AUTHOR
Harila, Hanna; Petrini, Karin

DATE
2003-02-15

DEPARTMENT
Business Administration and Social Sciences / Industrial marketing and e-commerce

SUMMARY
Growing pressure on multinational corporations (MNCs) to take responsibility for their operations has resulted in an increasing number of large corporations starting to address the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Due to the vast and diverse nature of previous research, the aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of how the concept of CSR is incorporated in MNCs' operations, by focusing on how MNCs describe, integrate, and monitor CSR. In order to provide clarity to the issue, case studies of four different MNCs were made. Documentation and interviews were used as data collection methods for this thesis.

Conclusions drawn from the findings of this thesis, were that the MNCs' working methods regarding CSR, which is considered to be a framework of a number of different aspects, are relatively new and therefore not yet fully established. CSR is however considered an important part of the MNCs' operations. Furthermore, it was concluded that the MNCs work with CSR in a cross-functional manner through various types of networks. The study also shows that there is little uniformity between the MNCs' CSR monitoring and report systems. The MNCs investigated believed however, that there is a need for general systems that can facilitate a comparison of CSR efforts between companies.

ISSN 1404-5508 / ISRN LTU-SHU-EX--03/064--SE / NR 2003:064