Exploring CSR : an investigation of the Corporate Social Responsibility concept and the influence of the individual on its implementation

Abstract: The idea of ‘business as usual’ in our neoliberal profit-oriented economy is not sustainable and must be changed in order to avoid future social and environmental crisis. Starting and promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs has become very popular among organizations as they are trying to adapt to and even exceed the rising societal demand for sustainable business practices. Despite its popularity, CSR is just a concept and its success depends on the implementation of the individual within the organization. In this thesis, I explore how and why individuals understand CSR in general and responsibility, as a key term for the concept, especially. Furthermore, I am attempting to comprehend how the individuals’ sensemaking affects their behaviour. To answer the demand for a more thorough and subjective investigation of CSR, I carried out a qualitative research in phenomenological terms. I explored the CSR concept in a detailed literature review regarding the different aspects that influence the concept and motivate its implementation. To recreate and understand the CSR context of key individuals, e.g. managers and higher ranking employees, and their sense making processes, I conducted semi-structured interviews in the county of Schleswig Holstein in Northern Germany. Analyzing the empirical material, recreating the interviewees’ subjectivities and combining them with theoretical knowledge from CSR related literature, my findings convey that CSR might lead to improvements within our neoliberal system, but will not change the system as such. Structures, e.g. the economic purpose of profit generation and market mechanism prevent the individual from acting according to personal environmental and social values. To emphasize the importance of the individual in the implementation, I explored the relation between CSR and Environmental Communication. My findings suggest that they both include strategic communication aimed at the representation and legitimization of certain interests, suggesting that similar concepts can be used for very different purposes. However, to achieve a more sustainable future, we need a collective change of values and enable ourselves to think and act outside of the neoliberal framework.