Role Overload or Opportunity? The Influence of Role Multiplicity on CSR Managers

Abstract

As Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) becomes increasingly central to business strategy, CSR managers are expected to assume a wide range of roles, encompassing compliance and reporting, strategic development, stakeholder engagement, and cultural change. Such role multiplicity can introduce tensions, but also be potentially enriching. This study explores how CSR managers experience and are influenced by multiple roles in their workplace, drawing on role strain and role accumulation theory. To do so, the study mobilizes a methodology of 18 semi-structured interviews with CSR professionals across Western Europe. The findings show that CSR managers assume more organizational roles than prevailing literature has identified. Specifically, the findings confirm the existence of six established roles and furthermore add two roles. While role multiplicity generates tensions such as overload, ambiguity, conflicting roles, and role transitions, most participants also reported significant benefits, including professional enrichment and strengthened strategic positioning. These experiences seem to be influenced by individual factors, for example, personality traits, and contextual factors, such as organizational and CSR department maturity, structural clarity, and company culture. The study conceptualizes these dynamics as a trade-off between role-related tensions and benefits, moderated by influencing factors. Theoretically, it provides a connection between role strain and role accumulation theory, whilst proposing a more dynamic understanding of how multiple roles influence CSR professionals. Rather than confirming or rejecting that role multiplicity is generally beneficial or problematic, the study shows that both tensions and benefits can occur simultaneously. Depending on influencing factors, one outweighs the other. Practically, the findings offer implications for intentional role design, team structuring, recruitment practices, and organizational support mechanisms to better enable CSR managers to thrive in their multifaceted roles.