Thesis on how corporate social responsibility is architectured

A standout movement of the last decade has been mounting institutional pressure to embrace Corporate Social Responsibility. This quasi-systemic institutional push for CSR, not just on national but also international scale, has been sweepingly endorsed by corporate executives whose stance is that the reduction of collateral damage and the integrations of stakeholder-led social and environmental concerns are indispensable as stepping stones to business expansion.
Prompted by the visibly wholesale adoption of CSR, this doctoral research seeks to provide insight into how corporate social responsibility is architectured. We hone in on a specific feature of social responsibility: the internalization of negative externalities. Specifically, we highlight the organizational approaches involved and actors driving the internalization of these 'social cost' effects. Our analysis is focused on middle managers as key drivers to the internalization of negative externalities.
Empirical analyses led at Adecco focused on the issue of workplace injuries to temping staff. This research has helped highlight the organizational and strategic changes enabling an employment contractor to better safeguard the physical integrity of its salaried workforce – a pivotal challenge in the management of a firm's human capital.