Investigating the Status of Responsible Strategies of Companies in the Iranian Food Industry: A Multi - Case Study

A growing number of businesses develop their corporate social responsibility in response to various social, environmental, and economic pressures. Responsible practice is problematic since businesses usually employ many disparate responsible plans and initiatives instead of a comprehensive corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy. It is thus crucial that companies carefully integrate CSR into their corporate strategies. This article intended to examine the integration of CSR strategies in three food companies in Iran, namely Nestle, Bell, and Sina Food Holding. 

Methodology:

The research used a qualitative methodology to address the multidimensional and dynamic nature of the topic. An exploratory multiple case study was used to analyze Nestle, Bel, and Sina Holdings in terms of stakeholder engagement, the level of integration of corporate governance with social responsibility measures, and the level of social reporting. To compare and identify the level of integration of CSR strategies in the three companies, the study employed Molteni’s proposed model for the development of CSR in the corporate strategy, which consists of five stages: informal and defensive CSR, charitable CSR, systemic CSR, innovative CSR, and dominant CSR. 

Findings:

The results showed that multinational companies such as Nestle and Bell possess a high level of stakeholder engagement as well as an integrated and internalized level of integration of corporate governance with responsible measures, so such companies are at the dominant stage of Molteni’s model, with responsible measures becoming a dominant culture of corporate strategy. However, the level of stakeholder engagement was more limited in the case of Sina Food Holding, where the integration of corporate governance with social responsibility measures could be modeled as the instrumental legitimacy. Therefore, Sina Food Holding was found to be at the systemic stage of Molteni’s model. In fact, despite Sina Holding’s philosophy of elimination of deprivation in the field of management and governance, there is no alignment between its strategies and its social initiatives, as well as between the internal integration of the governance system with the company's social responsibility measures. Especially at the level of subsidiaries, the discussion of corporate social responsibility is limited to charities and the concepts of classical social responsibility. 

Conclusion:

Many companies are considering responsible strategies as a substantial component of their overall business strategy, along with the traditional functions such as marketing, branding, research and development, innovation, and operations. Many Iranian companies experience a situation similar to that of Sina Food Holding owing to various reasons and challenges, be they structural, cultural, motivational, etc. In this situation, if companies seek their own survival and that of the society, they must raise their status to the dominant stage of social responsibility. Compared to Sina Food Holding, the international context of Nestlé and Bell and their social awareness are among the important elements observed in developing responsible and social goals.