CSR and sensemaking - Basu & Palazzo, 2008

Basu, K., Palazzo, G. 2008. Corporate social responsibility: a process model of sensemaking. The Academy of Management review, vol. 33 (1): 122-136.

Key issue: the traditional analytical apporaches to CSR are based on the CSR strategy itself. A model to understand managerial sensemaking is proposed, in the claim that mental models dirive behavior.

The academic literature on CSR is classified into 3 main streams:

• Stakeholder driven (reactive)
• Performance driven (CSR-profitability link)
• Motivation driven (why to engage in CRS)

The authors claim that CSR does not result from external demands, but from organizationally embedded cognitive and linguistic processes: sensemeking, defined as the cognitive maps of the environment.

3 levels are analysed:

1. Cognitive (what firms think): these are the shared perceptions of what the organization is

• Identity orientation: individualistic, relational, collectivistic;
• Legitimacy: pragmatic (the environment can be controlled), cognitive (the environment controls the firm), moral (co-creating acceptable norms with stakeholders)

2. Linguistic (what firms say):

• Justification: legal, scientific, economic, ethical/cosmopolitan;
• Transparency: balanced, biased.

3. Conative (what firms do):

• Posture (responsiveness to expectations, demands and critics): defensive, tentative, open;
• Consistency: strategy, internal;
• Commitment (leadership role, depth, span): instrumental (external incentives), normative (internal/moral).