How do companies invest in corporate social responsibility? : an ordonomic contribution for empirical CSR research : a revision / Matthias Georg Will und Stefan Hielscher

Abstract

This paper is a revision of the Discussion Paper 2012-02 intended to modify several interpretations of the empirical analysis. In this modified version, the paper takes both a conceptual and an empirical approach to answer the question of how CSR can be con-nected to the company’s role as an agent of social value creation that operates within an imperfect institutional framework of market competition. To develop a functional de-sign for an empirical study, we draw on the concept of ordonomics, which provides a heuristics of how companies can assume social responsibility. Drawing on ordonomics, we derive three central questions: With regard to action responsibility we ask in what CSR activities companies do engage in their day-to-day business. Referring to govern-ance responsibility we ask of how win-win solutions can be realized through strategic commitments. And with regard to discourse responsibility we ask in what stakeholder dialogues companies do engage in order to discuss and find functional rules for organiz-ing win-win solutions. In a pre-study, we reveal first insights into the CSP-CFP link and generate several new questions to be the subject of further research. We also outline the concept of this upcoming study that combines a factor analysis and dynamic panel esti-mation and uses company fundamentals and the evaluations of CSR and finance man-agers as control variables.