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Offers guidelines, plans and practical examples on how to manage CSR in global business operations. Based on the experiences of 20 diverse, large, medium and small companies, this book constitutes a guidebook and action plan to enable companies of all sizes to manage risk and seek out opportunities for engagement in their overseas operations.

AbstractThis article explains why sustainable business has caught the spotlight at this particular time. Main drivers are the shift in power relationships between states, firms and households, the emergence of civil regulation and the communication through networks. The implication of this trend towards sustainable business is that firms will consciously need to focus on creating value not only in financial terms, but also in ecological and social terms. The challenge facing the business sector is how to set about meeting these expectations. Firms will need to change not only in themselves, but also in the way they interact with their environment. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

AbstractThis article addresses the experiences gained by 19 Dutch companies with corporate social responsibility (CSR). These companies joined the programme 'From financial to sustainable profit' of the National Initiative for Sustainable Development (NIDO), which ran from May 2000 until December 2002. They focused on two issues: assessing the added value of corporate social responsibility and implementing a structured approach. The Dutch experiment showed that the companies involved were able to specify the added value of CSR by elaborating the economic performance and/or parenting advantage. Unfortunately, a third type of value creation, viz. through protecting the company's reputation, was not elaborated. Moreover, the experiment revealed that among the 19 participating companies experiences were limited in implementing a structured approach towards CSR. By exchanging experiences the companies learned from each other. Such interactive learning turned out to be a helpful support, complementary to the general CSR literature on guidelines, indicators and best practice guides. Although this literature is rapidly growing, knowledge is still lacking in structuring CSR. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Companies that wish to launch innovative sustainability technologies can collaborate in strategic networks of actors from industry, government and research institutes to pro-actively build a business ecosystem around their new technology. This is called collective system building. In this paper, we examine how to effectively manage networks for collective system building. Based on a review of the literature, we identify the key factors of effective network management and we propose a conceptual framework for network management at the network level. Subsequently, we conduct a multiple-case study in the Dutch smart grid sector to examine how these key factors are implemented by system-building networks. We find differences with the existing network management literature regarding network composition, network management structure, governance modes, decision-making processes, project management, the free-rider problem and trust-building mechanisms. Our study contributes to a better understanding of effective management of system-building networks, which in turn can lead to greater success in establishing new business fields. We contribute to the literature on strategic business networks, specifically on emerging business networks building new business fields.

For their technological sustainability innovations to become successful, entrepreneurs can strategically shape the technological field in which they are involved. The technological innovation systems (TISs) literature has generated valuable insights into the processes which need to be stimulated for the successful development and implementation of innovative sustainability technologies. To explore the applicability of the TIS framework from the perspective of entrepreneurs, we conducted a case study in the Dutch smart grids sector. We found that the TIS framework generally matches the perspectives of entrepreneurs. For its use by entrepreneurs, we suggest a slight adaptation of this framework. The process 'Market formation' needs to be divided into processes that are driven by the government and processes that are driven by entrepreneurs. There should be a greater emphasis on collaborative marketing, on changing user behaviour and preferences and on the development of fair and feasible business models.