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“Managing” Corporate Community Involvement

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Abstract

In academic research, many attempts have been undertaken to legitimize corporate community involvement by showing a business case for it. However, much less attention has been devoted to building understanding about the actual dynamics and challenges of managing CCI in the business context. As an alternative to existing predominantly static and top-down approaches, this paper introduces a social movement framework for analyzing CCI management. Based on the analysis of qualitative case study data, we argue that the active role of employees pressuring for CCI policies and practices, as well as the organization audience responses to their efforts, are at the core of the challenges involved in managing CCI. These challenges also pose limits to how far CCI can be extended to a “business as usual” activity.

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Abbreviations

CCI:

Corporate community involve ment

CSR:

Corporate social responsibility

SMO:

Social movement organization

HR(M):

Human resource management

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Judith M. van der Voort & Lucas C.P.M. Meijs

  2. 1000 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, 55403, U.S.A.

    Katherina Glac

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  1. Judith M. van der Voort
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  2. Katherina Glac
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  3. Lucas C.P.M. Meijs
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Correspondence to Katherina Glac.

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van der Voort, J.M., Glac, K. & Meijs, L.C. “Managing” Corporate Community Involvement. J Bus Ethics 90, 311–329 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0051-y

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