Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Dialogue: Bypassing Elected Staff Representatives?

The adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has implications for a company's relationships with its stakeholders. Specifically, by engaging in social dialogue, companies can promote direct relationships with employees, or indirect relationships with them, through elected staff representatives. This study investigates the relationships between companies' involvement in CSR and their engagement in social dialogue, both with employees and elected staff representatives. The results of two surveys, carried out among company representatives and elected staff representatives, indicate that employers do not implement CSR to bypass elected staff representatives. Instead, CSR relates positively to direct relationships with employees and these relationships are not substitutes for dialogue with elected staff representatives, but instead, a factor that can weaken it.