François Maon

Developing supply chains in disaster relief operations through cross‐sector socially oriented collaborations: a theoretical model

This study seeks to provide insights into corporate achievements in supply chain management (SCM) and logistics management and to detail how they might help disaster agencies. The authors aim to highlight and identify current practices, particularities, and challenges in disaster relief supply chains. Both SCM and logistics management literature and examples drawn from real-life cases inform the development of the theoretical model. The theoretical, dual-cycle model that focuses on the key missions of disaster relief agencies: first, prevention and planning and, second, response and recovery. Three major contributions are offered: a concise representation of current practices and particularities of disaster relief supply chains compared with commercial SCM; challenges and barriers to the development of more efficient SCM practices, classified into learning, strategising, and coordinating and measurement issues; and a simple, functional model for understanding how collaborations between corporations and disaster relief agencies might help relief agencies meet SCM challenges. The study does not address culture-clash related considerations. Rather than representing the entire scope of real-life situations and practices, the analysis relies on key assumptions to help conceptualise collaborative paths. The study provides specific insights into how corporations might help improve the SCM practices by disaster relief agencies that continue to function without SCM professional expertise, tools, or staff. The paper shows that sharing supply chain and logistics expertise, technology, and infrastructure with relief agencies could be a way for corporations to demonstrate their good corporate citizenship. Collaborations between corporations and disaster agencies offer significant potential benefits.

Strategically Leveraging Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is changing the rules of branding but it is unclear how. While the literature offers a range of approaches seeking insight to how to manage CSR-related issues, practitioners are left in a state of confusion when having to decide on how to tackle CSR in a way that benefits both the corporate brand and society at large. Based on qualitative empirical research, this article offers a framework for companies to address CSR and their brands strategically, whether as entrepreneurs, performers, vocal converts, or quietly conscientious. We define these categories according to the level of involvement, integration, and the key initiator of the CSR focus. This article concludes with suggestions practitioners should keep in mind when aiming to balance stakeholder tensions and to achieve consistency in their corporate branding and CSR efforts.

Strategically leveraging corporate social responsibility to the benefit of company and society: a corporate branding perspective

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is changing the rules of branding but it is unclear how. While the literature offers a range of approaches seeking insight to how to manage CSR-related issues, practitioners are left in a state of confusion when having to decide on how to tackle CSR in a way that benefits both the corporate brand and society at large. Based on qualitative empirical research, this article offers a framework for companies to address CSR and their brands strategically, whether as entrepreneurs, performers, vocal converts, or quietly conscientious. We define these categories according to the level of involvement, integration, and the key initiator of the CSR focus. This article concludes with suggestions practitioners should keep in mind when aiming to balance stakeholder tensions and to achieve consistency in their corporate branding and CSR efforts.

Corporate social responsibility brand leadership: a multiple case study

Purpose – The purpose of this empirical case study is to apply several existing frameworks to consider the notion of integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) with a brand leadership strategy. The investigation focuses on two main questions: What are the core components for the development of a CSR brand? What capabilities are necessary to implement a CSR‐related brand strategy?Design/methodology/approach – Five firms provide input for a multiple case‐based approach.Findings – Intuitive and intended approaches for CSR brand leadership emerge from the multiple case study results. Different capabilities are required at each stage of the development and implementation process for CSR brand leadership.Research limitations/implications – This research extends three prior studies – Aaker and Joachimsthalers brand leadership framework, Maon et al.s proposed integrative framework for designing and implementing CSR, and Beverland et al.s capabilities view on the development of global brand leadership – ...

Unknown Knowns and Known Unknowns: Framing the Role of Organizational Learning in Corporate Social Responsibility Development

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now widely seen as an increasingly significant concern for firms because of moral, relational and instrumental motives. Nevertheless, practical aspects and challenges associated with CSR development in firms remains only partially understood. In this setting, the organizational learning (OL) discipline is recurrently put forward as key in the pursuit and successful development of CSR, but the existing literature remains disjointed. This study critically reviews the existing literature to conceptualize how research to date has approached CSR development in terms of OL, and to provide a two-dimensional structuring framework of the role of OL in CSR development that emphasizes key OL-related aspects supporting CSR development and goes beyond an organization-centric viewpoint to consider not only learning within the organization, but also from others, and with others. In particular, the authors identify key learning processes and sub-processes and critical areas that remain understudied. Overall, the authors propose a macro view of the work done to date at the intersection of OL and CSR, and in doing so help make the ‘OL for CSR development’ scholarship more recognizable as a sub-discipline.

Mainsteaming Corporate Social Responsibility: A Triadic Challenge from a General Management Perspective

Based upon an examination of CSR initiatives of approximately 75 companies, this study examines how programs of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are designed, implemented, and monitored. Specifically, three key and interconnected challenges, which should be considered when companies embed CSR in their organizational processes, are identified: an action challenge, an activation challenge, and an aspiration challenge (referred to as the ‘3A framework for mainstreaming CSR in a company’). The objectives for mainstreaming CSR can be reached through the combination and interplay between the development of societal understanding and ongoing dialogue and engagement between the company and its stakeholders; the presence and maintenance of relevant skills and competencies at the various levels of the company; and CSR-related capacities linked to the existence of actual CSR leadership within the company.

Communicating corporate social responsibility in the digital era

Although literature on corporate social responsibility is vast, research into the use and effectiveness of various communications through digital platforms about such corporate responsibility is scarce. This gap is surprising; communicating about corporate social responsibility initiatives is vital to organizations that increasingly highlight their corporate social responsibility initiatives to position their corporate brands for both consumers and other stakeholders. Yet these organizations still sometimes rely on traditional methods to communicate, or even decide against communicating at all, because they fear triggering stakeholders’ skepticism or cynicism. A systematic, interdisciplinary examination of corporate social responsibility communication through digital platforms, therefore, is necessary, to establish an essential defi nition and up-to-date picture of the field. This research anthology addresses the above objectives. Drawing on marketing, management, and communication disciplines, among others, this anthology examines how organizations construct, implement, and use digital platforms to communicate about their corporate social responsibility and thereby achieve their organizational goals. The 21 chapters in this anthology reflect six main topic sections: • Challenges and opportunities for communicating corporate social responsibility through digital platforms. • Moving toward symmetry and interactivity in digital corporate social responsibility communication. • Fostering stakeholder engagement in and through digital corporate social responsibility communication. • Leveraging effective digital corporate social responsibility communication. • Digital activism and corporate social responsibility. • Digital methodologies and corporate social responsibility.

From Eastern dawn to Northern lights: A comparative analysis of CSR implementation practices across Europe

While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a subject of discussion in business and academia in North America for quite a while, the questions pertaining to business and society relationships have only fairly recently started to be thoroughly examined and dealt with under a CSR lens per se in other geographical and institutional contexts around the world. European actors in particular only took hold of the concept in the last two decades. CSR nevertheless rapidly gained unprecedented momentum within European industry, politics and academia (Matten and Moon, 2004), to the extent that CSR is now widely seen as “an idea whose time has come in Europe” (Wolf, 2002).