The relationship between ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - a human perspective?

Ethical and virtuous behaviours are intrinsically human. They will improve the wellbeing of those living virtuously and ethically. As humans organise themselves, their goal is to arrange matters so that they can live in this... [ view full abstract ]

Ethical and virtuous behaviours are intrinsically human. They will improve the wellbeing of those living virtuously and ethically. As humans organise themselves, their goal is to arrange matters so that they can live in this way (Aristotle, 2011). In the modern era, we appear to be ascribing such intentions and motivations to organisations themselves through the adoption of corporate social responsibility. However, it really makes no sense to say that an organisation can be ethical or socially responsible in its own right, independently of human agency. This opening proposition raises the question of who is responsible for corporate social responsibility if the corporation itself is excluded from this role?
This paper argues that the practice of CSR starts with the person responsible for CSR in the firm. This paper attempts a closer examination of this CSR manager, to understand why firms “take different paths to their CSR approach” (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2010) and the role of ethics as described by Ferrell and Fraedrich, (2014),
Furthermore, by adopting a cognitive approach to our understanding of CSR, it will strengthen our analysis of CSR and that such an approach has the potential to shed new light on many aspects of how topics related to CSR, including business ethics are perceived
This research study aims to contribute to this under researched and acknowledged gap in our current understanding of what and how notions of CSR and business ethics might permeate through a practitioner’s thinking. Given the range of pressures, definitions and objectives of CSR and business ethics, it could be anticipated that there may be a managerial spectrum from rigid and unreflective adherence to an ethical code regardless of financial consequences at one pole to a shameless promotional strategy at the other.
This paper forms part of a more general study of how managers understand CSR through a cognitive approach, as urged by Fassin et al. (2011) with the findings depicting business ethics in a prominent way. Therefore, this research seeks to make some exploratory investigations into the ways that CSR might permeate through a practitioner’s thinking about CSR and in particular, business ethics, with the results contributing to extending the knowledge base on CSR and business ethics, addressing the acknowledged gap in the literature, depicted above.

Methodology
The research objective was to understand how a CSR manager cognitively processed all the components of CSR extolled in the literature. Consequently, the repertory grid technique (RGT) was the key research tool applied to this study. The RGT elicits bipolar constructs through an interview where a set of elements are provided, questions are then posed to the respondents on the relationship between these elements (Kelly, 1955, Fassin et al., 2011). The elements can be formulated by the researcher since the intention is to learn more about these elements and to act as a comparison across the interviewees’ responses (Kaish and Gilad, 1991). Therefore, the first stage of this research was to create the elements that would be provided to respondents so that their understanding of CSR could be captured by the research. In completing this stage, the key was to ensure the elements chosen were representative and provided adequate coverage of the aspects of CSR (Easterby-Smith et al., 1996). The elements of the repertory grid interview were gleaned from a close reading of sixty four definitions of CSR across the literature. The key components of the definitions were extrapolated resulting in six common axioms. These related to stakeholder responsibility, discretionary initiatives, corporate values, ethical conduct, mutual benefits and effective action. The second part of the literature review was to examine this element of ethical conduct, in terms of its definition and significance within the firm. Interviews took place with thirty one CSR managers in Ireland, from different sectors producing clear results on their understanding of CSR. The interview was used to create a cognitive map for each interviewee, identifying the prominence of each theme in their mental model.
 
Key Findings
Broadly speaking, the mind maps of the participants could be grouped into a typology of four cognitions. Each type took a particular central theme; namely outcomes and stakeholder focus, outcomes focus, corporate values focus and business objectives focus.
Clear three of the four types retain some element of their business model at the centre of their CSR. Even though all but two managers acknowledged the importance of ethics in their mental model, the “social responsibility” is seen as a means to an end rather than a goal in itself. The managers with an understanding based around corporate values did offer a little more prominence to ethics, but no participant in our sample was able to offer an ethical derivation of values, in the way that a manager from a business with Quaker values might have been able to. In making this observation we are not conceding the point that a business can have values any more than ethics or social responsibility – here we are discussing the cognition of managers not the essences of social ontology
More generally across the sample, ethical conduct did in the main, form part of the manager’s understanding of CSR. This is very much in line with the literature, where it is contended that business ethics extends to how the firm interacts with internal and external stakeholders (Forester, 2009, Lubbock, 2000). But again, these stakeholders are generally those related to supply chains rather than selected according to any ethical or socially responsibility criterion.
The individual managers interviewed do not reveal any tendency for ethical conduct to be drawn from wider social norms, much in contrast to the literature depicting ethical conduct as coming from society. The managers do refer to ethics as the behaviour required in dealing with and encouraging stakeholders (Lawrence and Weber, 2013). Therefore, this idea that the stakeholders of the firm represent the key reference point on which the ethical standing of the firm develops represents a key contribution of this study.
Twenty nine of the managers interviewed have ethics in their construct sets and ethics is very much considered as an important issue in their understanding of CSR. However, managers interviewed place greater emphasis on the link between ethical conduct and the positive outcomes of the firm in broad terms, rather than referring to any link with profit maximisation, as postulated by the literature.
Therefore, business ethics among the managers interviewed does not, nor is it likely to conform to many key prescriptions as dictated by the literature. The mental models of the managers in terms of their understanding of business ethics depicts a very different reference point than that postulated by the literature.
Conclusion
This paper begins by rejecting the corporate premise of CSR and uses cognitive analysis to begin a study of CSR as practice as understood by its practitioners. By so doing, significant disconnects between the CSR literature and practice in Ireland are revealed. Mangers are not much interested in debates about financial return and ethics, conceiving the benefits much more broadly particularly in the management of organisational networks. CSR is generally understood pragmatically in terms of congruence with the business model rather more than social needs, aims or broader ethical insights. Such a conclusion explains why some practitioners may suffer no ethical cognitive dissonance when funding a social programme through complicated tax arrangements.



References
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Key words: ethics, Corporate social responsibility, ethics, cognition [ view full abstract ]

Key words: ethics, Corporate social responsibility, ethics, cognition