Culture as an Important Factor in the Implementation of CSR

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Motivation, Commitment and CSR Actions

Collier and Esteban (2007) bring forward a model of motivation and commitment (fig. 1) that the authors adapted in part from Locke (2004). Motivation has its roots in personal needs and values and goal setting. Factors affecting how responsive employees are to the organization’s CSR are brought up in the model. The model suggests that perceptions will affect the different bases for commitment while contextual factors will affect the type of commitment such as affective, normative and continuance commitment. The contextual factors refer to culture/climate, compliance/values and integrated/decoupled policies. Whether the goal is achieved or not (performance outcome) is depending on employee’s effort, persistence and task strategies, which are in turn affected by moderating factors; feedback, mobility and task complexity (Locke, 1997: as cited in Collier and Esteban, 2007). The integration of CSR is dependent on the employee’s response to the CSR (Collier and Esteban, 2007).

Culture

Culture is difficult to define, numerous definitions of culture has been brought up in literature, Borowsky, (1994) and Ortner (1984) mentions that not even in anthropology a fixed meaning has been set (as cited in Alvesson, 2002, p.3). At the same time, Fincham and Rhodes, (2012) mention that the anthropological term of culture describes it as “the underlying values, beliefs and codes of practice that makes a community what it is”. Alvesson (2002) states that culture involve the interpretation of events, ideas, experience and likewise other scholars mentions rituals, myths, stories and legends. The manifestation of a culture can be either visible or not visible. The manifestations of culture e.g. fundamental beliefs and values are rather not visible, they are rooted in a firm’s history, become ingrained over successive generations of employees and are generally resistant to change. The underlying culture is often visible through surface-level artefacts which refer to symbols such as logos and physical space, organizational language, narratives and practices including rituals and ceremonies (Denison, 1996; Pettigrew, 1979). In accordance to Treviño and Nelson, (2011) the organizational culture is expressed through assumptions, values and beliefs and is manifested in many ways such as formal rules and policies, norms of behaviour, language, stories, myths, rituals and heroes.

Sub Cultures

Top management is said to articulate the intended, also called dominant culture. The dominant culture could be focused on conforming the expectations society has on the organization (Jermier, Slocum, Fry and Gaines 1991). Management works to establish a dominant culture to research collective consciousness, the intended culture usually derives from manipulation and control (Legge 2005; Linnenluecke, Russell & Griffiths 2009). However, the perspectives and ideologies internally in the organization could differ from these in the dominant culture (Martin 1992). When members of the organization do not share the values of the dominant culture, subcultures could appear in the organization (Jermier et al. 1991) In the subcultures the main ideology could differ from the one in the organization. Members of a subculture could have their own narratives (Lundberg, 2000). The subcultures could derive from hierarchical levels, functional levels, demographic groups (e.g., gender), or geographical regions.

Formal and Informal Systems

Trevino and Nelson (2011) dedicate their focus on the ethical culture which they describe as a “slice “of the larger organizational culture that affect the way employees think and act in ethics related situations. Treviño and Nelson, (2011) demonstrate the Multisystem Framework (p.153) which illustrates the importance of alignment between formal and informal cultural systems that creates an ethical culture. What Trevino and Nelson (2011) bring forward is that employees’ experience the “real” organization through informal systems and are more likely to trust messages carried by informal systems. Findings in recent research indicated that employees’ perceptions of the informal systems influence their behaviour related to ethics more than the formal systems. To create a consistent message about ethical culture, the formal and informal systems must be aligned. The culture is out of alignment when messages from formal and informal systems are different (Treviño and Nelson, 2011).

Data Analysis

Qualitative data is associated with socially constructed meanings. Social construction indicates that meanings are dependent people’s interpretation of the events that occur around them. The meanings in qualitative data are therefore dependent on social interpretations which area ambiguous and complex. In qualitative research, meanings are principally derived from words rather than numbers (Saunders et al., 2012). Inductive research is associated with less structure procedures of analysing data that relies on interpretation. Within-case analysis in a case study research is the in-depth exploration of a single case. It enables building separate descriptions of opinions and phenomena which can be used to identify patterns (Collis and Hussey, 2014). The in-depth exploration and interpretation of the data was performed separately by both authors of this thesis and thereafter compared. The attention was paid to finding key words and patterns in the process of interviews transcription Saunders et al., (2012) describes generic approaches to the data analysis. The first step involves categorisation of the data collected. The data is categorized into analytical categories and the identification of categories is guided by the purpose of research question. The categories can be concept driven which means developed in advance from the literature developed from the data. In order to provide a structured analytical framework, the findings developed from primary data were categorized according to the literature review. However, new and developing aspects were also taken into consideration.

Table of Contents :

• 1 Background
• 2 Problem Statement
• 3 Purpose
  • 3.1 Research Question
  • 3.2 Delimitations
• 4 Theoretical Framework
  • 4.1 CSR
  • 4.2 Stakeholders Theory
  • 4.3 Employees as Key Stakeholders of CSR-Strategies
  • 4.4 Motivation and Commitment
    • 4.4.1 Motivation, Commitment and CSR Actions
  • 4.5 Culture
    • 4.5.1 Strong and Weak Cultures
    • 4.5.2 Sub Cultures
    • 4.5.3 Culture as an Important Factor in the Implementation of CSR
  • 4.6 Formal and Informal Systems
    • 4.6.1 Formal Systems
    • 4.6.2 Informal Cultural Systems
• 5 Research Methodology
  • 5.1 Methodology
    • 5.1.1 Research Philosophy
    • 5.1.2 Research Approach
  • 5.2 Method
    • 5.2.1 Research Strategy
    • 5.2.2 Case Study
    • 5.2.3 The Selected Case
    • 5.2.4 Secondary Data Collection
    • 5.2.5 Primary Data Collection
    • 5.2.5.1 Sampling
    • 5.2.5.2 Interviews
    • 5.2.5.3 Course of the Interview
    • 5.2.6 Data Analysis
    • 5.2.7 Quality of the Research
    • 5.2.8 Reliability
    • 5.2.9 Validity
• 6 Empirical Findings
  • 6.1 Secondary data
    • 6.1.1 Published Printed material- PTJ Annual Reports
    • 6.1.2 Published CSR Material – The Public Webpage
  • 6.2 Primary Data
    • 6.2.1 Information of CSR
    • 6.2.2 Employee Participation in CSR Related Actions
    • 6.2.3 Devices and Electricity
    • 6.2.4 Products
    • 6.2.5 Recycling
    • 6.2.6 Printing and Paper Reduction
    • 6.2.7 Other Actions
    • 6.2.8 Culture
    • 6.2.9 Formal Systems
    • 6.2.9.1 Formal Documents
    • 6.2.9.2 Courses
    • 6.2.9.3 Connections
    • 6.2.10 Informal Systems
    • 6.2.10.1 Role Models
    • 6.2.10.2 Norms
    • 6.2.10.3 Rituals and Ceremonies
    • 6.2.10.4 Stories
    • 6.2.10.5 Language
    • 6.2.11 Last Thoughts
• 7 Analysis
  • 7.1 CSR
  • 7.2 Employees as Key Stakeholders
  • 7.3 Summary of Actions
  • 7.4 Motivation and Commitment
  • 7.5 Culture
  • 7.6 Formal and Informal Cultural Systems
  • 7.7 Formal Systems
  • 7.8 Informal System
  • 7.9 Factors Hindering and Driving Participation
• 8 Conclusion
• 9 Discussion
  • 9.1 Contributions
  • 9.2 Limitations of the Study and Future Research
• 10 References

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Employees’ Participation in a Company’s CSR