Premium
Does Corporate Social Responsibility Hit the Mark? A Stakeholder Oriented Methodology for CSR Assessment
Author(s) -
Calabrese Armando,
Costa Roberta,
Menichini Tamara,
Rosati Francesco
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
knowledge and process management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.341
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-1441
pISSN - 1092-4604
DOI - 10.1002/kpm.1406
Subject(s) - corporate social responsibility , stakeholder , business , sustainability , perception , stakeholder engagement , sustainability reporting , stakeholder theory , social responsibility , accounting , public relations , political science , psychology , ecology , neuroscience , biology
Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment effectively disclosed through a company's sustainably report? Moreover, in what measure is a company's CSR commitment really acknowledged by its stakeholders? Because it has been observed that stakeholders' recognition of a company's social and environmental conduct highly impacts the business returns of CSR initiatives, it is therefore not surprising that measurement of the stakeholder perception is a key issue for CSR assessment. In this paper, we propose a method enabling companies to evaluate the effectiveness of their CSR policies both in terms of disclosure and capacity to fulfill both stakeholder social and environmental expectations. The method we propose compares, through a gap analysis, three measures as follows: the company commitment disclosed through its sustainability report, the company CSR commitment perceived by its stakeholders, and the CSR commitment that stakeholders require to the company. The outcome of the proposed methodology provides managerial insights for evaluating the effectiveness of ongoing CSR practices and for formulating CSR strategies. An application illustrates the use of the methodology in practice. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.