Differentiating CSR managers roles and competencies: taking conflicts as starting point

An increasing number of studies addresses the potential influential role of CSR managers in stimulating corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in companies. CSR managers are a particular group of responsible managers who have implementing CSR as a specialized responsibility and as such are decisive actors in the CSR implementation process. Their position is a challenging position as it may come with many conflicts resulting from accommodating different values (e.g. profit values vs. social value). Although accommodating pluralistic values might lead to complementary strategies, they can also cause conflicts and internal dissonance, which in turn can lead to a diminished work ability or even a burnout among CSR managers. Multiple studies have described the roles and the competencies CSR managers employ in their job. Nevertheless, in this chapter, we argue, based on an inventory of possible conflicting elements in their job, that a more contextualized perspective is needed on these roles and competencies.