When two second-year doctoral students at the GW School of Business decided to look into so-called corporate social responsibility (CSR)-washing, when companies espouse commitments to social concerns out of self-interest, they honed in on why companies’ CSR goals and actions are sometimes unfairly branded as inauthentic. Even more, they wanted to understand what those firms could do about it.
The resulting research by Ursula Martin and Urusha Thapa is the foundation of the paper “Punishing the good? How to minimize an unfair CSR-washing label.” The paper, co-authored with Avram Tucker Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Management Herman Aguinis, was published in Business Horizons.
“When we started the project, we were talking about how CSR is viewed from a consumer perspective,” Martin said. “We looked at how these organizations are structured and whether their commitment to CSR is as authentic as it is portrayed to be.
“Rather than always looking for the negative side of CSR, Urusha and I came up with the idea of looking at best practices and focused on companies that genuinely engage in sustainable practices but are still accused of CSR-washing and find themselves having to prove that their CSR initiatives are authentic,” Martin added.
Martin and Thapa said it can be difficult when companies that have made significant and genuine efforts to address social or environmental issues are lumped alongside businesses that tout an interest in CSR merely for financial gain, distorting internal practices to project a CSR façade to stakeholders. An unjust CSR-washing label can harm a business’s reputation, erode its consumer and stakeholder trust and even lead to lawsuits.
Martin and Thapa’s research resulted in four interconnected, evidence-based recommendations to minimize the likelihood that a business would be unfairly viewed as a CSR-washer. The paper also offers implementation guidelines for each of the four recommendations.
The first recommendation is to integrate CSR into core activities rather than making it a peripheral concern.
“It’s about being consistent and transparent with their CSR objectives and considering our recommendations to support those objectives,” Martin explained. “For example, if a company shares a big CSR initiative on social media and sets the target goal date for 2030, they must demonstrate consistency and transparency in their actions throughout the campaign. It is not a one-time action.”
Thapa said another recommendation is to foster a bottom-up approach to CSR to harness the value that employees can contribute to a sustainability culture.
“We focus on meaningfulness, on the things that employees are passionate about so that they feel they are part of the CSR culture,” Thapa said. “The actions or decisions come from top management, but how about letting employees contribute and have an opportunity to gain shared ownership?”
The other recommendations call for developing a performance management system that aligns with CSR objectives and advancing an effective and consistent CSR communications strategy.
“The article by Ursula and Urusha demonstrates the interdisciplinary, impactful and relevant research conducted at the George Washington University School of Business,” Aguinis said. “Ursula is in the doctoral program in the Department of Management and Urusha is in the program in the Department of Strategic Management and Public Policy, so they were able to provide different yet complementary perspectives to the topic of corporate social responsibility, which is critical for organizations and society.”
Martin and Thapa’s work exemplifies how early doctoral students have opportunities for research collaborations with professors at the School of Business. Thapa, who is from Nepal, said she applied to GW after finding that it was producing research that looked at how businesses can tackle grand challenges through strategy. She was especially interested in work on B corporations—organizations that meet various standards related to performance, accountability and transparency.
Martin was already in the Master of Human Resource Management program at GW Business when she began to think about a PhD as an avenue to merge her academic experience with her industry experience. Her interest lies in the human aspect of organizational behavior and issues related to marginalized groups.
Both PhD candidates, who are on track to graduate in 2027, said companies that want to succeed cannot remain on the sidelines about CSR.
“I would question companies that try to stay safe by saying nothing about CSR. The greater good lies with sustainability,” Thapa said. “Companies that are pro-CSR perform better in the long run and they work better with all kinds of stakeholders.”