The five core CSR capabilities are stakeholder engagement, social accountability, ethical business behaviour, dialogue and value attuned communication. These are the CSR capabilities that drive social performance and reputation. Our research program and our experiences with diverse clients show that these capabilities are consistently central for the effective operation of social responsibility in membership based organisations, domestic listed and unlisted corporations, multinational listed corporations and government-owned corporations.
CSR capability definitions:
- Stakeholder engagement: People in our firm understand the linkages and interdependencies between us and our stakeholders that contribute to long-term prosperity. Managers routinely take stakeholder needs into consideration in business decisions.
- Stakeholder dialogue: We respect our partners in dialogue by displaying empathy, honesty and non-manipulative intent and encourage equal control over and initiative in the communication process.
- Value attuned communication: Management requires that specialist communication staff effectively detect and transmit value-pertinent information about stakeholders to all parts of the firm to assist in business decision-making.
- Ethical business behaviour: Our company maintains a caring workplace atmosphere in which people sincerely care about the well being of others. Ethical behaviour is reinforced through the development of formal ethical codes, rewards for ethical behaviour and punishments for unethical behaviour.
- Social accountability: Our people believe that the firm is accountable to stakeholders for the firm’s social impacts and we effectively report our social performance, even when the news is not all good.
CSR capabilities and business outcomes
While all socially responsible organisations require these CSR capabilities, competitive advantage through corporate social responsibility is possible when organisations deploy their CSR capabilities in unique combinations linked to the core business of the organisation.
Strong CSR capabilities have a positive effect on reputation directly and indirectly. They can directly influence reputation through the strategic choices organisations make about programs that involve or affect stakeholders’ experience with the company. They can indirectly influence reputation through the effect that CSR has on employees’ decision-making and commitment.
By assessing the raw material for CSR strategy, CSR Management Capacity® helps identify priorities for capability development and enables your organisation to develop strategy and tactics that will take your organisation to higher levels of CSR.