Overview

Members of the Academy of Responsible Management are actively involved with research and analysis of CSR and Sustainability issues in a range of areas and contexts. The aim is to uncover themes of material importance in the development of CSR, Sustainability and Applied Ethics and to examine ways in which they can be addressed by effective responsible management programmes in businesses and other organisations and agencies.

The research programmes are run directly by ARM or in collaboration with other organisations in the countries in which we operate. They form the basis of our mission to enhance information and understanding of CSR issues and help us to develop our course materials to make them relevant to the needs of participants. They also serve to contribute to the global research agenda in the academic and practioner communities.

Research results are published in leading academic journals, practitioner publications, conference and seminar presentations and in our forthcoming research paper series.

Selected Research Projects

Corporate social responsibility in Malaysia: Ontological and epistemological research orientation in building theoretical foundations

Lead Researcher: Ellisha Nasruddin

Country Focus: Malaysia

Supporting Organisation: USM Research grant

This research proposes that in order to understand the nature and extent of CSR, as well as the manifestation of stakeholder-oriented society in Malaysia vis-a -vis CSR, a new approach to studying CSR needs to be conducted. Fundamentally, this new approach needs to consider the ontological as well as the epistemological aspects of the research. The theoretical framework (a CSR relational matrix) underpinning this research proposal relates to the ontological dimension of this research. The epistemological aspect of this research entails employing an abductive research strategy (Blaikie, 2000) which makes use of only sensitising concepts to direct the research; thereby, hypothesis testing is only recommended at the end of the research after second-order constructs are created (Schutz, 1963).

The authors of this research proposal have created a CSR relational matrix that is based on two lines of axis. The horizontal axis charts the levels or dimensions of corporate activities, namely (1) attitudinal-awareness, (2) knowledge-skills, (3) behavioral, and (4) result-impact. The vertical axis maps the relational aspects of CSR. It provides an analytical mapping of CSR vis-à-vis various stakeholders, which comprise (1) employees, (2) community, (3) environment, (4) customers (5) government, (6) suppliers, (7) industry players, and (8) investors. Synthesizing these two lines of axis, the CSR relational matrix, hence, becomes an analytical mapping template or 'semantic radar' whereby, corporate social responsibility takes cognizance of the multitude of stakeholders, in terms of the four levels of social initiatives/activities.

Country Focus: Malaysia, Syria, Sweden

Supporting Organisation: Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)

The project is a multidisciplinary research involving the study of ethnic relations and religious pluralism with a special focus on Malaysia and Sweden as part of collaboration between Center of Applied Ethics, Linkoping University, Sweden and Universiti Sains Malaysia. It includes multiple points of view: religious studies, ethics, anthropology, sociology, education, and organisational management. The project includes studies on how religious pluralism affects family law in Malaysia, Syria, and Sweden; how future scenarios of higher education will influence policies of ethnic pluralism; how CSR is playing a role in diversity and inclusion within business settings in Malaysia and Sweden; and philosophical problems related to religious and value pluralism in Malaysia and Sweden.