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C A S E T E A C H I N G N O T E S
Integration of a Corporate Social Responsibility
programme in Coloplast
Christina Berg Johansen
1. Introduction
This case study offers students a basis for discussion and analysis of the following issues:
a) The challenges in integrating CSR with business strategies
2. Position of the case
This case provides a critical perspective on CSR, by revealing the ambiguous micro processes
entailed in its development. It is positioned between the phenomenon of CSR and the theoretical
3. Learning objectives
Study of the case involves students in understanding:
How the trends towards strategic CSR are in practice more challenging than it instinctively
sounds: In a micro perspective, existing corporate strategic practices are not designed for
CSR and managers must experiment with the opportunities that the novel CSR practices
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The different roles in CSR development, which can apply to leaders from the project-
initiating CEOs visionary role, to the role of the CFO, to the roles and strategic decisions of
4. Teaching scheme
The case can be taught as a class discussion; particularly on the topic of strategic CSR. It may
serve as a counterpart to other cases and descriptions of successful CSR projects, to prompt
5. Questions for discussion
1. Why was Access to Healthcare created? Identify and discuss the different motivations.
2. Consider the integration of the Access to Healthcare programme with the organisational
structure. What effect does it have on CSR integration that the programme starts off as the
CEOs own project with no departmental anchoring? How does this position change over
the years and does it make any difference?
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6. Case analysis
The case, longitudinal and micro-focused as it is, gives students an opportunity to approach
CSR from an organisational perspective rather than a moral or strategicnormative angle. The
case is written so that students can question how the CSR initiative developed, and which actors
1. CSR as a novel practice
The case views strategic CSR as a type of practice still new to corporations. Though CSR has
been a part of most large corporations daily work for the last 515 years, actually using CSR in
business strategy is still rather new territory. CSR is based on many different assumptions about
how corporations should engage with society, but it has not traditionally been part of the core
purposes of corporations. The premise of strategic CSR is that by engaging with and helping a
Also, the case shows how CSR, as an overarching concept, is so broad that it may mean entirely
different things, depending on its application. A great deal of CSR has emotional appeal, as we
see in some of the discussions around Access to Healthcare: helping poor people and engaging
1. The first CEO in the case is inspired by the CSR that he observes in his surroundings,
particularly the World Diabetes Foundation. This shows how ambiguously CSR decisions
can emerge. The CEO decides on a foundation like his peers, which in practice does not
2. The corporate lack of knowledge about CSR means that the involved managers do not agree
on what the programmes purpose is. Instead, they incorporate many diverging objectives in
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3. There is little or no reflection amongst the CEO and involved managers at any point in
time that the programme with its different logics and objectives, could benefit from
external validation. An interesting classroom discussion could take place around the fact
4. From the outset, the programme is driven by the CEO and a few interested managers. It is
located as a strategic satellite to the CEO, and has no structural or process integration in the
2. Emergent strategy and the roles of actors
Devoting more attention to emerging markets is a trend, which many international, Western-
based companies have experienced over the last 57 years. Before that, offshoring production,
e.g. to China was one of the key drivers in engaging with emerging markets, combined with
sales offices in specific locations.
In Coloplast, emerging markets were strategically very peripheral to core European markets,
and therefore their KPIs were mainly sales related. Corporate support to emerging markets was
limited there were, for example, no marketing or innovation efforts directed at these markets.
There are two main issues to be discussed in this:
One is how strategies are not only a top-down game, but sometimes arise from lengthy
experimentation, external developments (financial crisis, emerging markets rising power)
and new corporate needs.
3. Short-term vs. long-term issues
Though only indicated in the case story, the friction between short- and long-term concerns is
worth considering for classroom discussion or assignments. This pertains also to the larger
discussions of balancing exploitation and exploration in corporate strategy.
Before the crisis in Coloplast, the Access to Healthcare programme was seen as an expression of
a non-strategic exploration of opportunities and interests for the company. When the financial
crisis and an internal business crisis coincide, and there is a call for actions of austerity and cost
As CSR is by nature not easy to reap economic benefits from in the short run, its fit with the
corporate strategy in times of cost efficiency and short-term exploitation is non-existent. As the
company once again has strategic and economic room for longer-term exploration, investments
such as Access to Healthcare begin to make sense. The question is whether it was a good idea to
keep Access to Healthcare during the short-term exploitation years, or whether it should have
been shut down and something new initiated at a later stage? This depends on how the students