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Global branding
Global branding and strategic and strategic
CSR: an overview of three types of CSR
complexity
327
Michael Polonsky
School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University, Received December 2007
Burwood, Australia, and Revised February 2008,
January 2009
Colin Jevons Accepted February 2009
Department of Marketing, Monash University, Caulfield East, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – There is general agreement that global brands should ensure that they incorporate social
responsibility. To do this properly, organisations must understand what it means to be socially responsible
and how they can leverage their actions. The paper proposes consideration of three distinct areas: the range
of social responsibility issues, what the organisations actually do and how to leverage those corporate social
responsibility (CSR) actions. This paper seeks to conceptually develop these three areas of complexity –
Issue, Organisational and Communication – as it is only after organisations understand these three areas
that they can effectively leverage socially responsible activities in their brands.
Design/methodology/approach – This research undertakes a review and synthesis of the
academic, practitioner and industry literature examining CSR and the brand, addressing the three
areas of complexity – issue, organisational and communication.
Findings – The research finds that within these three areas of complexity there are a number of
sub-issues that must be addressed if CSR is to be strategically integrated into a global brand. This
includes sub-issues associated with social issue complexity (identification, heterogeneity,
measurement, and interpretation); organizational complexity (overall corporate brand, multiple
products and brands, functional activities, and supply chain); and communication complexity
(intensity of action/positioning, communicating action, types of programs utilised, and integration
issues.) It thus provides an agenda for future research.
Research limitations/implications – There is limited academic literature examining how global
organisations incorporate CSR activities into their brand and the research proposes the issues that
need to be considered when integrating CSR into branding strategy. Future research needs to be
undertaken to explore the internal processes that global firms use to develop their CSR positioning
strategies and some research propositions for future research are proposed. Additionally further
exploration of each of the issues (and sub-issues) identified in this paper is warranted, and some
suggestions are made for this.
Practical implications – The results of this study show that developing a CSR leveraged brand in a
consistent way that is salient to all stakeholders is no simple task for global organisations. By
considering the three areas of complexity developed here organisations will be able to better
understand and align their activities in line with CSR related issues. Being global means that
organisations will likely need to ensure they address the highest set of global expectations, as any
lower level may be criticised as being less than appropriate.
Originality/value – The paper develops the sub-issues of issue, organisational and communication
complexity associated with global brands’ CSR activities. This strategic perspective goes beyond focusing
on the tactical activities undertaken or the philosophical issue of whether CSR should be undertaken. The International Marketing Review
work therefore allows global organisations to look at CSR more strategically as a branding issue. Vol. 26 No. 3, 2009
pp. 327-347
Keywords Corporate social responsibility, Brands, International marketing q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0265-1335
Paper type Conceptual paper DOI 10.1108/02651330910960816
IMR Introduction
26,3 Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and global branding have generally been
considered separate areas of study within the broader strategy area. Firms and their
brands have identities that encompass a range of characteristics that are marketed to
consumers. In many cases firms invest significant sums in developing brand
personalities. While firms consider a range of product-related brand “features” such as
328 quality, styling, etc. they must also consider the degree to which they incorporate CSR,
which is increasingly becoming a core component of a brand (Werther and Chandler,
2005). Like all brand characteristics, firms need to understand what it means to be
socially responsible. CSR is a broad concept that covers a range of environmental,
social, and ethical responsibilities, and there have been numerous definitions in the
literature over the years. Carroll (1999, p. 286) suggests that social responsibility covers
“the conduct of a business so that it is economically profitable, law-abiding, ethical
and socially supportive.” This means that firms should consider a range of domains
or activities, which Carroll classifies as economic, legal, ethical and voluntary or
philanthropic. Thus, firms must carefully consider how they interact with a diverse
range of stakeholders, all of which may have different social interests. Today’s global
firms interact with each set of responsibilities at multiple levels, covering a range of
organisational activities and operating in a multitude of business environments
(Valor, 2007).
Being socially responsible is of course, important in itself, but firms must also make
a conscious decision about the degree to which they then leverage their CSR activities,
thus translating doing good into strategic benefit. In this way firms move to a
situation where they synergistically “use organisational core competencies and
resources to address key stakeholders interests and to achieve both organisational
and social benefits (McAlister and Ferrell, 2002, p. 690).” Therefore, CSR becomes
a strategic branding tool, but only when communicated with stakeholders
(Morsing, 2006).
Taking a strategic view of CSR within global organisations means that these
organisations must consider three types of complexity – issue, organisational and
communication – that must be explored and understood when firms consider CSR
related branding strategies. While researchers have discussed the domains of CSR,
approaches to becoming more responsible, or the leveraging of these activities, the
connections between these three areas have not been investigated to date.
Understanding the three areas of complexity is of course, not simple, as each of the
three areas is itself complex. The objective of this paper is to explore each of the types
of complexity and associated sub-issues within each. The paper provides a broad
overview of the three aspects of complexity for managerial guidance and as a
suggested agenda for future research.
This paper is structured as follows. After providing some background on CSR and
branding we then explore each of the three types of complexity. We then discuss the
implications and provide some propositions that might be explored in the future. The
paper then draws the material together within the conclusions.

