Organisation and Sustainable Development: towards a new form of social responsibility?

We analyze the situation of six multinational companies’ policy of "social responsibility" and of "sustainable development". The purpose of this communication is to define how these companies, especially the subsidiaries, are socially responsible and take into account environmental issues. This exploratory and qualitative study is based on the analysis of official discourse of six firms and those of human resources managers. We highlight different types of "social responsibility", the "stakeholders" that are taken into account by companies and the means implemented to achieve the policies of "sustainable development" and of "social responsibility". Our purpose is to show, beyond the official discourse, which role the subsidiaries play and which autonomy they have in their policies’ implementation. We wonder in conclusion about the hypothesis that a new way of human resource management of organizations is likely to appear through this new “social responsibility” and, conversely, if the new management involves the emergence of a new social responsibility. We will show that the types of responsibility, shown through the web site and in the HR discourses, are “ethic” (stands for the respect of the values, the standards and the requirements that stakeholders find fair) and “economic” ( focuses on the production of goods and services). Those classifications depend on the firm’s sector.

The Human Resources can be more regardful for the legal aspects or for the political aspects, especially in crisis situation. The human resources play different roles and highlight different priorities: respect of fundamental values, actions of the subsidiary that are presented as models, transparent communication, gather the employees around values and projects…