The Dark Side of Stakeholder Reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility: Tensions and Micro‐level Undesirable Outcomes

• Author: Kenneth Roeck,Adam Lindgreen,Joëlle Vanhamme,Valérie Swaen,François Maon
• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Date: 01 April 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12198

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 21, 209–230 (2019)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12198

The Dark Side of Stakeholder Reactions to

Corporate Social Responsibility: Tensions

and Micro-level Undesirable Outcomes

Franc¸ois Maon, Jo¨

elle Vanhamme,1Kenneth De Roeck,2Adam Lindgreen3,4

and Val´

erie Swaen5,6

Department of Management, I ´

ESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS - UMR 9221), Lille 59000, France,

1Department of Marketing, Edhec Business School, Roubaix 59057, France, 2Grossman School of Business,

University of Vermont, VT 05405, USA, 3Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3,

2000 Frederiksberg C, Denmark, 4Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, Illovo, Johannesburg

2196, South Africa, 5Universit´

e catholique de Louvain, LouRIM (Louvain Research Institute in Management and

Organizations), 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and 6I´

ESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS - UMR 9221),

Lille 59000, France

Corresponding author email: adli.marktg@cbs.dk

With a review of literatureon corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its micro-level

impacts, this paper proposes an integrative framework to map undesirable relational

outcomes of CSR activities on internal (employees)and external (customers) stakehold-

ers. By adopting a paradox-based perspective, the authors determine that unexpected,

adverse stakeholder reactions to CSR are driven primarily by either performing or

belonging tensions, related to exchange- and identity-based stakeholder concerns, re-

spectively. Specifically, contextual and personal influences can trigger and explainunde-

sirable relationaloutcomes of CSR. On this basis, this paper offers a research agenda for

developing a more refined understandingof CSR-related tensions and a more nuanced

perspective on the business case for CSR.

Introduction

The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR),

or the ‘context-specific organizational actions and

policies that take into account stakeholders’ expecta-

tions and the triple bottom line of economic, social,

and environmental performance’ (Aguinis 2011,

p. 855), on firm performance has been a central topic

of interest for management scholars and practitioners

for close to half a century (Carroll and Shabana

2010; Margolis and Walsh 2003). Yet, studies of

the direct relationship between CSR and economic

performance still offer mixed results. Accordingly,

the business case for CSR has evolved in the past

two decades, ‘from a narrow perspective, which

assumes only a direct relationship between CSR and

economic performance, to a broader, more syncretic

one, in which intermediate variables pertaining to

stakeholders’ attitudes and behaviors are consid-

ered more likely to explain the CSR–performance

relationship’ (De Roeck and Maon, 2018, p. 611).

From this perspective, CSR influences organizational

performance by reducing transaction and agency

costs for key stakeholders both within and beyond the

organization, on which the organization depends for

its survival and success (Jones 1995; Preston et al.

1991). Research in marketing and organizational be-

havior also proposes that CSR might create value and

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210 F. Maon et al.

increase organizational performance by establishing

stronger relationships with these stakeholders (Gond

et al. 2017; Peloza and Shang 2011).

Some researchers, however, have highlighted the

threat of undesirable CSR impacts on stakeholders’

attitudes and behaviors (e.g. Sen and Bhattacharya,

2001). Management scholars posit that CSR might

entail perceived incompatibilities or seeming irra-

tionalities, which represent tensions associated with

the ever-changing, ambiguous, potentially paradox-

ical features of CSR activities and communication

(Jones 2004; Van der Byl and Slawinski 2015; Yoon

et al. 2006). Such tensions seemingly might prompt

unexpected, adverse stakeholder reactions to CSR,

and yet they remain relatively poorly studied at a

micro-level of analysis (De Roeck and Maon 2018;

Robinson and Wood 2018; Vanhamme et al. 2015).

In response, this paper provides a review of market-

ing and organizational behavior studies that address

undesirable stakeholder reactions to CSR activities

and communications and their associated tensions.

With the presumption that ‘tensions are integral to

complex systems’ (Smith and Lewis 2011, p. 397),

we adopt a paradox-based perspective to categorize

the undesirable stakeholder micro-level outcomes of

CSR. These outcomes relate specifically to perform-

ing and/or belonging tensions for the organization

and its stakeholders (Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis

2011); in turn, we can characterize CSR as an or-

ganizational phenomenon that entails, respectively,

exchange-related (Shore et al. 2006) and identity-

related (Albert et al. 2000; Epstein 1973) strains for

stakeholders.

By explicitly identifying, inventorying and map-

ping such undesirable outcomes of CSR activities on

stakeholders, we emphasize some insufficiently ad-

dressed but relevant aspects of CSR at a micro-level,

pertaining to unexpected, adverse stakeholder reac-

tions – or the so-called dark side of CSR (Aguinis

and Glavas 2012; Rupp and Mallory 2015). In turn,

our findings highlight the need for scholars to develop

more nuanced, less univalent perspectives to address

the stakeholder-mediated impact of CSR on corporate

performance, such that we detail some avenuesfor re-

search according to this perspective.Fur thermore, our

review responds to calls for more research on individ-

ual reactions to tensions and paradoxes in and around

organizations (Miron-Spektor et al. 2018). By focus-

ing on impacts of CSR activities on internal and ex-

ternal stakeholders, we supplement other studies that

approach this phenomenon from a paradox-inspired

perspective, which typically adopt more meso-level

or organization-centric views (e.g. Hahn et al. 2015;

Ozanne et al. 2016).

The remainder of this article is organized as fol-

lows: First, we introduce keytheoretical elements as-

sociated with CSR and the impacts of CSR activities

and communication efforts at a micro-level, as well

as the tensions associated with these activities and ef-

forts. Second, we detail our reviewapproach, present

our framework, and offer a critical synthesis of our

conceptual investigation. Third and finally, we iden-

tify avenues for further research.

Micro-level perspective on CSR

impacts on stakeholders

To date, research that adopts a syncretic, stakeholder-

based perspective of CSR has focused primarily on

psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions

that drive consumer and employee responses to CSR

activities (e.g. El Akremi et al. 2018; Gond et al.

2017; Peloza and Shang 2011; Sen et al. 2016). Ex-

isting studies tend to highlight the ‘numerous benefits

(functional, psychosocial, and values) and how the

type and extent to which a stakeholder derives these

benefits from CSR initiatives influence the quality

of the relationship between the stakeholder and the

company’ (Bhattacharya et al. 2009, p. 257). For con-

sumers, buying products or services from organiza-

tions involved in CSR activities may seem simply the

‘right thing to do’, because CSR activities trigger as-

sociations with self-transcendent values of caring for

society (e.g. Torelli et al. 2012). For employees, this

perception might lead to an enhanced valuation of the

job or employer. As a 2017 Cone Communications

CSR Study shows, 87% of consumers say they would

buy from an organization involved in CSR activities

they consider relevant, and a 2016 Cone Communica-

tions Millennial EmployeeEngagement Study reports

that more than 64% of respondents would opt to work

for an organization they perceive as socially respon-

sible, even if their salary was lower, and 83% would

be more loyal to an organization that helps them con-

tribute to social and environmental issues they hold

dear.

These insights indicate that CSR engagement

should generate positive returns for the organization,

and thus, researchers focus mostly on highlighting

how stakeholder reactions to CSR can support the

alignment of economic, social and environmental

dimensions (Margolis and Walsh 2003; Van der Byl

and Slawinski 2015). According to this univalent

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