Alessandra De Chiara

CSR, innovation strategy and supply chain management: toward an integrated perspective

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a dominant theme in business and literature. Many studies speak about corporate social innovation and considered companies facing with additional goals that are innovation and CSR. The research aim of this work starts to look at the relationship among CSR and innovation as a value-creating process which occur in a networks and relational context. Based on this we want to obtain insights about the role of network and the way in which stakeholders can be involved in corporate responsible innovation of products and processes.

Eco-labeled Products: Trend or Tools for Sustainability Strategies?

AbstractThe paper offers a point of view on credibility of eco-labeled products, analyzing the relationships among company’s sustainable strategy, eco-label and no-financial reports. Based on a cross-sector study of 109 companies with the EU-Eco-label licenses in Italy, the paper points out different behaviors among the companies investigated and explains the leadership of Italy in the number of these licenses. However, the paper underlines that the use of sustainability tools is not always matched to the explanation of companies’ sustainable strategies. The study identifies the significant drivers for the management of eco-label within a sustainability strategy, drawing attention to the weight, and the hierarchical level of different decisions about sustainability. This study contributes to strengthening the understanding, promoting a discussion on the use of eco-label and on its value, and describing a desirable behavior that any company should tend in order to nourish the credibility that is an essential aspect for building strong associations with the brand.

Cultural Issues and Supply Chain Sustainability of Multinational Companies

This chapter aims at further exploring the role of cultural factors in the sustainability management of MNCs’ supply chain. In more depth, the study seeks to identify to what extent the dimensions of culture can significantly lead MNCs to adopt a more sustainable approach for their supply chains. A content analysis of CSR reports of companies operating in the automotive industry has been conducted. The analysis sheds light on MNCs’ sustainability practices and the interaction with suppliers while providing an insight into sociocultural issues considered as being central in managing supply chain sustainability. The results of our study confirm the marginal role of cultural variables in this respect, although a change in MNCs’ patterns can be noted.

Research Methodology and Results

This chapter provides an insight into Italian districts from empirical research that finds its justification in the current unbundling of productive processes and the nature of the economic tissue characterised by the almost exclusive practice of SMEs in highly specialised production areas, known as industrial districts. The strong tie to the socio-cultural features of the region (milieu), would enable districts to foster the sustainable development of local community, and through the implementation of viable business practices enhance their local resources so as to give life to ‘unique and irreplaceable’ competitive models. The survey has been conducted with eight production centres of the typical ‘made in Italy’ supply chains in Campania, a region of southern Italy. The methodology/approach has relied on the analysis of public sources available, as well as on a number of direct interviews with the representatives of both districts and production centres.

The Territory and Business Competitiveness

This chapter examines the various theoretical approaches on the existent and mutually interdependent relationship between the territory and its businesses. More specifically, it analyses the contribution of classical economy, the theory of business clusters, international marketing and territorial marketing researches in order to assess the value of the territory for business competitiveness. Ultimately, by placing emphasis on the increasing belief that the territory is one of the key factors for strengthening the business competitive advantage, studies on this topic seek to establish that there are different ways for a territory to be competitive and various alternatives to create competitiveness. The chapter also investigates the valuable contributions of economic actors to the welfare of the community and explains how economic competitiveness/social compatibility and social wellbeing/economic wealth are inseparable pairs. By focusing on small-sized enterprises, of great importance is the mutually interdependent relationship between economy and society that becomes even more relevant when the economic system embraces the world of small businesses.

