Commitment to Social Responsibility, Reporting on Social Responsibility, and Social Innovation in For-Profit Businesses
Department of Business Administration PhD defence: Kjartan Sigurðsson
Kjartan Sigurðsson will present and defend his PhD thesis Friday June 12 at 12 pm. The defence will be held online on Teams. The presentation is in English and is open to the public.
Title: Commitment to Social Responsibility, Reporting on Social Responsibility, and Social Innovation in For-Profit Businesses
Author: Kjartan Sigurðsson
Supervisor: Dr. Marina Candi
Date and Time: June 12th at 12:00
Location: Link to Teams
Abstract
Social responsibility has gained momentum as an important topic for academics, practitioners, and policymakers, spurred notably by a growing interest in defining and crossing boundaries between for-profit business activities and stakeholder interests.
While the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) focuses mostly on large firms with little attention paid to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the need to explore SMEs' social responsibility activities has been highlighted. SMEs can address multiple stakeholder groups through corporate social responsibility as a means to improve relationships with these stakeholders.
The goal of this dissertation is to examine for-profit businesses' commitment to social responsibility and how such commitment is embodied in activities that can lead not only to social value, but also to differentiation, competitive advantage, and performance.
The findings of the research offer insight into what motivates firms to commit to social responsibility and report on their commitments. Furthermore, it highlights that to gain performance benefits, firms need to go beyond commitment and reporting and enact their social responsibility, for example, through social innovation
