Critical scholarship often presents corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a reflection or embodiment of neoliberalism. Against this sort of sweeping political characterization we argue that CSR can indeed be considered a liberal concept but that it embodies a “varieties of liberalism.” Building theoretically on the work of Michael Freeden on liberal languages, John Ruggie and Karl Polanyi on embedded forms of liberalism, and Michel Foucault on the distinction between classical liberalism and neoliberalism, we provide a conceptual treatment and mapping of (...) the ideological positions that constitute the bulk of modern scholarly CSR debate. Thus, we distinguish between embedded liberalism, classical liberalism, neoliberalism, and re-embedded liberalism. We develop these four orientations in turn and show how they are engaged in “battles of ideas” over the meaning and scope of corporate responsibilities—and how they all remain relevant for an understanding of contemporary debates and developments in the field of CSR and corporate sustainability. (shrink)

To fight climate change, firms must adopt effective and feasible carbon management practices that promote collaboration within supply chains. Engaging suppliers and customers on carbon management reduces vulnerability to climate-related risks and increases resilience and adaptability in supply chains. Therefore, it is important to understand the motives and preconditions for pursuing supply chain engagement from companies that actively engage with supply chain members in carbon management. In this study, a relational view is applied to operationalize the supply chain engagement concept (...) to reflect the different levels of supplier and customer engagement. Based on a sample of 345 companies from the Carbon Disclosure Project’s supply chain program, the determinants of engagement were hypothesized and tested using multinomial and ordinal logistic estimation methods. The results indicate that companies that integrate climate change into their strategies and are involved in developing environmental public policy are driven by moral motives to engage their suppliers and customers in carbon management. All these factors make a stronger impact on supplier engagement than on customer engagement. Moreover, companies operating in greenhouse gas-intensive industries are driven by instrumental motives to engage their suppliers and customers because increasing greenhouse gas intensity positively influences engagement level. Company profitability appears to increase supplier engagement, but not customer engagement. Interestingly, operating in a country with stringent environmental regulations does not appear to influence supply chain engagement. By utilizing relational capabilities and collaboration, buyers can increase their suppliers’ engagement to disclose emissions, which ultimately will lead to better results in carbon management. (shrink)

Recently, calls have grown louder for more stakeholder democracy that is, letting stakeholders participate in the process of organizing, decision‐making, and governance in corporations, especially in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Despite the relevance of the subject, the impact of customer involvement in CSR on their company‐related attitudes and behaviors still represents a major research void. The paper at hand develops a conceptual framework of consumer involvement in CSR based on the existing literature, theories of stakeholder democracy, (...) and organizational boundaries as well as drawing from the qualitative focus group interviews (N = 24). The framework is tested on a large scale, two‐time point field‐experimental study (N = 3,397). More specifically, consumer reactions to three degrees of customer involvement (i.e., information, feedback, and dialogue) are tested in two different CSR domains (i.e., company‐internal business process vs. company‐external philanthropic CSR). Results indicate that the customer involvement in CSR has a more beneficial effect in terms of strengthening customer outcomes in CSR domains that directly affect external stakeholders of the company (i.e., philanthropic CSR) than in domains that mainly concern company‐internal stakeholders (i.e., business process CSR). (shrink)

This longitudinal case study identifies corporate governance responses in a Chinese state-owned enterprise facing institutional logic multiplicity and demands to shoulder sociopolitical responsibilities beyond economic responsibility. We find that overseas listing led to the incorporation of market logic into an enterprise in which party-state logic prevailed. The prioritization of sociopolitical responsibilities vis-à-vis economic responsibility has shifted through three phases, reflecting changes in institutional logic centrality amid changing politico-institutional and firm conditions. In response, the enterprise developed hybrid corporate governance structures based (...) first on decoupling (2001–2011) and then on translation of a “foreign” corporate governance model to fit the domestic context (2012–2016) but has since sought to dehybridize by strengthening the state-controlled governance structure (2017–2019). Our study contributes to the varieties-of-capitalism approach to corporate governance and offers perspectives on institutional change, institutional logic, and hybrid organizing as well as the implicit ethical issue. (shrink)

This article argues that the concept of deliberation is construed too narrowly in political corporate social responsibility (CSR) and that a concept of deliberation for political CSR should err toward useful speech acts rather than reciprocity and charity. It draws from the political philosophy, labor relations, and business ethics literatures to outline a framework for an extended notion of deliberative engagement. The characters of deliberative behavior and deliberative environment are held to generate four modes of engagement: strategic deliberation, unitarist deliberation, (...) pluralist deliberation, and deliberative activism. The article concludes by arguing that political CSR will be better positioned to realize its potential by moving away from primarily consensus-centered objectives to a more responsive range of deliberative goals and practice. (shrink)