Background
There is general agreement that organisations’ impact on society is important and
should be managed in such a way that negative consequences are minimised
(Werther and Chandler, 2005). While doing the right thing is important for its own Global branding
sake and is therefore valuable to organisations (Sacconi, 2006), especially for global and strategic
organisations (Valor, 2005), and are essential for defining global reputation and
brand (Lewis, 2003; Kitchin, 2003), some organisations see CSR as valuable simply CSR
because it is an obligation that they have to society rather than something to be
leveraged (McAlister and Ferrell, 2002). However, there is extensive discussion in the
literature of the benefits to firms and brands of being socially responsible (Knox and 329
Maklan, 2004), including: improved financial performance (Johnson, 2003; Miles and
Covin, 2000), contributing to market value (Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006), a more
general positive impact on societal stakeholders (Ite, 2004; Michael, 2003), building a
connection with consumers (Porter and Kramer, 2002), improving product quality
(Montillaud-Joyel and Otto, 2004) and even internal benefits such as increases in
employee commitment and reduced employee turnover (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003;
Maio, 2003), not to mention improving society overall (Sirgy, 2002). It is no surprise
that “CSR is increasingly being recognised by firms as central to core business
activities rather than a peripheral consideration associated with philanthropy”
(Bhattacharya et al., 2004, p. 6). In seeking to maximise the corporate value of CSR,
firms are increasingly treating CSR as a strategic tool where the potential corporate
benefits are dependent on the communication of corporate responsibility (Morsing,
2006), although the benefits may vary depending on the communication process used
(Bhattacharya et al., 2004; Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005; McAlister and Ferrell,
2002; Mayer et al., 1993; Menon and Kahn, 2003). Certainly CSR should not be viewed
simplistically as another promotional opportunity to be leveraged (Carroll, 1999;
McAlister and Ferrell, 2002), although some firms do mistakenly try to use CSR in a
superficial tactical fashion, which can often be justifiably criticised as being
opportunistic rather than meaningful.
Carroll (1999) and others have suggested that in order to be socially responsible
organisations consider economic, legal, ethical and voluntary/philanthropic activities,
i.e. going beyond the legal minimum requirements that have to be addressed. The
question of how one “uses” these good works for organisational benefit (Hemphill,
1999), is then a secondary, but equally important, issue.
While there appears to be broad agreement that global organisations should behave
responsibly, there is only limited discussion about how the organisation should develop
its CSR activities, the degree to which these should be leveraged and/or how they are
communicated. Developing a clearly defined corporate CSR identity or position is not
necessarily simple, as different organisational stakeholders will view a specific
behaviour differently (Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005). Some academics suggest that
embracing CSR behaviour requires global organisations to think outside existing
models of operation (Carroll, 1999; Doane, 2005). Aruthaud-Day (2005) suggests that
CSR positioning may be even more complicated as organisations need to consider the
ideological perspective that they take in dealing with CSR policy, the issues to be covered
and the international orientation to be considered. In an alternative view of how CSR
policy can be developed, Schlegelmilch and Pollach (2005), subsequently supported by
Morsing (2006), suggested that corporate behaviour, communication approach and
stakeholder expectations will impact on CSR behaviour. Whether driven from corporate
ideology or from stakeholder obligations, global organisations face a complex set of
decisions in regards to how they respond to the CSR issues faced (Roberts, 2003).
IMR Organisations must consider all stakeholders that affect and are affected by the global
26,3 organisation’s activities (Levis, 2006; Sherer and Palazzo, 2008).
Developing global CSR activities is a complicated challenge, as organisations have to
deal with social issues within each domestic environment of operations (Aruthaud-Day,
2005; Sherer and Palazzo, 2008), making the firm responsible to both international
and domestic stakeholders (Zyglidopoulos, 2002). While Aruthaud-Day (2005) proposed
330 that CSR could be considered at different international levels (i.e. firms could focus
on social activities locally regionally or nationally), Husted and Allen (2006) found that
global organisations tend to focus more on country specific social issues, rather
than global social issues. For example, Douglas Daft, then Chariman and CEO of
Coca-Cola, was using the mantra “think local, act local” across all his bsuiness’s
activities – not just social responsibility – back in 2000. Muller (2006) argues that
focusing on local issues will result in fragmentation of corporate CSR activities making
global positioning based on CSR activities more difficult although a localised approach
may allow better consideration of social issues within particular national markets that
may be missed with a standardised global CSR approach. In this paper, we propose a
framework that can be used with both approaches.
What is clear is that CSR is a particularly complex issue for global organisations
(Aruthaud-Day, 2005; Muller, 2006; Sherer and Palazzo, 2008) covering a range of
issues, organisational activities and business environments. Whether organisations see
responsible action (i.e. CSR) as a positioning tool, an obligation to society or something
that provides a valuable return on investment (Martin and Lohin, 2005; Zollo, 2008),
there are several questions that organisations need to consider in regards to the issues
being consider and organisational activities, as well as the degree of leveraging being
undertaken. Drawing on the literature and examples from industry, we propose three
types of complexity that organisations must consider if they are to implement actions
that are genuinely and defensibly socially responsible.
First, in developing a view of CSR there is a clear suggestion that organisations
need to understand the actual domain of CSR activities to be considered
(Aruthaud-Day, 2005; Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005), which we call issue
complexity. Having an understanding of the organisational CSR scope to be
addressed is essential if the range of activities to be undertaken and the information
being communicated about them are to be meaningful. The second type of complexity
relates to the organisation itself, which we call organisational complexity.
Schlegelmilch and Pollach (2005) explicitly identify this issue as shaping CSR,
although others such as Aruthaud-Day (2005) do not. We argue that the organisation’s
structure is critical both in regards to defining the social issues that are salient to the
global organisation, as well as how it goes about the design and implementation of its
practices addressing issues of social responsibility. For example, a decentralised global
organisation may have limited ability to develop a consistent global CSR strategy. Of
course, a centralised approach could also have the weakness of overlooking local
issues. The third issue relates to communication complexity; that is the range of
decisions to be made regarding what is and how CSR activities are communicated,
internally and externally. Effective communication should relay meaningful
information (i.e. issue and organisational factors) in a way that is relevant to the
stakeholders concerned (Morsing, 2006; Zollo, 2008). While we acknowledge that the
scope of activities (global – local) is indeed important (Aruthaud-Day, 2005), we do not
draw a distinction between CSR targeting global or local activities, rather we suggest Global branding
that this relates to the specific implementation of strategy (Muller, 2006; Zollo, 2008), and strategic
which is dependent on the three areas of our conceptual framework. These three areas
are developed in more detail in the following sections. CSR

Issue complexity
CSR is a broad concept (Carroll, 1999). Responsibility means different things to different 331
stakeholders – organisations, governments (head office and host), consumers,
employees, etc. (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003; Frankental, 2001). Some authors seek to
categorise social issues to be considered into groupings, for example business practices,
environmental concerns, employee treatment (Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005) or
Human rights, labour, environmental (Aruthaud-Day, 2005). However, there are other
societal impacts that in many cases should be included in CSR, such as protection of local
cultures or economic development (Ite, 2004; Sherer and Palazzo, 2008). The definition of
social issues will be interpreted differently depending on the organisation, the
environment in which it operates and the perspective of the stakeholders being
considered. As such, the very nature of socially responsible actions expected by
stakeholders may not necessarily be clearly understood by the same organisation within
different countries (Guay et al., 2004), or indeed by all its stakeholders (Polonsky and
Rosenberger, 2001). This lack of explicit meaning is made even more complicated by the
fact that views within stakeholder groups and across stakeholder groups are not
consistent, as each will perceive social issues and organisational behaviour differently
(Zyglidopoulos, 2002). Further, even if CSR performance criteria are agreed on across
stakeholders, there may be further disagreement as assessments of performance can
often be subjective, leading to different perceptions of CSR outcomes depending on who
is undertaking the assessment and how they define good performance (Goodpaster,
2003). Issue definition is complex and we propose that for global organizations there are
four aspects that need to be considered – issue identification; heterogeneity;
measurement; interpretation – each of which will be discussed below. (An earlier
discussion of this area of complexity can be obtained in Polonsky and Jevons (2006)).
