Corporate Social Responsibility

CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance

Series Editors: Samuel O. Idowu · René Schmidpeter

John O. Okpara

Samuel O. Idowu Editors

Corporate

Social

Responsibility

Challenges, Opportunities and

Strategies for 21st Century Leaders

CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance

For further volumes:

http://www.springer.com/series/11565

Series Editors

Samuel O. Idowu, London, United Kingdom

Rene´ Schmidpeter, Ingolstadt, Germany

ThiS is a FM Blank Page

John O. Okpara • Samuel O. Idowu

Editors

Corporate Social

Responsibility

Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies for

21st Century Leaders

Editors

John O. Okpara

Department of Management

and Marketing

Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Bloomsburg

Pennsylvania

USA

Samuel O. Idowu

Faculty of Business & Law

London Metropolitan University

London

United Kingdom

ISSN 2196-7075 ISSN 2196-7083 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-642-40974-5 ISBN 978-3-642-40975-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-40975-2

Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954987

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

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To my wife Christiana, my

children, Benjamin, Daniel, and

Abigail, and to my Mother and the

memory of my Father.

John O. Okpara

In Memory of my Dad and Mum

who passed away in 1973 and

1998, respectively.

Samuel O. Idowu

ThiS is a FM Blank Page

Foreword

It would be an understatement to say that the concept of “corporate social respon￾sibility” has taken center stage in business literature, both academic and

nonacademic. Although academics have discussed a wide variety of issues under

this rubric for over half a century, one could say that the financial crisis of 2008 has

made everyone aware of the enormous impact of business firms in general and

financial institutions in particular on every aspect of modern civilization and in

every corner of the globe.

All business firms, not just large multinational corporations, now find them￾selves under a microscope. Confronted with a host of challenges from environmen￾tal impact to accounting practices, individual companies have been forced to adopt

strategies to cope with this multitude of issues. Individual countries have had to

rethink their public policies not only with regard to domestic economic issues but in

the context of globalization. We have become much more aware of different and

competing models of markets, the US/UK, the EU/Rhine, Asian models, etc., and

especially with the end of the Cold War and the rise of the new economic giants

among developing countries (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, and China).

Scholars in every area of business, not just business ethicists, have had to raise

new questions about research and teaching in their respective disciplines about the

social impact of accounting, finance, marketing, management, and a host of

subdisciplines.

As is to be expected, trying to put all of this in some kind of larger perspective is

a daunting task. So we should not be surprised to find much of the literature circling

around established political–economic paradigms such as neoliberalism,

neo-Keynesianism, and radical deconstructive critique. But others are searching

for new paradigms, both descriptive and normative. Scholars have been forced to

cross traditional disciplinary boundaries as they confront novel structures and

challenges.

vii

John Okpara and Samuel Idowu have put together an anthology remarkable for

both its breadth and depth in addressing the importance of conceptualizing in all of

its complexity what constitutes Corporate Social Responsibility, the range of

problems it addresses, and the global context in which all of this is taking place.

New Orleans, LA, USA Nicholas Capaldi

viii Foreword

Preface

We are now in an era where being socially responsible is what is expected of all

organizations regardless of where such organizations are based and what they

do. Being socially responsible must start from the very top of the organization;

those at the very top must believe in the concept of CSR and what it expects them to

do. Leaders of organization in the twenty-first century are expected to address many

CSR issues which affect their areas of operation and impact on their stakeholders.

Most organizational leaders are too aware of the serious consequences of ignoring

their responsibilities to their stakeholders and the environment. These areas where

responsibility is desired are no longer few in modern times; in fact stakeholders

expect organizations to go well beyond these expected areas of responsibility.

In order to address these CSR issues responsibly, corporate leaders must be

innovative when formulating strategies capable of providing effective solutions to

the social, economic, and environmental challenges their organizations face or are

likely to face; these managers are now unconsciously expected to understand the

modern field of social innovation.

In September 2000, 189 country leaders in New York led the way in formulating

a vision of what our world should look like by year 2015 in the form of the eight

United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight Development

Goals were expected to address some of the core social, economic, and environ￾mental problems faced by our world, for example, “to eradicate extreme poverty

and hunger” and “to develop a global partnership for development” two of the

eight goals. Our world has faced a series of challenges since the eight goals were

set. Some of these challenges came about as a result of greed and socially irrespon￾sible attitude of some individuals, and others were acts of God. But it was not all

about challenges, there had been many opportunities. A few countries have thrived

and become socially and economically stronger since year 2000. If leaders of some

of the poorer countries around the world inculcate a few more CSR approaches to

their style of leadership more countries would become socially and economically

stronger.

ix

It is hoped that a book on “CSR: Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies for

twenty first century leaders” would set the scene for tomorrow’s leaders of what￾ever perspective to face the art of leadership, since they would have been made

aware of some of the challenges, opportunities, and strategies today’s leaders are

experiencing. It is not being suggested that tomorrow’s leaders would face similar

challenges and opportunities as today’s leaders, but the lessons learnt from these

experiences would hopefully make them better leaders.

This book has therefore been fortunate in its ability to have attracted interests

from scholars writing about CSR from 13 countries’ experiences in terms of

Challenges, Opportunities, and Strategies. We were fortunate to have contributions

from Austria, Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, Denmark, India, Italy, Nigeria,

Romania, Singapore, UK, and USA. It is therefore hoped that the information it

contains will be useful to our readers from any sector of society, for example,

education, industry and commerce, practitioners, international organizations, gov￾ernments, and nongovernmental organizations and those who are enthusiastic about

the challenges and opportunities derivable from corporate social responsibility.

