Case Study Report on Campina

Arno Mathis, Research associateCSTM – Center for Clean Technology and Environmental

Policy

Corporate Social Responsibility and Policy Making – What role does

communication play?

CSR performance of Campina

The company has already a number of strong policies in place, especially with respect to the environment.

Campina has currently only reduced competencies at its disposal to navigate uncertainties but also to maximise potential opportunities because of decentralised stakeholder management.

Study focuses on:• The exchange of general information related to

the dairy sector and issues related to CSR (communication network)

• The exchange of resources in the form of joint funding, shared equipment, shared personnel, or shared facilities (resource exchange network)

• Interest positions of actors with respect to four CSR issues in the dairy sector of the Netherlands.

• Significance of actors‘ belief systems on the interaction in the network

• Impact of Campina’s CSR engagement on the interaction with public authorities

Information exchange network of the Dutch dairy sector

Information exchange and shared resources network

Communication and shared resources network after K-

cores identification

Main findings:

Core group of actors in the Dutch dairy sector with respect to policy-making are: LNV, VROM, EZ, NZO, VNO/NCW, FNLI, and Campina.

Friesland Foods does not belong to the core group based on information and resource exchange.

Betweeness of actors in the Dutch dairy sector

Eigenvector scores of actors in the Dutch dairy

sector

Main findings:

• LNV, LTO, Campina and Unilever are central according to betweeness centrality

• According to Eigenvector centrality, actors participating in the formal policy-making process are also central in the information-exchange network (LNV, VROM, EZ, Campina, NZO, Friesland Foods)

Status of actors in the Dutch dairy

sector

Information exchange network combined with actors’ policy positions with respect to self- and co-

regulation

Interest positions of actors incorporated in the communications

network

• Self- and co-regulation types of policy instruments are supported by: LNV, VROM, NZO, EZ, SenterNovem and Campina among others

• Not supported by: VON-NCW, FNLI and Friesland Foods among others

• = Coalition of formally and informally powerful actors in favor of soft types of regulation

Institutional factors predetermining the interaction of actors

• The political culture and tradition of the Netherlands:Characterized by the notion of consensus, compromise, and consultation.

• Basic institutional structure:Corporatism is of great importance in the Netherlands, VNO-NCW, FNLI, NZO, and the SER enjoy strong positions because of Dutch corporatism

• The level of trust within the Netherlands: The high level of trust and social capital in the Netherlands is very important for the feasibility of horizontal steering instruments such as covenants (type of co-regulation).

Corporate Social Responsibility and policy-making – does it make a

difference?

The higher levels of stakeholder management due to higher levels of CSR engagement are, the better (more intense and better mutual understanding) the relationship with public authorities should be. Confirmed.

In the policy subfield of CSR, actor coalitions are set up in line with actors’ policy core beliefs.

Not confirmed.

The capacity of actors to influence the general policy-making process gets bigger, the more access points (direct links or even shared resources) actors have to public authorities.

Confirmed.

The more the private sector practices CSR policies and strategies, the more co-regulation and self-regulation types of legislation should be observable.

Partly confirmed.

The higher the CSR performance and stakeholder management of a company is, the easier it is for the company to get not only access to public authorities, but also to get licences, permits, etc from the authorities which results in lower bureaucratic costs.

Confirmed.

Thank you for your attention