Discussion
This article set out to explore how a Danish CSR frontrunner and its organizational stakeholders approach, practice and perceive CSR as shared value. Although the notion of CSR as shared value is recognized globally, the article addresses the importance of considering the institutional context in which the company operates (Halme et al. 2009; Geard 2014; Jamali & Sidani 2012; Jamali et al. 2015; Arenas & Ayso 2016). Scholars (Strand et al. 2015; Strand & Freeman 2015) suggest that the Scandinavian context provides a promising research venue for exploring a cooperative approach to CSR as shared value calling for more research on the organizational practice of this particular Scandinavian approach (Strand et al. 2015: 13). Accordingly, the present study contributes to the existing but limited research by exploring how a Danish CSR frontrunner and its internal stakeholders translate and practice the notion of CSR as shared value. Rather, than prioritizing one level over the other, the study highlights the nuanced importance that needs to be accorded to the interrelationship between the societal (macro), organizational (meso) and individual (micro) level (Frynas & Yamahaki 2016; Besharov & Smith 2014; Thorton & Ocasio 2008; Bansal & Roth).
First, the study provides insights into how the institutional logics from the wider social context are manifest and elaborated by the organization and its internal stakeholders. Following the research question set forth in this article, the study has shown how the focal company approaches CSR as shared value by employing a cooperative language that attempts to equate the logics of business and ethics. This approach to CSR as shared value can be seen as partially mediated by the broader institutional context as the political institutions at EU and national level are actively engaged in promoting cooperation and mutually beneficial value creation (Strand et al. 2015; Vallentin 2015). Thus, employing the cooperative language to CSR as shared value can arguably be considered as a way to respond to the political institutions shaping the norms of CSR in order to gain legitimacy in the external environment (Meyer & Rowan 1977). Institutional contradictions may potentially threaten the organizational coherence (Kraatz & Block 2008) meaning that that the organization needs to manage the institutional contradictions surrounding them by combining, integrating or separating institutional logics within their policies (Bjerregaard & Lauring 2913: 134). Thus.
Arla is arguably using its corporate identity ‘Good Growth’ as a key mechanism for integrating the potential contradictions created by the pressures of the institutional environment (Suddaby et al. 2007). Thus, the formulation of the corporate identity in terms of ‘Good Growth’ can been seen as a way of managing the competing institutional logics of business and ethics in order to prevent potential tensions from the institutional environment (Battilana & Dorado 2010; Battilana et al. 2011). Institutional scholars refer to organizations that employ more than two institutional logics within the organizational core as ‘hybrids’ organizations (Battilana & Dorado 2010; Beasharov & Smith 2014). The study demonstrated how the corporate discourse sought to encompass competing institutional with the articulated purpose of creating shared value (i.e. market opportunities and new solutions to the societal challenge of malnutrition). The organizational stakeholders, on the other hand, suggested that the competing institutional logics might potentially challenge the organization in that the logic of business was core in the actual organizational practice, while the logic of ethics was peripheral.
Second, the study adds to existing research by illuminating that gaps between the corporate discourse and the practice of CSR as shared value may occur (Jamali 2010b; Bjerregaard & Lauring 2013). The analysis articulated the existence of gaps between the corporate discourse and the organizational practice: An outside-in vs. an inside-out approach to CSR as shared value; equating vs. balancing the logics of business and ethics; and a co-creation vs. a transaction perspective on the stakeholder collaboration. Meyer and Rowan (1977) characterize such gaps between discourse (symbolic) and organizational practice (actual) as decoupling arguing that they provide a means of managing institutional contradictions. Decoupling of corporate discourse and practice has received a lot of academic attention within the CSR research field. While most research on CSR addresses the gap between corporate discourse and practice as challenging (e.g. May et al. 2007), recent work by Haack et al. (2012) and Christensen et al. (2013) suggest that such gaps can be considered as productive improving and raising the standards of CSR practices. The latter group of scholars considers thus Meyer and Rowan’s conception of decoupling as too static. Rather, Haack et al. (2012) suggest the social constructivist tradition (Berger & Luckmann 1967) and Meyer and Rowan’s (1977) decoupling argument can be reconciled by ‘acknowledging that decoupling between corporate discourse and activities may be subject to coupling processes due to the transformative impact of communicative interaction and negotiation’ (Haack et al. 2012: 835). Thus, previous studies on the constitutive impact of language within CSR (e.g. Basu & Palazzo 2008; Christensen et al. 2011; Haack et al. 2012) suggest that ‘talking the talk’ can be consequential as it forces the organization and its internal stakeholders to address inconsistency between actual and idealized reality. Arla CDK’s internal stakeholders’ acknowledgement of the importance of balancing the logic of business and ethics emphasize their agentive role and contribution in the discursive construction of CSR as shared value.
