Shaping or Shaking Trust in Corporate Responsibility Strategies: The Role of Financialization Practices

Managerial trust in a corporate responsibility strategy can be a precondition for the progressive implementation of social and ecological activities. Our findings show that the financialization of corporate responsibility activities can help overcome institutional incomplementarity between the logic of social responsibility and the dominant financial logic to build and strengthen managerial trust and facilitate implementation. This trust, however, is precarious and requires constant management. Moreover, financialization practices lead to selective implementation of corporate responsibility activities, which may lead to mistrust amongst external stakeholders. Thus, the financialization of corporate responsibility is highly ambivalent by shaping trust amongst internal stakeholders, but shaking trust amongst external stakeholders. Findings are based on quantitative and qualitative data derived from 25 interviews with experts employed by Germany’s largest publicly traded companies in 2016 and 2017, as well as an online survey of managers employed by 88 German companies listed on the DAX/MDAX/TecDAX stock indices in 2016.