On voluntarism and the role of governments in CSR: towards a contingency approach

• Author: Mitchell Balen,Nikolay A. Dentchev,Elvira Haezendonck
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12088
• Date: 01 October 2015
• Published date: 01 October 2015

On voluntarism and the role of

governments in CSR: towards a

contingency approach

Nikolay A. Dentchev1,2, Mitchell van Balen1and

Elvira Haezendonck1,3

1. Department of Business, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

2. Department of Management, KU Leuven, Campus Brussels, Belgium

3. Department of Management, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

In the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and

implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle

fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities.

Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the

academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected 703 papers

where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field (BEER,BEQ,BSE,BAS,JBE)

in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: (i)

the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; (ii) the variety of government levels involved; and (iii)

the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in-depth reading of a subsample

of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a

structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding

of the voluntarism concept in CSR.

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is consis-

tently defined as a voluntary principle that guides

societal business activities (Dahlsrud 2006).

Voluntarism implies that CSR is a discretionary act

beyond the rule of law, which is foremost guided

by ethical values (Bowen 1953) or the enlightened

self-interest of the firm (Carroll & Shabana 2010).

This principle implies conceptually that govern-

ments have a minimal role, if any, in the CSR

debate. With this in mind, one would wonder if

such a conceptual implication is empirically sup-

ported. Do governments have any role in the CSR

debate?

Conversely, we observe that CSR is embraced by

national governance systems worldwide as a useful

concept to address and shape a firm’s social respon-

sibility (Albareda et al. 2007; Matten & Moon 2008;

Gond et al. 2011). In this context, we can think of

several examples, such as the encouragement of CSR

through ministerial leadership in the Thatcher and

Blair governments (Moon 2004), the Sarbanes-Oxley

Act on corporate disclosure (Windsor 2006) and

France’s new economic regulations (Dhooge 2004).

In addition to national governments, supra and

intergovernmental organisations discuss the CSR

concept as well. The European Commission (2011),

for instance, sets out an agenda on CSR for busi-

nesses and governments within the member states of

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Business Ethics: A European Review

Volume 24 Number 4 October 2015

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,

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doi: 10.1111/beer.12088

378

the European Union. The United Nations promotes

principles on human rights, labour standards, envi-

ronment and corruption among businesses through

the UN Global Compact. Similarly, the Organiza-

tion for Economic Co-operation and Development

(OECD) recommends member countries to develop

policies that ensure that multinational enterprises

adhere to its ‘Guidelines for Multinational Enter-

prises’. It is therefore evident that both international

institutions and national governments demonstrate

an interest in how CSR is adopted by firms

(Aaronson & Reeves 2002; Detomasi 2008).

At the same time, we observe that academics, man-

agers and government officials iterate the voluntary

nature of CSR. The European Commission reveals

this contrast clearly in a relatively recent communi-

cation, stating that ‘certain regulatory measures

create an environment more conducive to enterprises

voluntarily meeting their social responsibility’

(European Commission 2011: 3). Especially when

government officials ratify their preference for vol-

untary CSR, we see little value in discarding the

principle of voluntarism. Still, we must recognise

that a great part of the CSR debate in Europe and

beyond is stimulated and shaped by public gover-

nance (Habisch et al. 2004; Albareda et al. 2008;

Gond et al. 2011). This apparent contradiction leads

us to conclude that the principle of voluntarism

might be somehow simplistic and misleading as used

today. We therefore argue in favour of a contingency

approach towards voluntarism that is better aligned

with the granulated and complex interactions that

exist between governments and businesses. Such a

contingency approach implies situations with high

levels and situations with low levels of governmental

involvement in CSR. In addition, this contingency

approach implies also a variety of governmental

involvement types in CSR, such as stimulation of

best practices, support of CSR networks, communi-

cation requirements, legislation or law enforcement.

Overall, the role of governments in CSR, as we will

argue in this paper, can take a variety of forms in the

different CSR-related cases at hand.

In this context, our contribution to the debate on

CSR is twofold. First, we present several arguments

that favour a contingency approach on the principle

of voluntarism. Second, we offer an overview of how

governments are part of the CSR debate by

analysing 703 articles from five journals in the CSR

field. We present the level of government that was

mentioned in the analysed studies and their geo-

graphical orientation and analyse the variety of sub-

jects studied in these papers. In addition, we offer an

in-depth reading of a 39 article subsample, providing

more details on the role of governments in the CSR

literature. By doing so, we illustrate the depth and

span of knowledge that exists on governmental influ-

ence in the CSR debate. Moreover, we identify

several gaps in our knowledge and advance research

directions to develop a contingency approach

towards voluntarism.

The remainder of this paper is organised in four

sections. First, we discuss the principle of

voluntarism in further detail and advance several

arguments to adopt a critical stance towards it.

Second, we elaborate on the methodological choices

we have followed for our study. Third, we present the

results of our analysis. Finally, we conclude this

paper by discussing the implications of our findings

for future research, advancing suggestions for future

research.

Voluntarism and CSR?

In this section, we present several arguments on why

the principle of voluntarism, without the argued con-

tingency perspective, might be somehow simplistic

and misleading. To build our case, we start by dis-

cussing the institutional background and develop-

ments that have shaped the principle. We then reflect

on several theoretical developments that challenge

voluntarism. Consequently, we present several prac-

tical concerns against the principle of voluntarism,

and we conclude the section by questioning if main-

taining the principle is actually recommended at all.

A basic element of our paper concerns the role of

governments in CSR. At the time of writing, there

are 193 states recognised by the United Nations,

each of which consists of ample governmental enti-

ties with different levels of responsibilities for a

certain field or distinct geographical area. Each gov-

ernment has different resources at its disposal,

carries different degrees of legal authority and can be

influenced by specific political orientations. The way

in which voluntarism is portrayed in the CSR debate

Business Ethics: A European Review

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