eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Objectives of the Study:

The study has two objectives and the first objective is to define and clarify the corporate social responsibility concept emphasizing the environmental responsibility. The concept of environmental responsibility is emphasized since the second object of the study is to explain the hindrances to international diffusion of the IT based environmental program, Green Office (GO). The need to research the hindrances to diffusion can be understood against the background of increasing consciousness of the importance of environmentally responsible behavior from companies and organizations. By clearly defining and exploring the hindrances to license take-up, WWF Finland will be able to improve their marketing strategy and the features of GO to be more attractive to WWF local offices in different countries.

Academic background and methodology:

Based on previous literature and studies, an initial framework for studying the possible hindrances to diffusion is developed. The initial framework is based on the literature about the collaboration between agencies, partnership, strategy for interaction and stakeholder dialogue. The study is a case study, which is based on the survey. The questionnaire content of the survey and analyzing the results of the survey are based strongly on the initial framework. The previous literature about the different dimensions of corporate social responsibility and some papers on information systems (IS) and environmental management systems (EMS) are covered for providing the background to the study.

Findings and conclusions:

It was found that delivering and marketing the information technology based concept to various countries is challenging, notwithstanding the fact that the product/service/concept is good. There are many factors that cause hindrances to diffusion of the concept. These factors relate to the agencies (both the "seller" and the "buyer" parties), the co-operation between the parties and the environmental and circumstantial factors affecting each party.