Jette Steen Knudsen

Sustainable competitiveness in global value chains: how do small Danish firms behave?

Purpose – Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have increasingly become integrated into global value chains, where they face social and environmental requirements from multinational buyers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of SMEs with respect to sustainable supply chain management in global value chains.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from a survey of sustainable supply chain management practices among 300 Danish SMEs, the paper discusses the concept of governance in global value chains. The paper addresses two questions: first, to what extent are SMEs affected by social and environmental requirements from buyers? Second, to what extent do SMEs apply such requirements to their own suppliers?Findings – The paper concludes that SMEs face requirements from their buyers much more frequently than they apply such requirements to their own suppliers. Also many buyer requirements in the value chain seem to be latent in that they are neither contractual nor subject to verification. The ...

article Government policies for corporate social responsibility in Europe: a comparative analysis of institutionalisation

This paper analyses policies of 22 European Union member governments, designed to encourage corporate social responsibility (CSR) between 2000 and 2011. It categorises these policies by their regulatory strength and identifies the range of issues to which CSR policies are directed. The paper argues that Northern European, Scandinavian and UK governments are reconstructing their respective institutional structures to embed CSR concerns more explicitly therein. It concludes that these government CSR initiatives are converging, particularly around their increased regulatory strength and the broadening of their issue application. Policies in Mediterranean and the former communist countries do not reflect increasing institutionalisation.

Why governments intervene: Exploring mixed motives for public policies on corporate social responsibility

Why are national governments increasingly adopting policies on corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Government CSR policies have been explained either as a means of substituting or supporting (mirroring) domestic political-economic institutions and policies, or as a means for government to promote international competitiveness of domestic businesses. Both sets of explanations see governments as driving CSR policies to meet particular national government goals. Support is found for the thesis that CSR policies are often related to international competitiveness, yet our findings suggest that government goals in this regard are not necessarily pre-defined.

Domestic Institutions and Market Pressures as Drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility: Company Initiatives in Denmark and the UK

In recent research, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by companies with a home base in different countries have been explained in terms of their relation to national institutions or business systems. This set of explanations sees CSR as fitting in with domestic institutional structures by either ‘substituting’ or ‘mirroring’ national models of capitalism. An alternative set of explanations views company CSR programmes as determined by market pressures. We examine the role of domestic institutions and market pressure as drivers of CSR through an evaluation of the content of company CSR initiatives revealed in their external reporting. We conduct case studies of two large British companies (Glaxo Smith Kline and Barclays) as well as two large Danish companies (Novo Nordisk and Danske Bank). We find that market pressures rather than domestic institutions determine the content of company CSR programmes.

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Board Room – When do Directors Pay Attention?

When do board directors pay attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues? Board directors have traditionally focused on maximizing shareholder profit and viewed corporate governance narrowly as a way to meet this goal. They have paid little or no attention to CSR issues because they see CSR as a contrast to profit maximization. We argue in this article that companies can no longer ignore CSR. We propose that three conditions must be met in order for boards to pay attention to CSR. First, the board must have a mind-set that considers CSR as contributing value to the firm. Second, the board must have relevant competences that enable members to understand CSR issues. Third, compensation of top level management should reflect CSR performance. The first two conditions are directly linked to human resource development (HRD) because in order to embrace the specific challenges that CSR possesses, board members must develop an understanding of the CSR field and related challenges and opportunities for the company.

Winning the battle or losing the war: the impact of European integration on labour market institutions in Germany and Denmark

ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) literature sees increasing market liberalization as a challenge for models of national capitalism. EU liberalization, it is argued, erodes national employment regimes and social protection. However, other scholars highlight the ability of national institutions to reinvent themselves. This contribution assesses these claims by exploring an extreme case of labour market pressure driven by EU liberalization. Focusing on the meat production sector, it shows that low-wage labour migration has affected employment conditions in the meat production sector in Germany and Denmark in different ways: dualization has made Germany a destination country for low-wage work; in contrast, union solidarity in Denmark has kept wages high and Danish meat producers have outsourced work to Germany. The underlying industrial relations systems have shaped actors’ responses to the use of migrant labour.

The Global Reporting Initiative in Denmark: Emperor’s New Clothes or Useful Reporting Tool?