Principles and Tools to Manage Clusters Sustainability

This chapter covers the major role of engagement in the decision-making process and its indisputable value in the implementation of strategies and management tools to achieve sustainable development. Different theoretical views on this topic have been investigated: the proposed model considers engagement as the foundation of modern knowledge as well as a means to develop cognitive capabilities by focusing on the individual subjective sphere through intentionality processes and, on the social and collective dimension, through interaction processes. With this view, technology advances identify in ICTs the perfect tools to maximise interaction mechanisms and ease knowledge sharing processes with society. This chapter also identifies the need to provide resources and adequate means to ensure the efficacy and efficiency of engagement in a clustering-based approach: it offers an insight on the selection of partners and group composition, the governance, the adoption of codes of conduct, communication and coordination tools. The analysis further extends to examine the different forms of co-produced governance including the collaboration of a large set of actors and the important role of multi-stakeholder committees, with special emphasis on the informal role of engagement that should embrace well-defined collaborative approaches to deliver tangible results.

Industrial District Sustainability and Local Development: Proposals for Institutional Bodies

The final part of this book tackles the supporting role of public institutions in the sustainability management of business clusters and production centres. In this respect, the chapter calls on local authorities to take steps to find the right balance between legislation and the promotion of sustainable actions to the benefit of clusters/production centres and the local community alike. In so doing, the industrial policy should enhance cluster production traditions and their local distinctive expertise in order to create ‘unique’ models, which, as part of the cultural heritage of the region, would contribute to the social and economic development of the community while boosting their competitive advantage on a global level. The chapter concludes by introducing potential courses of action institutions could embrace for developing and strengthening clustering-based approaches in SMEs, as well as implementing viable policies in full support of the sustainable competitive model.

Levels of Sustainability in Industrial Districts and Production Centres in Campania

The chapter shows the results of an empirical research conducted with six production centres and two industrial districts of the Made in Italy supply chains in the Campania region, namely the food, the fashion (textile, footwear, tannery) and the jewellery sectors. The research objective was to examine the state of the districts’ sustainability policies consistent with the ISO 26000 guidelines, the network project procedures, the underlying reasons and achieved results for the internal and external stakeholders. It also highlights the major role of public policy and local institutions for the implementation of sustainability projects in both production centres and industrial districts.

Social Capital and Sustainability Strategies

The chapter identifies in social capital the strategic resource for the implementation of sustainability strategies in small- and medium-sized enterprises. The relational nature, typical of these actors, has drawn attention to social capital and emphasised its significant strategic role, which, with a responsible view, would enable these actors to reinforce their relational resources. Relationships are thus vital connectors and the stakeholder engagement amongst the best viable approaches to sustainability development in small-sized enterprises. The chapter covers a literary review on the concept of corporate social responsibility and identifies the distinctive features of the sustainability strategy while describing business advantages and stakeholders’ benefits. It is highly important for a SME to be part of a network or a business cluster considering their amplifying impact on relationship-building strategies. Supply chains, clusters and local systems are thereby privileged survey units especially in the view of the growing productive processes de-verticalisation and the Italian economic and productive tissue primarily characterised by small and medium-sized entities. Through an overall review of literature, the chapter investigates the concept of sustainability in these networks, from their conceptions to the underlying motivations and conditions for success. It also identifies the need to establish a link between business social capital, productive systems competitiveness and institutions in order to create to “unique” sustainable networks bearing the economic and cultural characteristics of their local contexts.

Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainability Innovation: Experiences in the Jewellery Business

The chapter aims to study engagement as the basis for innovative projects that respond to an objective of social and environmental sustainability and describes the multi-stakeholder committee as the ideal container for realizing such engagement. The chapter explores the experience of the Ethics Committee of Coloured Gemstones, by Assogemme, in Italy. The goal of the Committee is to define “a procedural code concerning the production and marketing of the coloured gemstones in accordance with the principles of ethical conduct”. The stakeholder engagement approach and the founding of a multi-stakeholder committee for the creation of ethical guidelines are widespread in the jewellery business, which presents many ethical problems: child labour, environmental havoc and social inequality. But the case analysed is the first experience in the coloured gemstone jewellery industry, which is characterized by a plurality of ethical aspects related to the variety of these gemstones. The study of this Committee, which is engaged in the challenge to create a sustainable innovation process, a managerial system for the traceability of jewellery products made with coloured gemstones, underlines opportunities and problems of the stakeholder engagement approach.