Issue identification. In looking at issue complexity we will first focus on the range of
global social issues that might need to be integrated in activities throughout an
organisation (which is itself discussed further under organisational complexity) in
order to claim that a brand is behaving in a socially responsible fashion. Within the
social investing area there are broadly defined lists of activities that need to be
considered when classifying an organisation as behaving responsibly. For example,
the KDL social investing group (KDL, 2004) examines organisations’ performance
against eight broad social issues that are considered in deciding whether an
organisation can be classified as being responsible. These are: community, corporate
governance, diversity, employee relations, environment, human rights, product and
controversial business issues.
Some organisations have sought to address the complexity of CSR issues in regards
to corporate action by having clearly stated positions on a broad range of issues. For
example, Nestle has a series of web pages and links devoted to its social responsibility.
These include: responsibility – environment; UN Global Compact; sustainability;
Nestlé donations, Nestlé in the community; water – as well as issues related to specific
products of particular interest to stakeholders, including infant formula and coffee
IMR prices – and activities – gene technology; quality; water. The specific way in which
26,3 Nestle seeks to demonstrate that it has addressed these issues might partly relate to the
previous problems it experienced in some global markets, i.e. they have learned from
their past mistakes. Cynically it might be suggested that CSR can be designed as
“damage control” to protect the brand, as there is some research supporting the view
that adopting CSR can dilute corporate image problems (Klein and Dawar, 2004) as
332 long as CSR actions are not perceived as superficial public relations activity without
genuine underlying shifts in activities (Doonar, 2004; Werther and Chandler, 2005).
Nestle has clearly defined the scope of issues that inform its CSR policy and explains
how these form a core part of its business principles. However, even with all these
actions there are still some stakeholder groups that promote boycotts of Nestle,
criticising its poor performance on the very issues the firm has identified as core “CSR
strengths” and on which it can reasonably be assumed it has improved its
performance. Issues are viewed differently by different stakeholders. The consequence
of this is that the more issues the organisation seeks to address, the greater the
potential for criticism from some stakeholder group.
Heterogeneity. The second area of issue complexity relates to the multitude of
sub-areas within a given CSR activity, which vary in importance globally (Bhate, 2003).
Take the example of an organisation that positions its brand as being sensitive to human
rights. The KDL social screen lists three major areas that need to be addressed in order for
an organisation to be considered responsible: indigenous peoples relations, labor rights
and others (exceptional human rights initiatives) as well as listing areas of activity that
should be excluded, such as sourcing from Burma (Myanmar) and controversies related to
employee relations (KDL, 2004). The breadth of this list can make it difficult for an
organisation to demonstrate appropriate CSR action on all the fronts specified within one
area, especially one as complex as human rights. Will an organisation that promotes the
message that they pay a working wage in all countries in which they operate be perceived
by all stakeholders to be behaving in a CSR fashion? Will consumers or activists in
developed countries perceive “living wages” paid in developing countries as being fair or
unfair? Some stakeholders in developed countries may possibly suggest that a developing
country living wage is sub-standard, even though the local workers may view the wage as
equitable and possibly even generous. Thus, stakeholders in developed countries could
perceive the organisation’s claim as being suspect, for example if they take the view that
working wages in developing countries are not “fair” to start.
Of course, even if stakeholders agree with the statement (and performance) on living
wages, they may view other labor practices (e.g. occupational health and safety) as
being more important. Consequently, can it ever be possible for global organisations to
effectively satisfy all stakeholders’ perceptions in global markets? Zyglidopoulos
(2002) has suggested that managing global CSR expectations is very difficult, and
adoption of the strictest expectations is required to minimize negative reactions,
although adopting the highest standards could possibly have unintended
consequences. For example, when Pakistan introduced laws protecting child labor in
the soccer ball industry, many producers elected to move their operations to other
countries rather than implement the new rules. While employees in the firms that
stayed in Pakistan enjoyed improved conditions, large numbers of workers lost their
employment, with no alternative source of income. Thus, a well-meaning CSR initiative
resulted in negative outcomes for many affected employees.
 Measurement. The measurement of CSR performance is the third element of global Global branding
issue complexity (Goodpaster, 2003; Knox and Maklan, 2004). For example, to continue and strategic
the above case, a living wage varies from country to country, with measurement and
comparison being highly complex operations. Measures of CSR performance must CSR
consider both the criteria used and the processes by which those criteria are measured.
