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.

Social Impact as a Source of Innovation

Developing a deep understanding of customer or stakeholder thinking and then using that knowledge to create innovative solutions is a common practice that emerges from case study research of managers with expertise in implementing socially repsonsible business practices.

Managers who participated in the research project shared numerous applications of these practices, including corporate social investment and foundation activities, internal operations, and supply chain mangement. But expert managers who had the most tightly integrated view of business and society had reframed "social impact" as a source of innovations that are more intrinsic to the core purpose of the business.

One way of interpreting this view to see it as an expert mental mode (See graphic). As explicitly stated concepts, each item in the mental model is relatively easy to understand. In practice, they are concepts based on a great deal of contextual, tacit knowledge and experience that would be difficult to replicate – evidence that suggests these are expert concepts. Each of these distinctive concepts can also be interpreted as relating to one another to form a kind of virtuous cycle. In this interpretation, a strongly-held enterprise identity that incorporates social responsibility may lead to:

• Seeing the integration of business goals and social mission as source of innovation
• A focus on socially responsible practices that are more intrinsic to the business
• Practices which encourage deep understanding of customers-in-environment (or stakeholders-in-environment) to discover and develop new product and service innovations

Experience in delivering these new services develops organizational expertise, which is valued by customers and contributes to business success. Business success reinforces the enterprise identity and the resulting expert insights – a virtuous cycle.

The novice/expert perspective used in this research project suggests that managers and organizations develop their thinking from a novice stage to a more mature, expert stage. In the case of managers, the development is in individual expertise; for organizations, it is in shared expertise and mental models. From this perspective, viewing the "intrinsic innovation" mental model as representing a highly evolved expert model suggests:

• An enterprise is at a more developed stage of expertise to the extent that its managers 1) believe social responsibility inspires profitable new innovations and 2) engage in practices consistent with that belief.
• An enterprise is at a more developed stage of expertise to the extent that its managers foster innovations that are intrinsic to the business, creating economic value and contributing to sustainable competitive advantage.
• Management discussion and reflection designed to interpret the meaning of successful social performance in the context if the enterprise’s environment is a critical practice in moving to a more developed stage of expertise. Reflection drives shared meaning of performance measures, artifacts and practices.