Strategic and moral motivation for corporate social responsibility

This article examines the relationship between management’s view on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firms’ actual CSR efforts. It focuses on the practices of 111 Dutch firms with respect to five stakeholder groups—employees, supplies, customers, competitors and society at large—and their use of organisational instruments. We find that the moral (intrinsic) motive, which holds that CSR is a moral duty of companies towards society, induces a stronger involvement in CSR than the strategic (extrinsic) motive, which holds that CSR contributes to the financial success of the company in the long run. This particularly applies to ethical aspects of employee relations and the use of instruments to integrate CSR in the company’s organisation. With respect to consumer relations, the strategic and moral motives are equally important. As for relations with suppliers and competitors and society at large, we do not find a significant relationship between management’s strategic and moral view on CSR and actual CSR performance.