Norway voluntary partnerships as a social asset

Abstract

A central premise for CSR in Norway is that business actors taking on a commitment to CSR do so voluntarily. This separates CSR from the notion of corporate accountability that advocates that rather than being voluntary, working with CSR should by law be stated as a mandatory obligation for business actors. The strong focus on the environment in Norwegian industry may have taken corporate attention away from CSR issues. Also the fact that the Norwegian government has chosen to give the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a large responsibility for CSR in Norway has led to a stronger focus on issues related to foreign policy, such as human rights. In the finance sector, the actual transformation of CSR elements into action is seen most clearly, and the financial institutions are seen by many as the driver for both sustainability and corporate responsibility in Norway. The petroleum sector will continue to focus on the challenges it encounters when operating in foreign countries, and human rights and anti-corruption issues will therefore remain important elements in a Norwegian CSR development. With the growing internationalisation also of Norwegian business, we may see more individual CSR engagement by corporations in the future. The challenge for Norwegian companies in this context will be to follow up an increased communication on CSR with actual and measurable performance in this area, which goes beyond marketing and profiling. A more modern form of CSR, where mastering the social issues are being seen as an integrated competitive advantage, has only come into the debate in very recent years when especially banks and insurance companies took the lead. The finance sector may therefore continue to be the driver of CSR in Norway. Dialogue with NGOs and governments will continue to be an important aspect of CSR life in Norway, and has found a new expression in a rather unique new initiative called Inclusive Work (Inkluderende Arbeidsliv). Here Government and companies try to anticipate and evaluate what social challenges will develop (that can result in social stress and costly disability payments etc.), and try to cope with their root causes up front. Along with the Norwegian government and the other employers' and employees' organisations, NHO has signed a letter of intent regarding a more inclusive working life (NHO, 2002). One special feature of the CSR approach in Norway is, as suggested by the ongoing study by the Norwegian School of Management (Middtun, 2004), a different focus on transparency compared to other countries. While it seems to be a hot topic in the UK and other European countries, especially focusing on large firms (where as a consequence, larger firms are now underlining their transparency), Norwegian society is small and thus more transparent in itself: Norwegian media are therefore used to constantly analysing potential "scandals" of not "walking the talk". Combined with the traditional egalitarian attitude of society, i.e. not a dmiringextremely successful individuals without scrutinising them thoroughly, the Norwegian CSR approach may already be much more transparent and up to NGOscrutiny than in other European countries.A major challenge for the Norwegians is to balance the effects of communicating too much, with those of communicating too little, and transmit a clear and credible message continuously and consistently through the appropriate channels (Brønn & Wiig, 2002).