Paper info

Spread of corporate social responsibility practices in supply networks

Hanna-Riitta Harilainen

The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

    The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework of the spread of practices towards suppliers in a supply network with a specific focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related practices.The motivation to increase our understanding of how CSR practices towards suppliers spread in the context of supply networks is derived from two sources: the growing attention focused on the voluntary steps companies take to integrate environmental and social concerns into their business operations and the dearth of previous research on CSR in the supply network literature.Industrial business network research is used as a base for generating the conceptual framework, which is then utilized in the CSR context.This study contributes to both business networks research as well as to the literature on CSR in supply networks with increased understanding of the spreading of CSR practices in supply networks and the facilitation of further research in the area.