Towards sharing corporate responsibility:

a conceptual paper

Maarten van der Kamp

Shima Barakat
The University of Manchester
02 July 2006

Outline

Context
The gap
Concept 1: Corporate Identity
Concept 2: Personal values
Methodological considerations
Contribution

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

Context (1)
Corporate Responsibility (CR) contains C.
Environmentalism and CSR, and is proactive
(beyond firms legal obligations; Dyllick and Hockerts,
2002; Roome, 2006)

CR encompasses a strategy focus and an

orientation aspect (underlying corporate values:
internal compass for a firms environmental and
social actions; Banerjee, 2002; Bansal and Roth, 2000;
van Marrewijk, 2004)

The orientation of an organisation has significant

strategic power in terms of shaping the
organisational direction (Keogh and Polonsky, 1998;
Shrivastava, 1995)

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

Context (2)
Shared values are a key component in attaining a
shared vision of the Corporate Responsibility of an
organisation and to guide interactions with
stakeholders, and are formed by rules, norms and
ethical behaviour standards from both inside and
outside of the organisation (Cormier et al, 2004;
Hamel and Prahalad, 1989; Hoffman, 1997; Jonker and
Forster, 2002; Meppem and Bourke, 1999; Starik and
Rands, 1995)

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

The gap (1)

Integration of CR throughout hierarchies is
marginal or absent (e.g. Barakat, 2006; Knox et al,
2005)

Many in the CR field (e.g. Banerjee et al, 2003; Juholin,

2004) argue or assume that the vision and
commitment of senior management is
communicated clearly, and understood and
incorporated by all staff as initially intended
(Preston, 2001; Ramus, 2001)

However, there is little evidence that this

assumption is grounded in practice (Barakat, 2006;
Knox et al, 1995)

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

The gap (2)

Employees question the level of pro-activity in CR
(e.g. Barakat, 2006; Lingard et al, 2000)

Behaviour of management influences employees,

especially when inconsistent (Ramus, 2001). This
leads to compromised success (e.g. Preston, 2001)
Hence, it has become important to understand
how Corporate Responsibility is interpreted by
decision-makers (Banerjee, 2002) and decision
implementers (Ramus and Steger, 2000)

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

Concept 1: Corporate Identity

Corporate identity indicates the way in which an
organizations identity is revealed through
behaviour, communications, as well as through
symbolism to internal and external audiences
(Van Riel and Balmer, 1997: p. 341)

Higher level construct, based on employees

shared values (Balmer, 2001)
CI contains the essence of a firm, sets a firm
apart from others, and has continuity over time,
i.e. every organisation has a corporate identity
(Van Rekom, 1997), providing a reliable structure as
reference
GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

Concept 1: Research questions

To what extent are CR components part of CI?
Is integration of CR into CI required to create a
responsible firm? If integration would be required,
how could responsible practices become embedded?
How does the fragmentation of responsible values
relate to the fragmentation of other values?
Could the sharedness of values be enhanced? How
would this be achieved?
What are the interactions between the internal and
external components of a firms identity in the
context of responsible initiatives in an organisation?

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

Concept 2: Personal values

The potential for individual subjectivity within
organisations means that acceptance of an idea is
contingent on the ideas consistency with an
individuals belief system not the ideology of the
organisation as a whole (Floyd and Wooldridge, 2000: p.
112)

I.e. personal values can influence a firms responses to

environmental issues (Bansal and Roth, 2000), and the
individuals perceptions of and behaviour towards
them (Dutton, 1997)
This constitutes a complex relationship between
employees, their values and perceptions, and the
organisation, its values and the success of its
responsible initiatives (Cordano and Frieze, 2000)
GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

Concept 2: Research questions

How and why do personal values relating to
responsibility appear to be subordinated in an
organisational context? Where do social and
environmental values sit with respect to a persons
hierarchy of values?
What are the implications of misalignments between
personal responsibility values and organisational
ones?
Could environmental and social personal values be
harnessed to contribute to the responsible values of
the firm? How does the degree of employment of
these values impact the execution of responsible
initiatives?
GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

10

Methodological considerations
New perspectives (Starkey and Crane, 2003)
Many beliefs present: qualitative research;
inductive epistemology and interpretivist ontology
Societies differ: ethnographic comparative
research driven by multiple case studies
Action research to elicit methods for enhancing
sharedness of values and meaning

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

11

Contribution
Concept 1 will
Contribute to the knowledge of the role of social and environmental
values in the construct of CI. This could influence the management of
CR initiatives within a firm as it could create an increased awareness
of the issues across various levels and functions of the organisation.
Provide a better understanding of where CR fits within the
organisation could have an impact on CI, and as such could develop
the management of a firms identity.

Concept 2 will
Improve understanding of the role of individuals towards CR within
their organisation. Identification of different positions within an
organisation could provide a platform for shared meaning and
experiences
Provide a direction in which to develop practices to promote or
mitigate the available personal attributes towards a constructive
asset of the firm.

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

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Contact details
Maarten van der Kamp
Project Manager
m.vanderkamp@manchester.ac.uk
+44 (0)161 306 8431

Shima Barakat
Enterprise Fellow
shima.barakat@manchester.ac.uk
+44 (0)161 275 1932

GIN06/1796 Towards sharing corporate responsibility: a conceptual paper

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