Companies worldwide are facing increasing challenges due to the fast pace of digitalization and a growing pressure to find sustainable solutions to urgent social and environmental problems of our times. The complex interplay between technological, societal, and regulatory developments, as well as recent disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic or Russia's war against Ukraine, are bringing about rapid changes to the business landscape.
In a result, businesses are compelled to find new ways to effectively manage the so-called twin-transformation. This term, introduced by Alexander Brink, describes the combined, simultaneous and parallel development of two transformative game-changers of the 21st century: digitalization and sustainability (cf. Brink 2022, p. 150). The proposed dissertation project seeks to explore the management of the twin-transformation in companies by analysing the following guiding research question: How can companies balance the opportunities and risks of digitalization while fulfilling their corporate responsibility to generate sustainable value for the company, society and the environment?
To answer this question, one approach has gained considerable attention in recent years: Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) (cf. Dörr 2020, p. 28; Trittin‐Ulbrich and Böckel 2022, p. 452). CDR can be defined as voluntary business activities that go beyond legal requirements and that aim to actively shape the digital world in the interests of consumers and for the benefits of society (cf. Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz, nukleare Sicherheit und Verbraucherschutz 2021, p. 2). However, until today there is little empirical evidence on existing CDR business practice patterns, its underlying motives and the socio-contextual mechanisms that influence them. In addition to that, the conceptualization of CDR and its theoretical understanding are still in its early stages and predominantly cover the topic from a digital risk management perspective. To overcome this limitation, the proposed dissertation project aims to develop a deeper understanding of CDR as an integrative management practice for disvalue mitigation and value creation, putting a particular focus on the less explored topic of value creation form a holistic business ethics perspective.
To achieve this goal, the proposed research project will review the existing CDR literature and its historical roots within the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and digital ethics discourse. Furthermore, the literature review will be complemented by a review of the social intrapreneurship literature that relates to the topic of digitalization and sustainability. An integrative analysis might promise new insights to understand the business case and, in particular, the role of sustainability-orientated digital innovations as a promising, but still underestimated practice of value creation in the concept of CDR.
In preparation of the empirical part of the study, existing meta-theoretical frameworks for analysing CDR in practice will be shortly discussed. Depending on the research findings, a suitable theoretical framework, e.g., Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, will be introduced as an alternative and holistic framework for analysing CDR in corporate practice.
In the empirical part of the proposed dissertation project, a multi-case study design will be used to explore the business case of CDR. Following a mixed-method research approach, qualitative methods, such as e.g., semi-structured expert interviews will be applied to generate richer insights into the currently carried out CDR practices. Quantitative methods, such as surveys or experiments, will then be used to verify identified patterns in the datasets. The results promise to provide a valuable database for an in-depth discussion on the CDR concept, which will be realized in a case-specific and theory-based examination of the results and conclude in answering the research question. One potential outcome of the research could be a typology of CDR practices. Furthermore, the findings will allow to formulate an outlook on possible implications for management research and practice alike.
