Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a central part of the contemporary business environment, yet many firms struggle to translate CSR goals into the outcomes they are striving for. This thesis examines how the implementation of three different CSR goals within an organization influences the risk of means-ends decoupling.

Using a qualitative single-case study, this study explores how different CSR goals are implemented within the same organization. The findings indicate that CSR implementation is not always sufficient, but varies across goals depending on both implementation approaches and contextual conditions. In particular, the study highlights how differences in implementation logics, the perceived business case for CSR and the level of contextual complexity shape the extent to which the implementation risks being decoupled from the intended outcomes

The study contributes to existing CSR and decoupling research by demonstrating that variation in CSR implementation can exist within organizations and not only across them. Also, future research should not completely lose its emphasis on practice-policy decoupling, since the lines between this and means-ends decoupling might become blurred under certain conditions. The findings suggest that organizations should adapt CSR implementation strategies to the specific context of different CSR goals, characterized by different levels of opacity.