336 Int. J. Environment and Sustainable Development, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2017 Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. The Scandinavian cooperative advantage? A mixed method approach to highlight the influence of contextual conditions for environmental CSR uptake Leanne Johnstone, Elinor Svärd-Sandin and Cecilia Lindh* School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Mälardalens högskola, Box 883, 721 23 Västerås, Sweden Email: leanne.johnstone@oru.se Email: elinor.ss@hotmail.com Email: Cecilia.lindh@mdh.se *Corresponding author Abstract: Multilateral actor-to-actor (A2A) networks, exhibited and commonplace in Scandinavia, are considered key to effective environmental CSR implementation and organisational success. This research investigates the proposed Scandinavian cooperative advantage within the construction industry in order to better understand: a) if the contextual conditions of a country affect environmental CSR uptake; b) if construction companies exhibit environmental CSR-practices differently in discrete contexts; c) the role of stakeholder collaborations for explicit (soft-law) environmental CSR uptake and competitive advantage. With Sweden and Scotland as representative examples of two different contexts within and beyond Scandinavia, the results indicate that the contextual conditions of a country affect the perceptions, and likelihood, of environmental CSR uptake from both organisational and customer perspectives. However, it remains unclear as to whether stakeholder collaborations and A2A networks, traditional within Scandinavian societies, actually influence environmental CSR uptake more so than in external contexts. Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR; corporate sustainability; environmental CSR; explicit soft-law; Scandinavian cooperative advantage; stakeholder theory. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Johnstone, L., Svärd-Sandin, E. and Lindh, C. (2017) ‘The Scandinavian cooperative advantage? A mixed method approach to highlight the influence of contextual conditions for environmental CSR uptake’, Int. J. Environment and Sustainable Development, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.336–358. Biographical notes: Leanne Johnstone has a complementary background in business studies, marketing and environmental sustainability from Swedish and UK institutions. Her interests involve balancing the needs of organisational and environmental sustainability. She is currently a PhD candidate in Business Administration at Örebro University, Sweden, focusing on the systemic use of environmental management control systems. Elinor Svärd-Sandin received her MSc in Marketing from Mälardalen University. She has oriented her business studies on managerial aspects of marketing environmental sustainability throughout corporate organisations. She is about to attend the University of Western Australia where she will continue advanced managerial studies.