Senior management mindsets for corporate social responsibility

Abstract

Despite the large amount of factual data on senior management’s significant role in achieving corporate social responsibility (CSR), little effort has been devoted to shed light on the CSR decision-making process and the managerial mindsets that drive it. To fill this gap in CSR research, this study explores the CSR decision-making process and senior management mindsets regarding CSR, inductively prompted by the CSR literature and a qualitative study. This study offers a conceptual model of socially responsible decision-making based on the Doctus knowledge-based system. The model is empirically analyzed and verified through semi-structured interviews with CSR experts. Further, an inductive examination of the qualitative data using individual-level analysis revealed three different mindsets of senior management towards CSR: conformist, self-interested, and shareholder satisfaction/profit-driven mindsets.

Keywords

• corporate social responsibility
• decision-making model
• mindsets.