Ilaria Bissacco, Paolo Maccarrone and Cristina Sp

The Strategic Approaches to CSR by Large Companies: A Contingent Model

Corporate Social Responsibility is an issue which is on the corporate agenda of most top managers. Its strategic importance comes from its pervasiveness (since it impacts on almost all functions an activities of a business organisation), and from the possible relevant impacts on a firm competitiveness and market value.
After introducing a rationalisation of the fundamental concepts related to CSR, this paper illustrates the results of a research project, aimed at analysing the determinants of the different CSR strategies adopted by firms.
The research has been structured in three steps:Analysis of existing literature;An empirical analysis, consisting of a series of case studies of large multinational companies operating in Italy;The elaboration of an interpretative framework, which links the different implemented CSR strategies to some context variables, with a focus on the oil and gas sector.The results of the case study research show that there are some industry specific aspects which influence the behaviour of firms. Moreover, some differences can be justified by the history, the culture and the value systems of a company (the “corporate DNA”), as well as by its size, its degree of globalisation, and, finally, by the degree of vertical integration.

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