In his 1776 magisterial An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Adam Smith argued that personal self-interest combined with ‘a certain propensity in human nature … to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another’ (Adam Smith 1976: 25) had resulted in the division of labour that according to Smith was the cause of the great improvement at his time of the productive powers of labour. Today the prevailing understanding of the role of business in society has changed. Business operating in less developed countries is increasingly held accountable for the protection of human rights, labour, the environment, etc., and therefore seeks to increase transparency on corporate action with respect to these issues. A range of certificates and auditing procedures has emerged in the name of the triple bottom line and sustainability accounting, which goes beyond financial accounting to include social and environmental performance. Much time, effort and money are spent producing these reports. Are these initiatives useful new reporting tools or are they akin to the emperor’s new clothes as part of a corporate image campaign?

Private sector career trajectories for women in Denmark and the USA: Welfare state services versus corporate diversity programmes

According to welfare state theories, women pursuing high-level careers benefit from access to maternity-leave programmes and child care. Yet this is not the complete picture. While theories exploring public policy highlight the contribution of welfare services to the relative productivity of women compared to men, these theories should be complemented with a focus on conditions internal to the firm and in particular the organization of human resources. I focus on IT and pharmaceutical firms in the USA and Denmark, and show that US companies manage compliance by setting clear goals for gender diversity while this is not the case in Denmark. Furthermore, US subsidiaries in Denmark view the US paradigm of equality of outcome as more attractive than the Danish paradigm of equality of opportunity. The Danish welfare state is increasingly seen by human resource managers as inadequate when it comes to promoting female managers in the private sector.

How Do Domestic Regulatory Traditions Shape CSR in Large International US and UK Firms

This article examines corporate social responsibility (CSR) pertaining to labor standards in apparel and tax transparency in extractives and explores how domestic regulatory traditions shape CSR in large international US and UK firms. Reflecting their more collaborative business-government traditions, British firms are more willing to join international CSR multi-stakeholder initiatives with business-critical actors such as unions and civil society actors. The US has a more top-down regulatory approach, which promotes hard law international CSR or encourages business-driven voluntary CSR initiatives. This article makes three contributions. First, it argues that while corporations are the key actors in international CSR, their behavior reflects their respective national business systems. Second, focusing on a range of international CSR initiatives, this article finds that UK firms are more interested in adopting international (multi-stakeholder) CSR initiatives than US firms. Finally, the article shows that the US and the UK governments play a key role in driving an international CSR agenda, and in doing this it highlights government agency more so than other research has.

Many Ways to Rome: Exogenous and Endogenous CSR Pathways to Environmental and Social Performance

While many would agree that the reason-to-be of corporate social responsibility is the expected positive effects on the sustainability performance of business, there is little empirical evidence of outcomes of CSR for the natural environment or society. Meanwhile, little is known about how external drivers, internal CSR policies, strategies, management practices, and combinations thereof influence corporate environmental and social performance. In order to address this gap, in this paper we conduct case studies of 19 companies and seek to identify which configurations of internal and external conditions shape social and environmental performance. In other words we ask which combinations of institutional constraints and organizational practices influence social and environmental performance. Is the effectiveness of one organizational element dependent on the presence or absence of another such internal element? Or is the presence of an organizational CSR practice effective only in conjunction with an external factor such as government regulation or market pressure? The two institutional constraints we include in our analysis are external (market and legislative) pressure and form of ownership, while the three organizational practices chosen for our analysis are the level of organization of CSR, the level of use of environmental and social management tools, and the level of strategic integration of CSR. With organizational configurations in mind (e.g. Grandori & Furnari, 2008; Fiss, 2007), we do not expect to find only one configuration of institutional constraints and organizational CSR practices leading to positive (or negative) environmental and social performance, but investigate if multiple pathways lead to similar outcomes in terms of environmental and social performance (Aoki, 2001). In this paper we ask the following question: “Which institutional constraints and organizational CSR practices and combinations thereof contribute to the environmental and social performance of companies?�? We define CSR as company activities to integrate environmental, social and long-term economic concerns in business operations and in interactions with stakeholders, and the impacts of company’s operations to society (cf. Dahlsrud, 2008; COM, 2006; COM 2011). We focus on environmental and social outcomes of firm activity (see also Kang, 2013; Luo and Bhattacharya, 2009; Schuler and Cording, 2006; Waddock and Graves, 1997; Wood, 2010). We view social and environmental outcomes as encompassing both company performance and the impact of company activities for society. Social CSR includes items such as the quality of jobs, work life balance, job security, diversity, wage equality and gender equality. Environmental CSR include activities to combat climate change, protect national resources and pollution reduction.