Sustainability Ratings and the Disciplinary Power of the Ideology of Numbers

Chelli, Mohamed; Gendron, Yves

doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1252-3

Cited by 87 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In line with Chelli & Gendron (2013) From an initial assessment of the public documents available on the websites of each agency,…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, there has been a noticeable reliance on CSR (corporate social responsibility) Rating Agencies as intermediate institutions which claim to provide a structured and reliable assessment of an enterprise's engagement with the multiple, and often ambiguous, facets of corporate social responsibility (Chelli & Gendron, 2013;Archel et al, 2011;Scalet & Kelly, 2010;Bessire & Onnee, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whilst acknowledging that we can only draw our conclusions from a limited set of countries and these will need further validation, we note that such national or cultural aspects did not emerge from our data. Thirdly, Chelli & Gendron (2013) investigated 37 rating agencies worldwide but were more concerned with the commonality of their public discourses and the quantification agenda underlying the methodologies adopted by ratings agencies. However, when these agencies were directly prompted for information, we instead noted an apparent combination of commonality and difference of the methodologies and criteria, principally arising due to market and commercial rationales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An analysis of the methodologies adopted by CSR rating agencies

Saadaoui

Soobaroyen

2018

SAMPJ

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Purpose: This paper analyses the similarities and differences in the methodologies adopted by CSR (corporate social responsibility) rating agencies. Design/methodology:We gather secondary and primary evidence of practices from selected agencies on the methodologies and criteria they rely upon to assess a firm's CSR performance. Findings:We find evidence of similarities in the methodologies adopted by the CSR rating agencies (e.g. the use of environment, social and governance themes, exclusion criteria, adoption of positive criteria, client/'customised' input, quantification), but also several elements of differences emerge, namely in terms of the thresholds for exclusion, transparent vs. confidential approach, industry-specific ratings, and weights for each dimension. Drawing from Sandberg et al.'s (2009) conceptualisations, we tentatively argue that this mixed picture may reflect competing organisational pressures to adopt a differentiation approach at the strategic and practical levels whilst recognising, and incorporating, the 'globalising' tendencies of the CSR business at the terminological levels.Implications: Although our data is based on a relatively small number of agencies, our findings and analysis convey some implications for users of CSR ratings and policy-makers;

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“…In line with Chelli & Gendron (2013) From an initial assessment of the public documents available on the websites of each agency,…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An analysis of the methodologies adopted by CSR rating agencies

Saadaoui

Soobaroyen

2018

SAMPJ

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“…As such, significant investment in renewables, for example, becomes particularly difficult because there are too many ''unknowns'' that cannot be necessarily be calculated, proven, or measured (Levy and Lichtenstein 2011). Even if initiatives do conform to this ''ideology of numbers'' (Chelli and Gendron 2012), such as pricing carbon through financial markets, they tend to reproduce the obsession with measurability, since carbon markets are themselves predicated on discourses of measurability (Böhm et al 2012). Therefore, the supermajors become trapped by their fixation with measurability, which in turn excludes alternative discourses that cannot be easily quantified such as deep ecology or systems thinking (Devall 1991;Williams et al 2017).…”

Section: Discursive Effects Of Avoiding Tension Through Mythmakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drilling their Own Graves: How the European Oil and Gas Supermajors Avoid Sustainability Tensions Through Mythmaking

2017

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This study explores how paradoxical tensions between economic growth and environmental protection are avoided through organizational mythmaking. By examining the European oil and gas supermajors' ''CEOspeak'' about climate change, we show how mythmaking facilitates the disregarding, diverting, and/or displacing of sustainability tensions. In doing so, our findings further illustrate how certain defensive responses are employed: (1) regression, or retreating to the comforts of past familiarities, (2) fantasy, or escaping the harsh reality that fossil fuels and climate change are indeed irreconcilable, and (3) projecting, or shifting blame to external actors for failing to address climate change. By highlighting the discursive effects of enacting these responses, we illustrate how the European oil and gas supermajors self-determine their inability to substantively address the complexities of climate change. We thus argue that defensive responses are not merely a form of mismanagement as the paradox and corporate sustainability literature commonly suggests, but a strategic resource that poses serious ethical concerns given the imminent danger of issues such as climate change.

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“…For example, cross-validation is required with a sample of smaller, privately held firms because, as Table 1 shows, the average organizational size in our SiRi was largeapproximately 92,000 employees per firm. More important, though, may be the possibility that the type of CSP measure used in this study-even when decomposed into its stakeholder components-is affected by significant biases, conflicts of interest, or validity concerns (e.g., Carroll, 2000;Chelli & Gendron, 2013;Graafland, Eijffinger, & SmidJohan, 2004;Igalens & Gond, 2005;Liston-Heyes & Ceton, 2009;Orlitzky, 2013), so that alternatives (see, e.g., Chen & Delmas, 2011;Orlitzky & Swanson, 2012;Turker, 2009) (Hough, 2006), ANOVA and VCA are purely descriptive (McGahan & Porter, 2005;Rumelt, 1991). In terms of causality, many higher-level effects are very likely to be driven by managerial actions (McGahan & Porter, 2005, pp.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking the Drivers of Corporate Social Performance: A Multilevel, Multistakeholder, and Multimethod Analysis

et al. 2015

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The question of what drives corporate social performance (CSP) has become a vital concern for many managers and researchers of large corporations. This study addresses this question by adopting a multilevel, multistakeholder, and multimethod approach to theorize and estimate the relative influence of macro (national business system and country), meso (industry), and micro (firm-level) factors on CSP. Applying three different methods of variance decomposition analysis to an international sample of 2,060 large public companies over a time span of 5 years, our results show that firm-level factors explain the largest proportion of variance in aggregate CSP as well as CSP oriented toward communities, the natural environment, and employees. These results support our hypotheses according to which CSP is not primarily driven by macrolevel or mesolevel factors, except for shareholderoriented CSP, which is relatively more influenced by country-level factors. As a whole, our findings also point to the value of subdividing CSP into its stakeholder-specific components as this disaggregation allows for a more careful examination of distinct drivers of distinct aspects of CSP.Keywords: Corporate social performance; corporate social responsibility; decomposition of variance; hierarchical linear modeling; stakeholders; variance components analysis.Abbreviations: ANOVA = analysis of variance; CSP = corporate social performance; HLM = hierarchical linear modeling; MLE = maximum likelihood estimation; NBS = national business system; REMLE = restricted maximum likelihood estimation; VCA = variance components analysis.Unpacking 2

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Sustainability Ratings and the Disciplinary Power of the Ideology of Numbers

Cited by 87 publications

References 43 publications

An analysis of the methodologies adopted by CSR rating agencies

An analysis of the methodologies adopted by CSR rating agencies

Drilling their Own Graves: How the European Oil and Gas Supermajors Avoid Sustainability Tensions Through Mythmaking

Unpacking the Drivers of Corporate Social Performance: A Multilevel, Multistakeholder, and Multimethod Analysis

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