I CSR manager si raccontano: vissuti personali, retorice ed aspirazioni a confronto

The role of CSR manager is gaining increasing relevance in business organizations so that, in a recent contribution in management studies, they have been defined as ‘protagonists of a cause’. Nevertheless, few empiric studies have analysed the role of the CSR manager adopting the perspective of those managers who are actively involved in promoting CSR policies and practices within companies. In this research we adopt an “internal point of view” to study the evolution of the role of CSR manager. Thanks to twenty-six semi-structured interviews with CSR Managers, and four focus group interviews with managers holding CSR-related roles, which involved further nineteen participants, we explored the personal values, motivations and aspirations of those engaged in this managerial occupation, both in national and multinational companies. Analysing the interview transcripts, we identified six recurrent images that CSR managers use to describe their work. By that process, this research reconstructs the career paths characterizing the role, the current work experience of CSR managers, as well as the possible future developments of this managerial occupation. In conclusion, we fully developed the practical implications of our findings, which are presented and discussed in the paper