The Chief Officer of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Study of Its Presence in Top Management Teams
- Robert Strand
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Abstract
I present a review of the top management teams (TMTs) of the largest public corporations in the U.S. and Scandinavia (one thousand in total) to identify corporations that have a TMT position with “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) or a “CSR synonym” like sustainability or citizenship explicitly included in the position title. Through this I present three key findings. First, I establish that a number of CSR TMT positions exist and I list all identified corporations and associated position titles. Second, I show that Scandinavian corporations are significantly more likely than U.S. corporations to have such CSR TMT positions. This finding serves as evidence that the U.S. may have been surpassed by a subset of Europe, i.e., Scandinavia, in at least one relevant measure of explicit CSR, whereby this study may serve witness to a noteworthy juncture post Matten and Moon’s (Academy of Management Review, 33(2):404–424, 2008) “Implicit & Explicit CSR” article. And third, I show that corporations with a CSR TMT position are three times more likely to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) than corporations with none. A range of further research opportunities stemming from these findings include exploring whether explicit attention to CSR by the corporation is indicative of a longer term trend that has to do with attention to responsible business and whether a move away from the expression ‘CSR’ toward the expression ‘sustainability’ is underway and what this may entail.
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About this Article
- Title
- The Chief Officer of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Study of Its Presence in Top Management Teams
- Journal
-
Journal of Business Ethics
Volume 112, Issue 4 , pp 721-734 - Cover Date
- 2013-02-01
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10551-012-1568-z
- Print ISSN
- 0167-4544
- Online ISSN
- 1573-0697
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Keywords
-
- Chief Officer of CSR
- Chief Sustainability Officer
- C-Suite
- Top management team
- Scandinavia
- U.S.
- Explicit CSR
- Industry Sectors
- Authors
-
-
Robert Strand
(1)
-
Robert Strand
- Author Affiliations
-
- 1. Copenhagen Business School, Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (cbsCSR), Porcelænshaven 18A, Ground Floor, 2000, Frederiksberg, Denmark