Does corporate social responsibility put reputation at risk by inviting activist targeting? An empirical test among European SMEs.
Graafland,Johan
Graafland,Johan
Abstract
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is believed to improve a company’s reputation. However,CSR may also put reputation at risk by making the company a more attractive target for activists’campaigns. We test this effect on a sample of 1355 European small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs). We find that CSR increases the future probability that an SME’s CSR is monitored by localnon-governmental organizations (NGOs) and that this moderates criticism of the SME’s CSR. Theresults imply that SMEs that only halfheartedly implement CSR are more vulnerable to publiccriticism than SMEs that do not engage in CSR at all. It is advisable that SMEs only positionthemselves as sustainable companies if their environmental policies have proven to contributeto sustainable development. When initiating stakeholder engagement, SMEs should preventdisappointment by tempering stakeholders’ expectations, as NGOs participating in a stakeholderdialogue can use inside information to raise public criticism.
Description
Date
2018-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
CSR, environmental policies, NGOs, reputation, SMEs, stakeholder engagement, SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals
Citation
Graafland, J 2018, 'Does corporate social responsibility put reputation at risk by inviting activist targeting? An empirical test among European SMEs.', Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1422
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess