Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility and the Role of the Firm—On the Denial of Politics

Abstract

This article argues that corporate social responsibility (CSR) does not represent a challenge to business. On the contrary, it suggests that CSR represents a further embedding of capitalist social relations and a deeper opening up of social life to the dictates of the marketplace. Furthermore, it protests that CSR is not a driving force of change but rather an outcome of changes brought on by other forces. Most particularly, it is the result of a shift from a fordist to a post-fordist regime of accumulation at the heart of which is both an expansion and a deepening of wage relations. This article somewhat conveniently traces the (re)emergence of CSR as an issue beyond the academy from the 1990s whilst acknowledging the academic work on CSR carried out earlier (Carroll, 1979 or Owen, 2003 on the democratic push in CSR during the 1970s).

Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility

“…CSR is interpreted as a corporate response to macro-structural changes of regimes of accumulation that followed the crisis of the 'Fordist compromise' in the late 1960s and the 1970s (Hanlon, 2008). In this new political regime, CSR helps maintain the status quo:…”

“…Limitations of the proposed solutions Classical and marketcentred CSR Institutional view of power as related to the dominancy of specific actors or institutions in society Structural; functional; objective; national [institutional-structural]  CSR as an expression of paternalism or feudalism (Bowen, 1953;Levitt, 1958)  CSR as a dangerous interference with democratic functioning (Friedman, 1962;Levitt, 1958)  Responsibility and legitimacy will ensure CSR 'used' for good (Carroll, 2008)  Enhancing and consolidating pluralistic democratic institutions to contain corporate power (Preston & Post, 1975)  Undermining CSR as a theory and practice (Friedman, 1962;Levitt, 1958)  Democratizing corporate decisionmaking to balance power relations (Bowen, 1953)  Hold corporations to account (Mitchell et al, 1997)  Take Critical CSR Institutional-Marxist approach to power as related to class relations and production regimes Structural; objective [institutional-structural]  CSR as an hegemonic ideological discourse that maintains the statusquo and facilitates the dominance of a minority (Jones, 1996)  CSR as a dominant ideological apparatus of the post-Fordist regime of accumulation (Hanlon, 2008)  Call for re-regulation of labour and development of counter-power (labour unions)  Criticism and unveiling of the role of CSR as an ideological instrument of domination  Limited focus on corporate actors  'Nostalgic' appeal to past grand narratives and state regulation to address global CSR issues Post-structural approach to power as a set of discourses, symbols and representations shaping actors' conducts through discipline Post-structural; postcolonial; post-National Subjective [discursive-ideological]  CSR as a form of neo-colonialism used to manipulate power-less and voice-less stakeholders (Banerjee, 2000(Banerjee, , 2010)  CSR as a tool for manipulating stakeholders (Fleming & Jones, 2013;Shamir, 2005)  CSR as new form of governmentality (El-Akremi et al, 2008;Vallentin & Murillo, 2013)  Recurrent calls for abandoning CSR and uncovering its potential perverse effects (Shamir, 2005)  Dangers of commodifying society and politic...…”

A reinterpretation of the principles of CSR: a pragmatic approach

“…Our pragmatic approach (Wicks and Freeman, 1998) illustrates how the ethical concept of sustainable development (WCED, 1987) and the notion of democratic iterations (Benhabib, 2006; offer some guidance for companies and managers who wish to pursue a sustainable development path. Through building on the notion of democratic iterations (Benhabib, 2006;, this paper also relates and contributes to a growing body of literature that explicitly acknowledges the political nature of CSR and asks for more politically rooted conceptualizations of CSR and analysis of the fi rm Crane, Matten and Moon, 2008;Vogel, 2005;Scherer and Palazzo, 2007;Hanlon, 2008;Nèron and Norman, 2008). By focusing on the contributions of business to sustainable development, this paper also relates to some of the corporate sustainability literature (van Marrewijk, 2003).…”

The relationship of ethical and economic behaviour

“…Rozvíjení různých teorií a modelů může posloužit jako pomůcka k pochopení souvislostí, ale ne jako hlavní cíl snažení, kterým je pochopení konkrétního chování v daném prostředí. Hanlon (2008) si všímá zajímavého jevu, že o společenské odpovědnosti se začalo v podnikatelských kruzích mluvit v 50. letech 20. století, ale masově se začala využí-vat až v 80. letech a samostatnost a jistou nezávislost si vydobyla až v letech devadesátých. Důvod podle něj spočívá v tom, že do osmdesátých let se fi rmy pohybovaly v prostředí regulovaném státem a neměly tak velkou moc toto prostředí měnit, jako mají dnes.…”