Third, the study speaks to call for research on the role of the internal stakeholders’ subjective interpretations of the process of institutionalization (Suddaby et al. 2007). The study demonstrated that the organizational stakeholders did not passively adopt the available institutional logics of business and ethics but rather interpreted, combined and challenged the institutional logics in accordance with their own individual context, interests and agendas. The organizational stakeholders were arguably influenced by their functional background, professional experience, and prior experience (Beasharov and Smith 2014) in their interpretation of malnutrition as an issue related to shared value creation. Consequently, the study illustrated that while the organizational distribution of the logics of business and ethics were primarily integrated, the internal stakeholders’ distribution of logics were both integrated and differentiated reflecting the institutional complexity surrounding CSR as shared value.
Overall, the study presented in this article responds to a call for research on whether companies with Scandinavian country of origin are likely to employ cooperative language and a cooperative strategic approach to CSR (Strand & Freemann 2015). The study showed that adopting an explicit and cooperative approach to CSR as shared value is far from being a straightforward process as indicated by the existing research. Rather, the study demonstrated that the organizational practice of CSR as shared value is based on complex discursive processes of balancing, bridging or equating coexisting and competing institutional logics of business and ethics. Accordingly, it can be argued that despite the broad institutional consensus of CSR as shared value, research needs to embrace heterogeneous implementation of CSR as shared value emphasizing the importance that needs to be accorded to the organizational context in such analyses. The study presented in this article provides a fruitful starting point for exploring the discursive construction of the organizational practice of CSR as shared value.
Conclusion and implications
The notion of CSR as shared value has gained considerable attention in business and research. Scholars have increasingly demonstrated how CSR as shared value is translated and adapted to other institutional contexts such as the Scandinavian context. Framed within an institutional logic approach and based on a single case study of a Danish CSR frontrunner, the article has critically explored how the organization and the organizational stakeholders approach, practice and perceive CSR as shared value. Following a discourse-based approach, the study has demonstrated that translating CSR as shared value into practice is far from being a straightforward process. It is a challenging and rather complex discursive process of balancing, bridging or equating logics of business and ethics in accordance with the specific institutional, organizational and individual context. On this basis, it can be argued that although Scandinavian companies might hold increasingly homogenous discourses about CSR as shared value (Strand et al. 2015; Strand & Freeman 2015), the organizational practices are not necessarily accordingly homogenous. Accordingly, it
is suggested that there might not be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to CSR as shared value in a Scandinavian context, as the process is influenced by the specific organizational context in which companies operate (Haack et al. 2012). On this basis, the discursive process of balancing, bridging and equating competing institutional logics of CSR as shared value calls for a more nuanced and critical understanding of how Scandinavian companies translate their cooperative language and strategies of CSR as shared value into practice than suggested by existing literature.
The study suggests new paths for research of the organizational practice of CSR as shared value. Future research may benefit from exploring how the institutional logics of CSR as shared value manifest and relate to one another within organizations in order to gain a nuanced understanding of the organizational practice of CSR as shared value within an Scandinavian context. The contextualized case study approach adopted in this article may raise questions of whether the empirical insights generated can be generalized to broader contexts (Thomas 2011). Accordingly, future research is encouraged to conduct qualitative discourse-based studies of the processes by which Scandinavian companies and their internal stakeholders are interpreting and attaching meaning to the practice of CSR as shared value.
The Scandinavian cooperative approach to CSR as shared value describes ‘a willingness and ability to cooperate’ (Strand & Freeman 2015: 66) meaning that the role and perceptions of the external stakeholders may provide new interesting insights into the organizational practice of shared value creation. Future research could possibly benefit from including studies of the NGO-business relationship and how the NGO’s may exert discursive power (den Hond and de Bakker 2007; Haack et al. 2012) that challenges the institutional logics among the organizational stakeholders and thereby influencing the organizational practice of CSR as shared value.
Finally, the conceptual insights derived from this article have certain managerial implications for the organizational practices of CSR as shared value among Scandinavian companies. The cooperative approach to CSR as shared value calls for a reflexive CSR managerial practice that is able to facilitate the multiple institutional logics among internal stakeholders. However, a reflexive practice needs to address the coexisting and competing discourses used by the organization and its internal stakeholders asking questions such as: How do we talk about CSR as shared value? What are the meanings and narratives constituting CSR as shared value internally and externally? Most importantly, what organization and its stakeholders need to ask themselves is: What are we not talking about and why? This type of reflexive process could possibly frame a more critical and open discussion of the motivations for engaging external stakeholders in shared value creation including the expected (shared and individual) outcome(s). Moreover, it might also highlight the need for disclosing individual agendas and expectations towards the external environment and hereby contribute to a more nuanced discussion of the role of business in society.