Discourses about Righting the Business ← → Society Relationship

Abstract

This article engages the question—what is the right business‐society relationship? We consider three perspectives that seek to address the relationship: corporate social responsibility (CSR), social entrepreneurship (SE), and conscious capitalism (CC). We take a macroapproach considering how commentary about these approaches establishes a direction for corporate practice and its relationship to key stakeholder groups. We argue that these perspectives are ‘D'iscourses that provide arguments for and articulations about the direction of corporate practice and the business‐society relationship. To organize our review of each perspective, and focus our critique, for each we highlight (a) drivers and influencers, (b) core assumptions and defining features, and (c) approaches and exemplars. Although distinct, all emphasize effective business practices as key to meeting social needs. CSR suggests legitimizing business practice; SE relocates business practices; and CC seeks to reimagine/rehabilitate business for social good. Ultimately, we conclude that these Discourses lack a clear communicative focus in terms of decision making within these organizations. We attend to this and other implications, and offer avenues for further research.

Strategic Alliances in Firm-Centric and Collective Contexts: Implications for Indigenous Entrepreneurship

“…This result clearly mirrors current conversations in Indigenous entrepreneurship on how business and society functions and the need for corporations to take on Indigenous knowledge systems and worldviews to navigate these divergent positions of civil society stakeholders as well as consumers (Marens 2016;Liket and Maas 2016). It also points to areas of conflict and opportunity when considering the value of engaging with divergent and/or local perspectives of value that may be significant to how corporations lay out strategies appropriate for achieving legitimacy through their CRS activities (Fyke et al 2016). In this sense, R2 is more in tune with the collective approach and has implications for R1 in that corporations can learn and be more collective in approach as they build SAs generally.…”

Corporate Social Advocacy as Public Interest Communications: Exploring Perceptions of Corporate Involvement in Controversial Social-Political Issues

“…There are many different models for how businesses might invest in the public interest and communicate this investment. Fyke et al (2016) described three categorizations of business-society relationships: CSR, conscious capitalism, and social entrepreneurship. In this conceptualization, CSR helps to legitimize business practices, is integrated into an already existing business model, and still has profits at the center of its functioning.…”

“…Social entrepreneurship instead has a core goal of sustainable social and economic change. Organizations in this category are founded upon their social values, as opposed to these social values later being fit into an existing business model (Fyke et al, 2016).…”

“…First, participants were asked if they perceived the purpose of the action to be to "change people's views on the issue" or to "create change in society on the issue." To examine distinctions between conscious capitalism, social entrepreneurship, and CSR (Fyke et al, 2016), participants were asked if the company was "committed to social change," "committed to creating a more just society," or "more concerned with social change than profits. "…”

Delineating CSR and social change: Querying corporations as actors for social good

“…As editors of the journal Business & Society illustrate, ‘Contentions about the nature of the role of society within the business and society field have been debated since the field’s inception’ beginning with Preston’s (1975) foundational paradigm-building piece on business–society relationships (Crane et al, 2015: 430). Historically, businesses have been imagined ‘as one of the great institutions capable of the greatest social change’ and are often called to address social concerns in situations where government and nonprofits fall short (Fyke et al, 2016: 218). Novartis’ initiative in India, for example, was so successful that the company replicated the efforts in Kenya, Vietnam, and Indonesia.…”