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Is CSR Crowding Out Charity? A Case Study of CSR Implementation in a German Company

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Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Change

Part of the book series: Ethical Economy ((SEEP,volume 57))

Abstract

Based on the argument of Matten and Moon (Acad Manag Rev 33(2):404–424, 2008) and their distinction between implicit and explicit Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we analyze the process of implementing the strategic-explicit version of CSR in a company that was traditionally committed to a more implicit and philanthropic understanding of social activities. In our two-year case study, we show that the company reorganized its entire social engagement and set new rules to meet the CSR business case. The effect is that the old philanthropic activities were replaced, and the company reduced the variety of its social engagement. Our case study highlights that the implementation of CSR does not necessarily lead to greater attention to ethical and social behavior. On the contrary, it may lead to a crowding out of charity.

This paper was developed in the context of the project Mastery of Bricolage or Lost in Translation? funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation; WA 2139/12-1).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    All quotations have been translated by the authors. Quotes are attributed parenthetically using interviewees’ job titles (CSR-M = CSR manager, CEO = Chief Executive Officer), collection wave (CWI-CWIII), and a unique interviewee identification number.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Stephan Bohn

  2. Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany

    Peter Walgenbach

Authors
  1. Stephan Bohn
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  2. Peter Walgenbach
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Correspondence to Stephan Bohn .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Arnaud Sales

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Bohn, S., Walgenbach, P. (2019). Is CSR Crowding Out Charity? A Case Study of CSR Implementation in a German Company. In: Sales, A. (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Change. Ethical Economy, vol 57. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15407-3_13

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