Kim Warren on Strategy
Strategy insights and living business models
Reality of corp. social responsibility
Sorry for the recent silence – now at the annual Strategic Mgmt Society [SMS] conference in Cologne, Germany. Like every conference it’s a mixed bag, but some real gems. Here’s one from Prof Tim Devinney of AGSM Australia. He’s done loads of real-life research on the realities of corporate social rsponsibility [CSR], from, in his own words, an entirely sceptical viewpoint. [I’m giving you his academic page cos it’s got a lot of references to a variety of studies .. although many of them are for academic journals, there’s real value in them]. He’s found some disappointing, but ultimately not shocking things – e.g.
- some reasonable fraction of consumers will choose ‘ethical’ alternatives [fair-trade coffee, low-energy lighting] provided it’s not functionally inferior.
- consumers’ ‘ethical’ behaviour can be strongly influenced by the context, e.g. poster in Starbucks promoting fair-trade coffee => very low uptake .. poster plus staff enquiry => middling uptake .. poster + staff enquiry + another person standing within ear-shot => high uptake.
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