CSR as a vehicle for Innovation

When the first computer came out, the only ones who could use it had to have a degree in mathematics or related studies. Today many telecommunication companies are working with community groups to help to bridge the digital divide between generations and provide equal opportunities for the increasing ageing population to have access to global information space, maintain their social ties with their families across the world and equally participate at the market place. A lot of that is done as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programmes. At the same time, innovation is considered as a central word for telecommunication companies that have to conform with enormous speed and pace of the market and could be considered as essential capability to compete. This thesis investigates as to what extent companies can create the synergy between CSR and Innovation and whether that could serve as a differentiation aspect at the market. There are two primary objectives for this paper to describe the interplay between CSR and Innovation and create a model that could explain that interaction and help to manage that. Based on the extensive literature review and case study of British Telecommunications, the main argument of this paper is that conscious management of interplay and synergy creation between CSR and Innovation can inspire businesses for an outstanding type of innovation called CSR-enabled innovation and could lead to evolvement of what has been described as meta-capability and serve as a differentiation strategy for the company