Csr Case

RFaculty of Economic Sciences, Communication and IT

Phunbubpha Thiengnoi

Sadaf Afzal

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF

CSR STRATEGIES, IMPLEMENTATION AND

OUTCOMES

- A Qualitative Case Study of IKEA, Starbucks and H&M

Service Management Research

Master Thesis

Date/Term:

Spring 2009

Supervisor:

Professor Bo Enquist

Professor Bo Edvardsson

ABSTRACT

A business activity generates both negative and positive externality simultaneously for both the

environment and the society. The basic idea is to minimize the negative externality and generate

more positive externality.

Expectations of the society towards businesses have grown tremendously during the past few

decades, the stress is upon a socially, environmentally and legally responsible businesses.

Organizations have responded to this expectation by indulging in a set of activities which are

termed as Corporate Social Responsibility, but that has not been enough, businesses cannot

resolve social and environmental problems of the society unless they know where to focus and

what is the strategy to become better businesses and yet not be criticized. The need is to utilize a

firm‘s resources in the most effective manner. Thus, strategic CSR comes in as a solution for

better performance.

Strategic CSR began the evolution of more responsible and favorable businesses in terms of

societal pressures and expectations. In our research, we have tried to develop a framework which

when incorporated with the CSR concept helps make more strategic sense to the firm, so that it

benefits not only the society but also the firm itself. The research builds a strategic framework

and analyses in light of it the CSR activities of three major retail companies namely, IKEA,

Starbucks and H&M.

The EFQM model which is a self assessment tool for organizations has been incorporated with

CSR to make it a strategic assessment framework. This has been a new concept, and has proven

quite effective in assessing the...