PhD Candidate Aims to Quantify Social Responsiblity

Doing Well by Doing Good

What’s a good corporate deed worth? That’s the question that PhD candidate Elise Perrault grapples with every day. Last September, the Montreal native arrived at Bentley with a four-year mandate to study the business value of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

It’s a big assignment. No one really knows whether firms benefit, in a business sense, from implementing practices that preserve natural resources, improve the human condition, and generally go beyond the letter of law to address social ills. The rush of companies declaring themselves environmentally friendly – without actually changing business strategies – further stymies efforts to assess the bottom-line profitability of CSR.

Perrault is determined to try, though. She has already outlined several areas where hard data and more difficult-to-measure factors – from psychology to marketing behavior – intersect.

“Corporate social responsibility has so many angles,” she says. “You have to look at behavior inside corporations, and at the motivations of investors – not only to make a profit but also more intangible rewards such as personal gratification.”

Multiple Approaches

Perrault is using sophisticated models and data to approach the topic from several directions. One tack studies consumer motivations to see if corporate social responsibility changes their behavior in a way that helps business – for example, does CSR build customer loyalty? Perrault is also devising an experiment to quantify how much of a fluctuation in return rate investors will accept between companies that practice CSR and those that don’t.

A third project explores “socially responsible investing” by mutual funds and other groups that make CSR a prime criterion for decision-making. Still another approach applies “stakeholder theory” to see how firms integrate CSR into the balance among investors, customers, suppliers, and others. Each line of inquiry should supply information for Perrault to use in building a business case that quantifies how CSR fits into a corporation’s overall performance.

An Untraditional Path

Perrault is not your typical PhD candidate, fresh out of university. After receiving her BA at the University of Quebec, she worked for several years in the Montreal fashion industry. The work included hosting a regional TV show and consulting with leading manufacturers on clothing design adaptations. When music sales went digital, she saw another opportunity. The company she formed translated song lyrics from English to popular French and Spanish, offering a marketing advantage for MP3.com.

But academia drew her back. Studying for an MBA at McGill University, she was inspired to seek her own college-level teaching career – and began scouting for likely PhD programs. The distinctive approach to business education she found at Bentley was very appealing.

“The business case for CSR is important at Bentley,” says Perrault, who also praises the interdisciplinary nature of the university’s PhD program.

The Power of Partnership

Perrault’s doctoral program benefits from a Bentley partnership with State Street Bank, which has pledged four years of financial support, data access, and information sharing on corporate social responsibility. 

“State Street has lots of research on carbon trading, sustainability issues, and the UN Environmental Program – and they have the reach to involve Elise in strategic discussions with many other companies,” notes PhD program director Cynthia Clark Williams, who has placed students in the bank’s Community Relations Department for many years.

“If the banks care about CSR, it happens,” Perrault says. “They want to invest in businesses that will give them a return. And we in academia can help. Our job is to observe and explain and, if we’re lucky, to predict. They can help us with data and support, and we can help them understand the role of CSR. ”