Mazereeuw van der Duijn Schouten

ABSTRACT In this article we analyze the motives of executives to take responsibility for the labor, environmental and social aspects of their business. We distinguish three motives: one extrinsic (financial) and two intrinsic (ethical and altruistic) motives and empirically investigate the influences of these motives on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by means of a sample of 473 executives. The estimation results show that for social aspects of CSR, executives are significantly more driven by intrinsic motives than by the extrinsic motive. But also for environmental aspects of CSR intrinsic motives provide stronger stimulus than the extrinsic motive.

The case for socially responsible business conduct is often made from an economical or ethical perspective with the organization as level of analysis. This article focuses on the relationship between the religious belief of corporate decision makers and socially responsible business conduct. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 Dutch executives from different religious backgrounds, the authors find much inductive evidence of a relationship among their conception of God, norms and values, and business conduct. The authors also find that executives with a monotheistic conception of God display a stronger orientation toward socially responsible business conduct than do executives with a pantheistic conception of God.