infonet-economy

Exploring the role of individuals in institutional change brings in the focus on the implementation process of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general and on the individual drivers of the CSR implementation in particular: CSR professionals, a relatively new actor in multinational enterprises. That interest leads to the following research question: "Which strategies do CSR professionals use to implement CSR?"
While CSR implementation relates to divergent change and therefor qualifies as institutional change, this change is highly process-like. The process view suggests understanding institutional entrepreneurs as sense makers who redirect change through sensegiving strategies. Eight different strategies are presented which are applied by CSR professionals for putting CSR into practice.
The work aims to expand our knowledge of institutional entrepreneurship and institutional change. The study is based on qualitative data collected mainly by semi-structured interviews with CSR professionals from various industries and independent CSR consultants in Germany. The research uses grounded theory methodology by combining it with multiple case study research.