The Conceptual Framework of Controllers' Role and Tasks in the CSR Management

a t the end of the 20th century, Carroll predicted that the CSR concept would remain as an essential part of business language and practice, because it was a vital underpinning to many of the other theories and was continually consistent with what the public expected of the business community [Carrol, 1999, p. 292]. The recent years have given rise to a number of examples proving him right, and showing that the business activity that is pro-social and oriented towards the increase of value for the stakeholders can be profitable. The benefits are for example, efficiency gains, cost and risk reduction, improved competitiveness, higher employee motivation1. Obviously, despite the fact that, in the CSR concept, the financial expectations of capital owners are not treated as the most important subject, one cannot also forget about the business targets, for the latter are regarded as essential for securing the correct functioning and development of a company. As stated by Carroll, economic viability is something business does for society as well, although people seldom look at it this way [Carroll, 1999, p. 284]. Unfortunately, the art of combining the economic and social goals in practice is a particularly difficult one that generates a whole array of decision-making problems. According to Porter and Kramer, if corporations were to analyze their prospects for social responsibility using the same framework that guides their core business choices, they would discover that CSR can be much more than a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed, but that it can be a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage [Porter, Kramer, 2006, p. 79]. If these assumptions are applied, levelling the importance of CSR issues with core business and commercial issues, it should lead to the adaptation of the concepts, methods, techniques and management tools used in the area of business commercial activity for the needs of CSR management. The aim of this paper is to present the conceptual framework of possible controller role and tasks in the area of CSR management. Here, the controller is understood as a specific business service provider responsible for ensuring rational management [Weber, Schäffer, 1999, pp. 731–747]. Although the idea of Controlling is widely described in the literature, the controllers’ activities in the area of CSR are rarely presented. The author of this paper aims to fill this gap, even if only partially. The paper includes the conceptual framework of CSR-controller task field based mostly on the aforementioned Weber and Schäffer concept [Weber, Schäffer, 1999, pp. 731–747; Schäffer et al., 2001, pp. 1–26]. The paper is organized as follows. In the proceeding section, a literature review describing the implementation of Controlling concept in the area of CSR issues is performed. Next, general problems of CSR management are brought closer to light, based on theoretical and empirical research results from different authors. Typical problems, pointed in this section, have become the reason for taking on the subject matter by the author. In the last section, the CSR-controller framework is described. This section is expanded into five subsections. Firstly, the process of framework development adopted by the author is introduced. Next, problematic questions concerning CSR issues are presented in two categories: Responsive and Strategic CSR, according to Porter and Kramer idea of CSR activities categorization. Following that, the controllers’ tasks are described based on Weber and Schäffer concept. Then, the comparative analysis of Porterand Kramer as well as Weber and Schäffer concepts is performed based on typical features of a decision-making process. In the last part of this section, the conceptual framework of CSR-controller functions and tasks is presented. Chosen research from Anglo-American literature describing Management Control Systems (MCS) in the area of CSR is also examined in this section to further enhance the scope of the viewpoint of CSR-Controlling presentation. Finally, the limitations of CSR-controller framework and propositions of further researches are pointed out.