Chapter 11: Socially Responsibel (Nike)

• motivated by competitiveness you will engage in product innovation, process intensification (finding out how processes can be more efficient how cheaper and at the same time more sustainable), Green Marketing (promoting sustainable characteristics of product, not necessarily green washing!)

• motivated by ethical motives you will engage in donations and life cycle analysis (assessing in a comprehensive way the different stages a product goes through) → companies focusing on parts of the analysis

Paradox: Contradictory yet interrelated tensions that exist simultaneously and persist over time

Dilemma: Competing tensions with clear advantages and disadvantages -> weighing pros and cons

Dialectics: Process of resolving tensions (thesis and antithesis) through integration (synthesis)

-       Paradox: don’t go away (sustainability - profitability → although they are conflicting interest they can not be resolved)

-       Dilemma: either you do it or don’t → it is resolved or it goes in the paradox state

What is success?

• Lack of clarity, and/or disagreement about how to define success

• How to manage value creation and value capture

• Difficulties in creating metrics that capture performance and make them comparable

Who are we?

• CSR might be inconsistent with the core values of the organization

• Members might fail to identify with the values embedded in the CSR strategy

• It might be difficult to communicate CSR to external stakeholders (inconsistency with the company’s value propositions)

-       integrating different identities in corporation

Should we focus on the short term or long term?

• Business success may come from short term gains

• Social/environmental expansion requires a long-term perspective

• Social/environmental impact might constrain economic growth (as it requires investments) 

-       short or long-time orientation/decisions/interests, balancing resources,…

-       different focus on those goals (financial goals mostly short-term perspective, sustainability has a more long-term focus)

Which kind of skills, processes and structures?

• How can we build, develop, and share competencies and resources to address societal issues?

• How can we integrate CSR into the organizational structure?

• How should departments be organized?

-       dual reporting or not (just to one person) → single reporting way easier, but for more difficult targets like sustainability and profitability you need dual reporting

• abandoned idea because it polluted more (preasure from stakeholders)

• important to be aware what society is demanding but also important to make decisions rational not emotional (stakeholder demand it but it does not make sense from a rational point of view → say it)