In cases where CSR is measured using subjective evaluations there may be potential
for disagreement in regards to CSR performance, especially across diverse stakeholder 333
groups. One possible way to address this is to have some standardization of subjective
evaluations by external accrediting bodies providing consistent measures of CSR
performance (Maio, 2003). Any disagreements about the standards used to measure
CSR would result in these measures not being generalisable (Goodpaster, 2003). The
temptation to create objective quantifiable measures can potentially fail due to the
necessarily artificial way in which such measures of CSR have to be constructed. For
example, setting equal opportunity targets or quotas for minority groups may not
bring about equal opportunities within a workplace in practice, even though the
organisation concerned can demonstrate performance that meets the objective CSR
targets. The heterogeneous perceptions of stakeholders about activities across
geographical areas or social issues referred to in the previous section, further adds to
the difficulty of setting robust, unequivocal, and measurable CSR standards.
Interpretation. Even if all global stakeholders agree on the criteria used to measure
CSR performance, they may disagree about the level of performance required to be
perceived as actually being “positive”. The determination of the appropriateness of a
given level of social performance will depend on who is being asked. For example,
during the apartheid era in South Africa, some consumers and investors criticised
organisations for operating in that country, even though these organisations had
adopted the Sullivan Principles, which were widely agreed to reflect responsible
behaviour when operating in South Africa (Mangaliso, 1997). These dissatisfied
stakeholders viewed any corporate activity in South Africa negatively as support for
an oppressive regime. Yet, on the other hand, there were consumers and investors who
considered that the organisations operating under the Sullivan principles were
contributing to social enhancement and improved standards of living in South Africa.
Who was right from a CSR perspective? Certainly both groups believed that they were
supporting a just cause. Thus, while some stakeholders would have criticised an
organisation for behaving irresponsibly, other stakeholders would praise the same
organisation’s action as exemplary. And more recently, while the KDL investment
group (referred to earlier) has a ban on sourcing work from Burma (Myanmar), the
charitable response from outside governments and NGOs to the 2008 cyclone disaster
was generous – indeed more generous than the local regime was willing to accept.
There would therefore seem to be differences in the perceived responsibility of
charitable donations and providing income through employment in business
operations.
This aspect of complexity therefore relates to what performance is seen to be
responsible. This is an important issue to be considered when defining the global CSR
of the brand, as stakeholders in different parts of the world may view the same
behaviour differently, meaning that one standardised strategy is in fact viewed
differently globally. The implication for CSR leveraging is that no matter how
responsible an organisation is, there may be those that criticise it, based on
IMR expectations that may or may not be realistic. To claim that a global brand (corporate
26,3 or product) is responsible, system-wide issues have to be tackled and managed
(Polonsky and Rosenberger, 2001). In this way, attempting responsible branding of
global organisations can result in organisations reviewing their overall social impact,
not simply focusing on narrowly defined issues, which has the potential for
considerable advantage to society as a whole.
334
Organisational complexity
Another aspect of CSR complexity relates to the fact that global organisations and their
brands are part of business networks that undertake a range of activities in multiple
countries (Kapelus, 2002). Can organisations effectively undertake global CSR activities
across all internal and external activities? This question is critical as stakeholders’
expectations of global CSR related activities may go beyond any explicit brand “promises”
that organisations make. For example, there have been situations where organisations
have been criticised because of the actions of their independent global suppliers who may
be operating in ways that are inconsistent with organisational policy. There have been
accusations that such outsourcing is a deliberate mechanism for organisations to evade
their stated or implied moral responsibilities (Klein, 2000). It is certainly unclear how much
control global organisations have within global operating systems.
In this section of the paper we have identified four types of organisational
complexity that should be considered prior to deciding how to position a global
organisation or brand as being socially responsible – overall, corporate brand;
multiple products and brands; functional activities and supply chain issues – each will
be discussed below.
Corporate brand. There has been a clear suggestion that strategic CSR should be an
overarching strategy, integrated at the highest corporate level globally (Maio, 2003),
rather than a simple tactical response to some “hot issue” (Zollo, 2008). In this way
responsibility becomes one of the distinctive characteristics of the global organisation
(Bhattacharya et al., 2004) and drives corporate actions and image. This distinctive
responsibility then helps to define and differentiate the global organisation’s identity,
providing an attractive element of its overall branding. Global organisations that
choose to adopt a broad corporate responsibility ethos must have a way of ensuring
that these values are incorporated into all global activities (Velaz et al., 2007). This not
only includes integrating CSR into mission statements, but requires that CSR measures
are used to evaluate present and future activities. In this way CSR is part of the
personality of the global organisation and something that is reflected in all brands.
This should result in an overarching coordination of activities and it has been
suggested that global brand stewardship teams could be used to ensure that there is
consistent CSR behaviour (Bluementhal and Bergstorm, 2003), consistent with general
brand management principles (Keller, 2007).
For example, all international tobacco companies have statements regarding
their socially responsible activities, yet categorising these organisations as
unequivocally socially responsible would be seen as highly problematic by most
business ethicists and societally oriented stakeholders. So because of the dangers
inherent in the consumption of its products, it would be unlikely that a tobacco firm
would try to present itself overall as having a socially responsible ethos, although it
could present itself as using responsible business methods; for example, Altria
(the name that the tobacco firm Philip Morris adopted when it owned Kraft Foods) Global branding
wins awards for its workforce diversity (http://altria.com/media/press_release/ and strategic
03_02_pr_2005_04_11_01.asp).
There are some “born social” global organisations – they have integrated CSR into CSR
all their activities from their inception. Classic examples include The Body Shop, Ben
and Jerry’s Ice Cream and Blackmores. In all cases these global firms’ founders
integrated social responsibility into the initial culture of the organisation, making CSR 335
an accepted component of their global organisational culture and practice. Those
global organisations that come later to the concept and seek to integrate CSR as part of
a change process within the global corporate philosophy have to ensure all employees’
thinking and actions are consistent with the newly re-established corporate values.
Such changes take time, effort and resources to achieve.
