Csr Fostering And Production Externalities Solving With Integrated Networking. An Italian Mix-Method Case Study

The present paper, based on the concept of intercorporate social responsibility, aims at investigating the role of corporation networks in green management and, in more general terms, in social and environmental responsibility behaviour. The general theoretical perspective from which we start is that of industrial and organizational psychology.The theoretical framework to which we refer is a triangulation of, on one side, the International literature on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Social Performance (CSP), which are ethical in nature, and, on the other, the International literature on externalities and industrial symbiosis, which are more business oriented, in the effort to integrate business and ethics. The paper, which is theoretical in nature, presents in its final section a case study relating to a project involving a consortium of 60 Italian organizations which exchange production externalities through an electronic platform to which they are all connected 24 hours a day. We have proposed to these organizations an action-research in the shape of appreciative inquiry intervention the present paper presents the main results of. The originality of the paper derives, in theoretical terms, from the concept of intercorporate social responsibility and from the application of the principles of industrial symbiosis at a Small and Medium Enterprise level, thanks to ICT support. In such a way, externalities may be seen along with an appreciative perspective which transforms them in a tool of organizational development