London, UK Samuel O. Idowu

Bloomsburg, USA John O. Okpara

Summer 2013

x Preface

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support of many people. We

would first like to thank all the distinguished authors whose highly significant

contributions comprise this book. We owe a depth of gratitude to them. We

appreciate their commitments and hard work for making the publication of this

book a reality. We also want to thank our reviewers, who took the time to carefully

read through the manuscript and made corrections, additions, and suggestions.

Their efforts undoubtedly improved the quality of the book dramatically.

I would really like to thank Samuel Idowu for providing me with the opportunity

to become the coeditor for this book. I appreciate that he believed in me to provide

the leadership and knowledge to make this book a reality. Samuel Idowu is a great

person and an outstanding scholar; without him, this book may not have been

written. Sam and I collaborated to find the other great authors that helped us

write this book. In the end, I believe that the team of authors that was chosen

provides the perfect blend of knowledge and skills that went into authoring this

book in Corporate Social Responsibility.

In addition I would also like to take the opportunity to thank my dear friend and

brother John who I also call my dear American friend for agreeing to partner me in

this book project; everything went well despite our many professional and life

commitments. His professionalism has demonstrated that there are still many

reliable and conscientious scholars around.

We are grateful to our publisher Springer for believing in the worth of the book

and supporting it, in particular our Publishing Editor Christian Rauscher and his

Personal Assistant Frau Barbara Bethke. We appreciate their dedication, commit￾ments, and outstanding contributions to the development and publication of

this book.

And finally, we would like to thank our respective families and loved ones for

their gracious support, forbearance, and patience during the long hours it took to

produce this book. We cannot give back the lost weekends and evenings, but we can

gratefully acknowledge your contributions to the success of the end product.

xi

We are aware that a book of this significance cannot be 100 % free of errors or

omissions; we would therefore like to apologize for any errors or omissions that

may appear anywhere in the book; no harm was intended to anyone.

Bloomsburg, USA John O. Okpara

London, UK Samuel O. Idowu

xii Acknowledgements

About the Editors

John O. Okpara is professor and chair of the Department of Management and

Marketing at the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D.

from New York University. His primary research interests lie in the areas of

corporate governance, ethics and social responsibility, cross-cultural management,

strategic management, international business, entrepreneurship, and small business

management. He has published in numerous journals including Journal of World

Business Management Decision, Journal of Management Development, Journal of

Business Ethics, Thunderbird International Review, International Journal of Busi￾ness and Globalization, SAM Advanced Management Journal, Journal of Business

& Policy Research, Journal of African Business, African Journal of Business and

Economic Research, Journal of Globalization and Small Business, International

Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and International Journal of

Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, among others. He is the founding Editor-In￾Chief of International Journal of Social, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He

serves on the editorial board of SAM Advanced Management Journal, Corporate

Governance, Journal of Management Development, International Journal of Busi￾ness and Applied Sciences, African Journal of Business and Economic Research,

and African Journal of Economic and Management Studies. He is the recipient of

several research awards including the prestigious Provost’s Award for Excellence

in Research/Scholarly Activity; 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2012 outstanding reviewer

awards from Emerald’s Literati Network, 2012 Emerald Literati Network Highly

Commended Award; and 2011 Best Paper Award from the World Business Insti￾tute, among others. He is a Visiting Professor of Strategic Management at the

University of Warsaw Center for Management Training in Poland. His nonwork

interests include spending time with his wife and children, reading, watching

African movies, watching the English Premier Football League, and rooting for

Manchester City, Chelsea, and Arsenal Football Clubs.

Samuel O. Idowu is a senior lecturer in Accounting at the city campus of Faculty of

Business & Law, London Metropolitan University where he was course organizer

for Accounting Joint degrees and currently the Course Leader/Personal Academic

xiii

Tutor (PAT) for students taking Accounting and Banking degree. Samuel is a Guest

Professor at Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, China. He is a fellow

member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, a fellow of the

Royal Society of Arts, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Chartered

Secretaries & Administrators, and a named freeman of the City of London. Samuel

has published about 40 articles in both professional and academic journals and

contributed chapters in edited books. Samuel has been in academia for 26 years

winning one of the Highly Commended Awards of Emerald Literati Network

Awards for Excellence in 2008. He has examined for the following professional

bodies: the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIB) and the Chartered Institute of

Marketing (CIM) and has marked examination papers for the Association of

Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). His teaching career started in November

1987 at Merton College, Morden Surrey; he was a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at

North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot) for 13 years where he was the

Course Leader for BA (Hons.) Business Studies, ACCA, and CIMA courses. He has

also held visiting lectureship posts at Croydon College and Kingston University. He

was a senior lecturer at London Guildhall University prior to its merger with the

University of North London, when London Metropolitan University was created in

August 2002. He was an external examiner at the University of Sunderland,

University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Anglia Ruskin University,

Chelmsford, and currently an External Examiner at the University of Plymouth

and Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. He was the Treasurer and a

Trustee at Age Concern, Hackney, East London, and he is on the Editorial Advisory

Board of the Management of Environmental Quality Journal and the International

Journal of Business Administration. He has been researching in the field of CSR

since 1983 and has attended and presented papers at several national and interna￾tional conferences and workshops on CSR. Samuel has edited several books in the

fields of CSR and Forensic Accounting and was the Editor-in-Chief of Springer’s

Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility. He is a series Editor for

Springer’s books on CSR, Sustainability, Ethics and Governance.

xiv About the Editors