The Nucleus of CSR - Creating and Communicating a Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility Agenda in a Controversial Industry

Title: The Nucleus of CSR – Creating and Communicating a Strategic Corporate Responsibility Agenda in a Controversial Industry Authors: Karin Andersson and Anne Frandsen Supervisors: Martin Blom – Department of Business Administration, Lund School of Economics and Management Per Svenningsson – Department of Technology and Society, Envi-ronmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund Institute of Technology Karin Wiegand – Project Manager, SEO, Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB Problem: Not much literature covers the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aspect within the nuclear power industry. The industry has special conditions since it is controversial, tightly controlled and regulated by authorities. Further, safety conditions are crucial and a zero toler-ance on mistakes is necessary not to jeopardize the safety of em-ployees, society and the environment. The debate concerning the climate and how to meet the increasing energy demand in a sustain-able way is a hot issue. How can a company create a shared value with the society striving for a more prosperous business and a sustainable world? This brings about the question: In an opinion affected, controversial and tightly controlled industry how is a strategic CSR agenda best designed? Further, how are a company’s engagements ideally communicated to stakeholders? Purpose: The purpose is to clarify how CSR activities can be strategically chosen and effectively communicated in an opinion driven and controversial industry like the nuclear industry, thereby creating shared value with the society. Method: The purpose has been reached by gathering data in various ways. Qualitative, internal interviews with key persons at Westinghouse have been conducted, as well as semi structured interviews with customer representatives. To obtain students’ perceptions of Westinghouse, a quantitative survey has been conducted at universities. This has been done to gain knowledge about two important stakeholder groups. The data have been complemented with secon-dary sources such as academic articles, books and reports. Data have been applied to chosen frameworks in order to achieve the purpose. Conclusion: Conclusions of the thesis mainly concern the matter of the tightly connected players within the nuclear power industry. Results reveal that the players are closely connected to each other; hence an industry integrated CSR agenda would be an opportunity to take ad-vantage of the interconnection of the parties and attain industry re-lated synergies within CSR. One essential aspect for Westinghouse in its external communication is transparency and openness towards its stakeholders. To be able to enjoy the benefits of CSR to the fullest, Westinghouse is ad-vised to tailor its external communication depending on the addressed stakeholder. For instance, it has been proven that students find companies using a variety of communication channels more at-tractive. Spreading knowledge about the nuclear industry is one way to inform the public about Westinghouse and its business. Within the industry transparency, and hence also knowledge, is greater. Even so, an increased knowledge exchange between the different parts of the industry is suggested, as this has been shown to be both essential and appreciated. Key Words: Strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR), CSR communication, nuclear power, controversial industry