Corporate Social Responsibility Research

Jeff Merrell, Principal Consultant of Purple Line Associates, developed his model for using "expertise" as the principal framework for linking individuals, organizations and performance during graduate research at Northwestern University's Learning and Organizational Change program. The model was first applied as a thesis project, to understanding successful performance in corporate social responsibility. The research was accepted for presentation at the prestigious Business as an Agent of World Benefit Conference, co-sponsored by the United Nations Global Compact, the Academy of Management and Case Weatherhead School of Management.

Articles and Case Studies

Executive summary: An Examination of Manager Expertise in Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Success Cases on the Development of Expert Concepts and the influence of Actual Practice (113kb .pdf)

The Success Case of Northside Bank: Reframing the Tension between Profitibility and Social Impact into a Source of Innovation (132kb .pdf)

Supporting Theory and Research

Literature review of research in corporate social responsibility and learning, expertise and context (104kb .pdf)

Context in Design: Lessons from Environmental Psychology (296kb pdf)

Research summary

The social responsibility and related social performance of business enterprises are, in the current global environment, more than abstract concepts for discussion and debate. Consumers, investors, policy makers and stakeholder organizations are connecting the dots between enterprise practices and social impact on a variety of issues: Global warming and sustainable use of natural resources; economic and community development at local, regional and global levels; the health and safety of consumers and employees; and progress on global health issues such as HIV/AIDS and avian flu.

To meet this challenge, managers of business enterprises must develop meaningful interpretations of social responsibility and performance within their organizations, setting the context for how they make decisions and engage in practices that result in real consequences for both their business and society. This is clearly a complex problem: Finding an operable mental framework for dealing with the ill-defined nature of social responsibility. But for all of the challenges of the current environment, this same environment is producing success cases of enterprises that are creating both business and social value. The question is: What have they learned from their experiences? More specifically: How have experienced managers in these enterprises – experts in executing real-world, socially responsible business practices -- learned to think about the problem of simultaneously producing positive business and social outcomes?

To answer these questions, a research project was designed to explore the expertise of managers who have achieved success in socially responsible business practices. Interviews were conducted with 11 managers at three companies; each of the companies has achieved success in social performance and each manager was recognized as a successful, expert performer in practices that contributed to the company’s socially-responsible reputation.

Based on the exploratory case evidence presented in this research, management expertise in successfully executing socially responsible business practices may be described in part as being based on key concepts related to innovation. Resolving any perceived tension between business goals and social goals may depend on reframing the tension into a source of innovation opportunities, and then converting those opportunities into innovations based on empathy and deep knowledge of stakeholder interests. Expert managers also appear to have an implicit, conceptual understanding that these innovations may be more sustainable to the extent that they are intrinsic to the core business of the enterprise.