PRELIMINARY VERSION

CHANGES MAY OCCUR

Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Strategy and

Practice

Q6, 2019

Instructor Knud Sinding

Day: Mondays, some Tuesdays, Wednesdays

Introduction
This course, Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Strategy and Practice (CSR) is about the
relationships between business firms, other organisations and a broad range of diverse
stakeholders. It is also about managing the impacts of businesses have on these – positive and
negative alike. The broadly accepted term is CSR but it should be changed to omit “social”.
Timing
The teaching begins in week 46 and we will strive to have them completed by week 51. This is a
consequence of empirical experience from previous years as well as a commitment to an activity
in December which may take the instructor away for one lecture day. Christmas is the problem.
This means that some of the announced dates may be supplemented with further dates in
November and December while some or all the January dates may be cancelled.
Course structure
In the beginning we spend a little time getting each student started on the process of selecting a
company. Even if you may change your mind about which company it is going to be, it is
important to start the search as early as possible.
The first classes are devoted to a brief review of some necessary theory – from strategy,
organization theory, political economy and maybe more, if time remains. We then consider the
four areas set out in the official course description:
 The idea of social responsibility as it relates to the operation of organisations, including
the important distinction between responsibilities as one more means for a profitable or
some other end, and the practice of social responsibility for ethical or altruistic reasons.
 Identifying, describing and assessing the stakeholders that s if goals for responsibility can
be determined and achieved or if other actions should be taken.
 The context in which action towards stakeholders is taken. This includes two domains,
market transactions and non-market actions, as well as the borderline area between the
two.
 Practical topics such as stakeholder influence strategies and the need for practitioners to
document a relationship between efforts at stakeholder management and the outcome of
such efforts.
In the final part of the course emphasis is shifted to the practicalities of dealing with social
responsibility and stakeholders. Using, among other things, cases of firms and institutions
seeking to improve or to help improve the performance of firms, this part focuses on the
information required for firms to be able to make claims about their performance, and on firm’s
own ability to understand the causal links between what they to (interventions) and the results
(outcomes), if they exist.
Readings
The main reading for this course is Corporate Social Strategy: Stakeholder Engagement and Competitive
Advantage by Bryan Husted and David Allen, Cambridge University Press, 2010. Other readings
will either be made available through the links in the teaching plan, or through eLearn. Should
the links fail (as they do for some journals) you will have to get the articles from the SDU library.
Extra material may be added along the way.
Student participation
Students are boundedly rational. Incentives to study hard are difficult to implement. Students
must discover for themselves how much they want to study. The exam will, as described below,
require each student to write one essay. Strictly speaking this can be done without turning up for
a single lecture. However, as the teaching plan indicates, there are lots of readings for the course
and lectures will be used to talk about much of the material. Students are well advised to read
extensively. Note-taking in longhand is also advised.
Teaching times
As set out in the quarter schedule, but these times may be affected by unforeseen events such as
train delays, illness, storms or other acts of God.
Notes
Lecture notes in “PowerPoint” format will not be provided until after class. They do not
guarantee comprehensive coverage of all topics discussed in lectures. The notes will be available
through eLearn.
Assessment
To pass this exam students must:
1. Select a topic and/or a company. This involves thinking and writing about the issues
covered in the course.
2. Obtain approval, which means that the instructor can accept or reject the firm chosen.
The rejection will, however, come with generous advice on how to fin an alternative.
3. Submit a final report, of some 30000 characters (with 10% on either side), by the
deadline. It is assumed that students put references at the back, refer to them using the in
text format (Authors last name, year) and an alphabetical list at the end. Use any font,
margins and page numbering you wish.
4. Deadline for submission: January 31st, 2020 at 12.00.

Topics for the CSR E2019 report are about international companies where international means
that more than half the company’s turnover comes from operations outside it’s home country.