Multiple products and brands. To be most effective CSR should be integrated into all
brands and products globally (Klein and Dawar, 2004). This may be exceptionally
difficult for some organisations. Let us refer again to a tobacco example. When Philip
Morris purchased Kraft it changed the corporate brand to “Altria”, which as a newly
created word had no existing “position” in the marketplace. One benefit to Philip
Morris was that the new corporate brand name did not have the negative associations
of the tobacco industry. However, no matter what Altria were to claim or do, it would
be impossible to have a division that produces CSR focused tobacco products (in many
stakeholders’ minds). As such, developing an overall global CSR positioning would be
difficult, if not impossible. Some might even argue that other divisions such as Kraft
would also have difficulty developing a CSR ethos, as its global parent company’s
activities are inconsistent with a CSR philosophy. Since the tobacco and food groups
concerned are now separate again, this is less of an issue for the brands concerned. As
another example, could a global firm with a biotech division developing genetically
modified foods claim that the organisation had a CSR philosophy? Given that there is
extensive debate over the safety of GM products, one division’s actions can “tarnish”
the overall global corporate position, as well as that of other global and national
business units. However, if the GM products were being developed as a genuine
attempt to solve problems of human starvation and not seen as being primarily for
corporate profit, some stakeholders could see the situation differently (i.e. issue
complexity). CSR is a complex arena.
The issue of multiple global products and brands can become extremely
complicated. How can any organisation promote that one global brand is “responsible”
when the same organisation produces competing global brands that are less
responsible? This criticism has been raised in regards to global automobile
manufacturers who promote “fuel-efficient” vehicles of various descriptions, while at
the same time producing fuel guzzling SUVs targeted at urban users. On one level this
could potentially be seen as hypocritical. The importance of having harmful products
within a firm’s portfolio could also arise in the case of fast food companies that
introduce “healthy alternatives”. Are they being genuinely responsible or simply
trying to neutralise negative public criticism (Boyle, 2004)? On the other hand, should
a global organisation be able to leverage its “good works” in regards to one
product/brand, while also producing a harmful product? Should global organisations
be able to get recognition for attempting to improve their CSR performance?
IMR The answer may be yes, but any positioning or claims must be narrowly defined, so as
26,3 not to exaggerate the overall global activity (Frankental, 2001).
Site and functional activities. In considering social responsibility within the
organisation there must be a clear recognition that each location of operation and
functional activity might directly and indirectly have a different impact on CSR
related issues. For example, environmental issues might be considered the domain of
336 the production facilities as well as broader corporate strategies. Unfair labour practices
overseen by human resources departments may occur because of inappropriate
behaviour on the part of one or two managers in one unit, not because of overarching
corporate policy.
Multiple operating facilities could also provide CSR problems. For example, if there
is an environmental accident at one location, it may impact on the brand of the whole
organisation. Location-based issues may be even more complicated when facilities are
based in different countries with different standards of “responsible” practice
(Zyglidopoulos, 2002). A good example of an organisation that purports to impose the
highest standards of CSR is Shell, which after some highly unfortunate incidents in
some of its locations now publishes an annual plain-language report that reports both
its successes and failures worldwide. The acknowledgement of failures and a
willingness to address them is a key component of continuous improvement (Shell,
2007), as well as a demonstration that they are willing to be criticised and open to
addressing issues of concern.
Given the diversity of CSR issues, it is unreasonable to assume that any one
organisational unit or functional area will be able to independently consider them
across all sites and functions. Within the organisation there should be system wide
management plans, centrally coordinated, to ensure that the “core” responsibility
issues associated with functional areas are co-ordinated and integrated into broader
management and operation plans, similar to brand stewardship committees. There will
of course, also need to be more generalised management training relating to issues that
potentially impact on all functional areas. Any suggestion that inadequacy exists
within any one area of an organisation will potentially negatively impact on the
corporate brand.
Supply chain issues. The difficulty of controlling system wide brand issues is well
recognised (Beamon and Ware, 1998). Coordinating activities within a production
system is not limited to coordinating brands owned by the one organisation. Take the
example of Ford’s negative publicity with the Explorer in the USA as the result of
alleged defects in a tyre supplier’s products (Govindaraj et al., 2004). In this case,
neither Ford nor their tyre supplier, Firestone, handled the issue as well as they might;
both parties blamed each other and both brands suffered, although of course, many
affected consumers suffered more as their vehicles rolled over, causing injury or death.
Could Ford have been expected to control its all of supplier’s actions and take
responsibility for them?
Consumers might expect such coordination in regards to CSR related issues, as
organisations have implemented systems-wide control of quality issues (Waddock and
Badwell, 2004). There have been some attempts by some brands to take control of
suppliers’ CSR activities or at least to encourage partners to behave more responsibly.
For example, Nike was at one point criticised for not ensuring foreign-based
independent contractors behaved appropriately in regards to conditions and treatment
of labour, and integrated minimum working conditions into these contracts to raise Global branding
standards (Cushman, 1998). In regards to environmental issues, international standards and strategic
such as ISO 14001 explicitly require that accredited organisations also require their
suppliers to comply with appropriate environmental standards. In this way purchasing CSR
organisations become “responsible” for the compliance of their supply chain, although
these standards have also been criticised as being restrictive and harmful to developing
countries (Esty, 2001), i.e. possibly less responsible on another front. 337
Asking global organisations to manage suppliers’ CSR related actions might seem
superficially reasonable. However, should a business supplier’s behaviour impact on
its customers’ brand and is it fair for this to still occur when the customer uses all
possible diligence? Whether it should or not, with CSR leveraged branding this does
increasingly occur and in fact the acceptability of standards of all types within supply
systems seem to be of increasing importance (Beamon and Ware, 1998).

Communication complexity
The final type of complexity relates to how organisations communicate their CSR
activities (Morsing, 2006). The question of how organisations might consider the way
in which they incorporate information about their social impact into their overall
communication strategy has not generally been discussed in the literature, although
some works do exist (Morsing, 2006; Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005). Whether
organisations see responsible action (i.e. CSR) as a positioning tool or an obligation to
society, brand managers and corporate strategists must address the issue of how to
communicate their behaviour in a meaningful way. To answer this question requires
that the firm not only clearly understands its brand identity and positioning, but that it
understands how the brand and the wider organisation relate to CSR. It also relates to
the specific approach used to communicate CSR information, which is the focus of this
section of the paper.
