to a section of
this paper, are as follows:
� To analyze the concept of strategic CSR (as defined in the
literature), and to identify a set of variables that can be used to
measure the level of integration of CSR into business strategy,
hereafter also called the strategic relevance of CSR
� To analyze the literature contributions dealing with the
managerial processes and the formal and operational tools
which companies can adopt to tackle the structured aspects of
CSR, and to identify a set of variables that can be used to
measure the degree of formalization of the CSR management
process.
� To put the strategic relevance and formalization aspects in
relation with each other,constructing a two-dimensional matrix,
and to describe the different approaches which companies can
take to CSR, depending on which of the two aspects prevails.
� To provide some examples of these different approaches,
drawn from the analysis of empirical case studies, and suggest
some characteristics of firms which may influence their choice
of approach.
84