Topic No. 1.
Choose an international company whose CR (or CSR) performance is (self-) reported in the
form of one or more “communication of progress” documents submitted to the institution
called “The Global Compact” and use the course literature and the knowledge contained therein
to analyse and asses the quality of this company’s reporting as it has evolved over time.
Topic No. 2.
Select an international company with a distinct public profile, which is NOT a member of the
Global Compact, and use the information available to analyse the responsibility demonstrated by
the company. Be sure to distinguish information coming from the company and the extent to
which it is reliable, accurate and timely.
Topic No. 3.
Use an industry level approach to analyse the CR performance of the 3-4 largest competitors in a
well-defined industry.

The term paper must be written in accordance with the requirements in the course description.
The task before students is essentially to determine what the coming into force of the mandatory
CSR reporting rule meant for the reporting by the company you have chosen.
Teaching plan

Date Topic Readings

1: 11.11 Introduction None

1415-1600

2: 12.11 Basic theory 1: Political economy of Steven C. Hackett: Environmental and Natural Resources
environmental and social issues Economics. Taylor & Francis, 2015, chapters 1-4. E-
1415-1600
book at sdu.dk/bibliotek

3: 13.11 Basic theory no. 2: Some basics of Salancik & Pfeffer The Bases and Use of Power in
organisational theory Organizational Decision Making
1015-1200
DiMaggio & Powell: The iron cage revisited
Hannan & Freeman Structural inertia and organizational
change

4: 18.11 Basic theory no. 3: Rent-seeking Tullock The welfare costs of tariffs, monopolies, and
behaviour theft
1415-1600
Kreuger: The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking
Society
Bhagwati: Directly Unproductive, Profit-see king (DUP)
Activities

5: 19.11 CSR (I) - As moral obligation H&A 2

1415-1600 Phillips, Freeman & Wicks: What Stakeholder Theory IS
not, Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol 13 no 4, pp 479-502
Tang Qian Chen Shen How CEO Hubris Affects
Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility
Chin Hambrick Trevino Political Ideologies of CEOs: The
Influence of Executives’ Values on Corporate Social
Responsibility

6: 20.11 CSR (II) – As a societal issue Friedman, M: The Social Responsibility of Business is to
Increase its Profits. The New York Times Magazine,
1015-1200
September 13, 1970;
Jensen, M. Value maximization, stakeholder theory, and the
corporate objective function. Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol.
12(2) 235-256.

7: 25.11 CSR(III) – As a business strategy H&A 3

1415-1600 Flammer Does Corporate Social Responsibility Lead to
Superior Financial Performance? A Regression
Discontinuity Approach

8: 26.11 CSR(IV) – As a social strategy model H&A 4 + 5

1415-1600

9: 27.11 CSR (V) – Competitive environment H&A 6

1015-1200 Sharfman & Fernando Environmental Risk Management
 Cheng, Ioannou, Serafeim Corporate Social Responsibility
and Access to Finance.
Flammer Does Product Market Competition Foster
Corporate Social Responsibility? Evidence From Trade
Liberalization
Koh Qian Wang Firm Litigation Risk and the Insurance
Value of Corporate Social Performance

10: 02.12 CSR(VI) – Stakeholders: Properties, H&A 7-9

powers and objectives.
1415-1600 Mitchell, Agle & Wood Toward a theory of stakeholder
salience
Crilly, D., Zollo, M. and Hansen, M.T. Faking it or
muddling through? Understanding decoupling in
response to stakeholder pressure. The Academy of
Management Journal 55, no. 6 (2012): 1429-448.
http://www.jstor.org.proxy1-
bib.sdu.dk:2048/stable/23414262.

11: 03.12 CSR(V) – The property rights Foss & Klein Stakeholders and Corporate Social
perspective. Responsibility
1415-1600

12: 04.12 Structuring social activities H&A 10+11

1415-1600

13: 09.12 Rules of evidence March & Sutton Organizational Performance as a

dependent variable.
1015-1200
Pfeffer & Sutton Evidence Based Managemen t
Rosenzweig: Misunderstanding the Nature of Company
Performance.
Bazerman & Chugh, Decisions without blinders

14: 11.12 Evaluating outcomes H&A 12

1415-1600 Castro & Chousa: An integrated framework for the
financial analysis of sustainability

15: 16.12 Summing up H&A 13

1415-1600

16: 17.12 Workshop on report writing Optional

1415-1600