We propose that there are four broad issues that need to be considered when
considering how to communicate CSR activities:
(1) intensity of action/positioning;
(2) communicating action;
(3) types of programs utilised; and
(4) integration issues.

The following subsections will overview each of these issues.

Intensity of positioning. How strongly is CSR integrated into the global brand? This
is a core question that should be considered when developing global branding strategy
and should direct all other action. It is clear that first and foremost global brands must
have some values worthy of being promoted (Kitchin, 2003; Lewis, 2003). Some suggest
that CSR must be integrated systematically globally throughout the organisation
(Knox and Maklan, 2004; Werther and Chandler, 2005) and therefore integrated into
branding activities.
It is unclear if a global organisation can be (or should only be) a little bit responsible.
Promoting a fleeting interest in social responsibility would possibly imply that the
organisation might be exploiting stakeholders’ interest in CSR as a passing fad, rather
than developing a truly responsible brand and corporate philosophy. In their
IMR discussion of environmental issues Menon and Menon (1997) proposed that the
26,3 greening of activities could be tactical, quasi-strategic or strategic. This same sort of
question was also raised by Ginsberg and Bloom (2004), when they suggested that the
degree of segmentation of green marketing issues and the organisation’s focus
depended on the segments it targeted. This also raises the broader question of whether
a global organisation not previously noted for social responsibility should be rewarded
338 for taking the first small steps towards becoming more responsible, even if they are
much less responsible than other businesses; this is also an implementation issue,
discussed later in this paper.
If the promotion of responsibility is seen as merely a tactical activity, then
stakeholder cynicism might be exacerbated. If there is strategic positioning of social
responsibility, a global organisation would embrace issues in a way that reshapes all
its operational activities. Such significant action would potentially warrant the
promotion of responsibility as a core value and there would be have to be substantial
action to support and provide evidence for the CSR claims made.
Communicating actions. Stakeholders want to know what organisations are doing
about CSR in all markets in which they operate (Drumwright and Murphy, 2000;
Ginsberg and Bloom, 2004). Lewis (2003) reported that in UK 87 per cent of consumers
indicated that they wanted companies to spend some money in communicating their
CSR activities to stakeholders, with 15 per cent of all consumers being happy for the
organisation to spend significant amounts to inform consumers. Only 7 per cent of
consumers said that companies should allocate no funds to communicate CSR activities
with consumers. Thus, there is some empirical support for organisations proactively
communicating their CSR values through their brands and this may mean having
CSR-focused communications.
Given that one of the functions of branding is to communicate the values of the
product or organisation, some type of communication is of course, needed (Lewis,
2003). This can be difficult if global organisations were to adopt a segmented approach
to CSR branding, as suggested by Ginsberg and Bloom (2004), as different ranges of
responses to social issues would be communicated to different consumers. Would such
mixed messages confuse the market generally, and leave the organisation at risk of
accusations of inconsistency (Harrison, 2003)? Thus, segmented communication could
be used to identify hypocritical actions of marketers, at least in this case. Too much of a
CSR focus might alienate some consumer segments that are not oriented towards CSR,
although any alienation could be minimised in targeted communication where other
brand attributes, more salient to the segment are communicated.
Types of programs to use. There are many different approaches to integrating social
responsibility into branding actions globally and it is certainly more complex than
simple public relations (Frankental, 2001; Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005). There is of
course, widespread agreement in the academic and practitioner literature that any
programs should be integrated throughout the organisation and across activities
globally (Lewis, 2003; Knox and Maklan, 2004; Middlemiss, 2003; Polonsky and
Rosenberger, 2001; Sirgy, 2002; Werther and Chandler, 2005). The type of CSR program
would have different impacts. For example, Menon and Kahn (2003) found that
consumers were more positive to brands undertaking philanthropy where there was no
perception of self-interest by the organisation. Such non-congruent types of apparently
altruistic behaviours might be seen positively by consumers, but company
shareholders might have a different view. Indeed, Menon and Kahn (2004) also found Global branding
that cause-related marketing programs and the like were seen to have a greater benefit and strategic
on the organisation’s image was seen when there was a direct link to the organisation’s
activities. Some relevant connection should be made between the CSR action and the CSR
organisation, perhaps where appropriate following the suggestion of Ginsburg and
Bloom (2005) that the type of activities should vary dependent on the consumer
segment being targeted. 339
It is unclear how a global organisation should demonstrate CSR behaviour in
promotions. Some would suggest that it should be a core issue across all activities; that
is, social responsibility fits into everything and thus is a core plank of promotion as well
as all other activities of the global organisation. Others might see that CSR should be
applied tactically to only one or two of the organisation’s global activities, for example
having a cause related marketing campaign for one product or developing one brand
that is promoted as “green” to be targeted at a narrowly defined set of consumers,
perhaps with a link to other brands in the company’s portfolio. One example is the Prius
hybrid car, which comes under the Toyota brand and not a newly-coined one, as that
firm did with the introduction of its luxury Lexus range. As Menon and Kahn (2004)
found, the type of activity undertaken will make a difference in how it is perceived in the
market place. Global organisations seeking to leverage CSR should not be seen to be the
least bit exploitative. Activities that are perceived to be cynical, such as some of the
charitable activities associated with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or Hurricane
Katrina, could result in negative benefit accruing to the brands involved.
Implementation issues. Any implementation of CSR in promotion should be
undertaken in an integrated fashion throughout the global organisation in a
meaningful way (Bluementhal and Bergstorm, 2003; Dawkins and Lewis, 2003;
Middlemiss, 2003; Werther and Chandler, 2005). It has been suggested that there is a
fine line between what is acceptable and not acceptable (Lewis, 2003) and it is certainly
clear that balancing the needs of all stakeholders is a difficult task (Maio, 2003;
Zyglidopoulos, 2002).
Might it be the case that a global organisation undertaking CSR branding is in fact
holding itself up to a higher standard (Harrison, 2003), or at least perceived to be doing
this by stakeholders? If CSR is a core part of the brand then it is part of the underlying
set of attributes that consumers expect (Klein and Dawar, 2004) and therefore the
organisation is asking stakeholders to raise their expectations of the organisation’s
performance.
This is possibly a double-edged sword, as any performance gaps (i.e. situations
where expectations are not satisfied) will almost certainly result in higher levels of
dissatisfaction and criticism (Harrison, 2003) than if expectations had not been raised.
There would be few who would suggest that any brand positioned as responsible does
not deserve to be exposed when inconsistencies arise. On the other hand, should brands
making an honest effort to integrate socially responsible values be given more leeway
if problems arise than brands that do not even make such an attempt? Some research
suggests that consumers do this (Klein and Dawar, 2004; Williams and Barrettt, 2000).
Unfortunately, while recognising and rewarding those that make an effort to address
CSR issues of substance sounds nice in theory, in practice stakeholders concerned
about social issues would be unlikely to give offending organisations the benefit of the
doubt. For critics, exposing brand inconsistencies will be more newsworthy and thus
IMR generate more publicity for their issues. The tobacco industry and the arms trade are
some extreme examples here, and some less clear debates could be held about
26,3 automotive manufacturers, with manufacturers of hybrid cars also producing huge
SUV brands that are primarily for suburban use under the same brand name, as
previously discussed. One approach is to confront potential accusations of
inconsistency head-on, for example Shell (2007) describes how it is trying to become
340 a sustainable fossil fuel company by mitigating carbon dioxide emissions. While some
might argue about this definition of sustainability, some responsibility for Shell’s
actions is placed where it rightfully belongs – on the voracious demand from
consumers of its fossil fuel products.
The specific implementation of CSR promotion is something that should be
balanced with the necessary support should questions over the veracity of claims arise.
In addition global organisations should be aware that there will be those seeking to
catch out organisations that mislead the public. One outcome could be that CSR
activities are then downplayed, limiting the benefit of such claims, but also limiting
any risk of negative consequences.

Discussion and future research

By its very nature complexity in strategic CSR or other brand-related issues is a
difficult task to manage. The discussions in the previous sections have outlined the
broad issues that should be considered when deciding how to addressing CSR or to use
it strategically in CSR leveraged branding. However, what has not been proposed is a
process by which issues can be assessed and/or prioritised. There is limited discussion
in the literature about how organisations can assess the appropriate emphasis to give
to CSR in general, and what specific aspects should be considered both in terms of their
own priorities and those of their stakeholders. While stakeholder theorists have
generally proposed some generalised process for engagement with stakeholders
(Freeman, 1984; Werther and Chandler, 2005) no process has been explored in the
literature about evaluating these priorities for organisations (Polonsky and Scott,
2005). As such, research should be undertaken to better understand how organisations
make assessments about how they strategically use CSR in their corporate
philosophies. Such research probably should be qualitative in nature and should
focus on understating the systematic assessment of the areas of complexity as well as
how organisations make tradeoffs in line with corporate and stakeholder interests and
influence. Understanding these processes will be increasingly important for firms that
seek, or are required to seek, to integrate strategic CSR into overall brand and firm
philosophies. In terms of empirical propositions we suggest the following:
P1. Firms that better engage with their stakeholders will: more effectively
integrate CSR into corporate philosophy, and be viewed as more responsible
by stakeholders.
P2. The greater the variety of business environments that firms operate in, the
more critical individual stakeholder groups will be.
It is vital for organisations to understand the scope and breadth of CSR activities to be
addressed across the spread of their operations; this we term issue complexity.
Responsibility means different things to different stakeholders in different parts of the
world, and the types of actions perceived by stakeholders as socially responsible
may vary from context to context. This inconsistency can cause great confusion. Global branding
Stating a CSR position clearly can help a corporate brand provided that the statement and strategic
is backed up by demonstrable activity and not simply superficial PR. Issue complexity
potentially means that firms seeking to address all aspects of CSR will have more CSR
difficulty than those having more focused CSR positioning, simply because it will be
difficult to adequately address all issues to all stakeholders. Thus, we propose that:
P3. Firms that have focused CSR activities will be viewed more positively by
341
stakeholders than those that have more diffuse CSR positioning.
P4. Firms with separate well developed family brands, with different CSR
positions for each, will be perceived less negatively than firms that have
closely related brands with different positions.
We also address organizational complexity, the issues related to defining, managing
and communicating strategic CSR within an organization, which can be particularly
challenging to implement in a large global organization. Assessments of performance
can often be subjective, leading to unexpected variations, and the setting of objectively
measurable criteria can be artificial and may even become a subjective process in itself,
resulting in misleading outcomes. When this is combined with heterogeneous
stakeholder perceptions, the issues become even more complex:
P5. Organisations that have externally validated CSR activities will be viewed
more positively by stakeholders than firms which do not have external
validation.
P6. Global brands will have higher CSR standards associated with their
positioning than do local brands.
The complexity associated with implementation might possibly result in some brands
becoming more socially responsible but not using this in their brand communications
(Bold, 2003). There are in fact many brands that are taking on diverse social issues but
not actively using this in their brands’ positioning. For example, the Johnson and
Johnson medical products company has been making donations to the needy for over
100 years, and in 2006 donated over $500 million to various causes worldwide, but
historically has made relatively little effort to publicise this philanthropy. Could brands
like this be criticised by investors as not maximising brand and hence shareholder value
(Bold, 2003; Velaz et al., 2007)? They might, but this lack of leveraging social
responsibility might also reflect some concern on the part of organisations that using
CSR in their branding is potentially dangerous because of the different types of
complexity, even though there are increasing calls for all organisations to become CSR
focused as a form of brand insurance (Werther and Chandler, 2005). Thus, while there
are varying strategies and tools that can be utilised (Drumwright and Murphy, 2000;) as
well as levels in which to integrate it (Zollo, 2008) – strategic, quasi-strategic or tactical
(Menon and Menon, 1997) – the question of how to integrate strategic CSR into a
pre-existing global family brand and the associated marketing activities has not yet
been systematically evaluated. The research has clearly suggested that developing a
clear strategic CSR position is something that requires intensive integrated corporate
commitment (Lewis, 2003) which is embraced by senior management and implemented
across strategic and operational activities worldwide (Bluementhal and Bergstorm, 2003).
IMR If CSR activities are expected by all stakeholders (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003) then
26,3 perhaps irresponsibility is in fact the danger and organisations must keep the implied
“promises” that a variety of stakeholders may perceive they have made, whether overtly
or not (Kitchin, 2003). Proactive strategic CSR would therefore be essential as Werther
and Chandler (2005) suggest, although they do not suggest that it should necessarily be
actively leveraged:
342 P7. Firms that have undertaken planned, strategic and quasi-strategic CSR
activities will be viewed more positively by stakeholders than forms that have
only used CSR tactically and piecemeal.

Conclusion
In this paper, we introduced the three aspects of complexity in regards to strategic CSR
and global branding. We have summarised the types of complexity and associated
sub-issues in Table I, which also provides a brief definition and a hypothetical example
of how the issue might affect an organisation. Within the paper we have provided
additional examples as well. Table I highlights that organisations need to considered a
broad set of issues in regards to the determination of their strategic CSR activities and
positioning. While these are each listed as individual issues, there are of course,
linkages between issues that need to be understood. For example, the scope of issues
being considered will vary depending on the locations of organisational operations.
Thus, a petrochemical organisation operating in Australia and Indonesia may need to
explore how CSR issues within each country differ and then develop an overall
strategic CSR position that takes into consideration all facets of the complexities across
the two environments. In this way strategic CSR becomes like all marketing and
branding activities, a global function that has minor variations within each market.
Proactive organisations will meet the highest standards across all markets, thereby
eliminating the risk of criticism of considering one situation to be less worthy then
another (i.e. able to address it with lesser CSR standards).
In considering their approach to CSR branding, organisations should do more than
examine issues of complexity from the corporate perspective, but must consider how
other stakeholders view these issues (Zyglidopoulos, 2002). Looking at strategic CSR
through stakeholders’ eyes as well is critical, as external stakeholders may perceive
firms’ responsibilities to be broader then those self-defined by the firm. As such
strategic CSR will require regular systematic assessment of all aspects of the three
areas of complexity taking into consideration both corporate and stakeholder
assessments, for example see Tesco’s (2008) annual corporate responsibility review or
Kapelus’ (2002) discussion of Rio Tinto. Such activities require extensive engagement
with stakeholders. Unfortunately there is no one approach that can be suggested to
achieve this engagement (Freeman, 1984) and a range of different processes have been
suggested in the literature (for example, Bluementhal and Bergstorm, 2003).
Effective strategic CSR, however leveraged, requires extensive and careful
investment on the part of the firm. Organisations not only need to undertake activities
in a responsible way, but also need to understand how their activities are viewed by
stakeholders. Leveraging CSR strategy in branding explicitly means that CSR is a core
part of the global brand and the associated activities that communicate brand
characteristics. If it is a core global business activity (Bhattacharya et al., 2004) and not
simply PR hype (Frankental, 2001), then it is words that are supported by action.
Type Definition Example

Issue
Social issues Determination of the scope of issues to be considered in Poverty, environment, health, animal rights, child welfare,
global organisation CSR activities is diverse etc.
Heterogeneity Determination of the specific definition of issues within aEnvironmental issues contain a cross-section of issues-
social area to be considered is varied biodiversity, salinity, global warming, endangered species,
etc.
Measurement Agreement on the appropriateness of metrics to be used to There are a variety of measures of environmental
assess performance can be difficult performance, which are viewed differently
Interpretation Determination of what level of performance is “acceptable” Specification of a living wage in developing countries may
is dependent on stakeholders’ interpretation be viewed as acceptable by some and unacceptable by others
Organisation
Corporate brand Determining the degree to which CSR is a core platform of Manufactures that have CSR as foundation of brand, as
the organisational identity compared to those that adopt CSR as “additional” value for
positioning
Multiple products and Different brands may be positioned differently causing Car firms producing hybrid automobiles while continuing to
brands confusion in some consumers mind produce four-wheel drives
Site and functional activities International activities spanning national boundaries face Firms complying with environmental standards in
different sets of regulatory environments that must be dealt developed countries, where the requirements may be lower
with
Supply chain management Expectations on global firms that they are “responsible” for Clothing manufactures who contract out activities to
CSR activities of suppliers offshore organisations who do not comply with
manufactures codes of conduct
Communication
Intensity of positioning The degree to which CSR is leverage in global Some global firms clearly embed CSR as a branding activity,
communication activities will vary where as others include as an “afterthought”
Communicating actions The type of information provided will vary across activities Global organisations may try and segment customers on
CSR, confusing brand identity
Types of programs to use The type of tactical activities undertaken may communicate Using sponsorship, cause related marketing of corporate
different information foundations to support activities provides different
information
Implementation issues The degree to which integrated marketing communication is Stakeholder expectations are raised with CSR activity,
consistently delivering the same message which needs to be consistently supported across activities
and communications
Global branding
and strategic

Types of complexity
CSR

343

Table I.
IMR There must be a long-term commitment to strategic CSR activities which, again, must
26,3 be supported at senior management level, taking into consideration the issues that are
salient to the brands’ stakeholders in various markets. There also must be resources to
support actions and measure performance (Dawkins and Lewis, 2003; Middlemiss,
2003; Waddock and Badwell, 2004; Werther and Chandler, 2005). These resources are
also required for the development of effective monitoring of corporate activities,
344 changes in stakeholders’ expectations and changes in the underlying CSR issues. All of
this must then be effectively communicated, whether it be in advertising, annual
reports or ongoing stakeholder dialogue. All these processes need to consider the three
areas of complexity and as such must have a broader strategic focus, rather than
simply being seen as a promotional activity. Thus, strategic CSR will increasingly be
seen to be something that is not optional, but expected (Werther and Chandler, 2005).
Those businesses that better understand how to develop strategic CSR brand
leveraging taking into account the three areas of complexity described here will have
an advantage over those that do not.

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