The last decade has witnessed the emergence of a paradox perspective on corporate sustainability. By explicitly acknowledging tensions between different desirable, yet interdependent and conflicting sustainability objectives, a paradox perspective enables decision makers to achieve competing sustainability objectives simultaneously and creates leeway for superior business contributions to sustainable development. In stark contrast to the business case logic, a paradox perspective does not establish emphasize business considerations over concerns for environmental protection and social well-being at the societal level. In order to (...) contribute to the consolidation of this emergent field of research, we offer a definition of the paradox perspective on corporate sustainability and a framework to delineate its descriptive, instrumental, and normative aspects. This framework clarifies the paradox perspective’s contents and its implications for research and practice. We use the framework to map the contributions to this thematic symposium on paradoxes in sustainability and to propose questions for future research. (shrink)

Case teaching occupies a central place in the history of business education and in recognition of its significance, the Journal of Business Ethics recently created a new section for cases. Typically, business ethics cases are used to teach moral reasoning by exposing students to real-life situations which puts them in the position of a decision-maker faced with a moral dilemma. Drawing on a critical management studies' (CMS) critique of mainstream business ethics, this article argues that this 'idealtype' decision-focused case underplays (...) the social, political and economic factors which shape managerial decisions. An alternative 'dark side' case approach is presented, which highlights the structural features of capitalism and the role of government in regulating the market. The 'dark side' approach is illustrated with the case of a New Zealand woman, dependent on an oxygen machine, who died when her power was disconnected by her Stateowned electricity supplier because of an unpaid bill. The case considers the actions of both the company and the industry regulator within the context of a 'light-handed' approach to government regulation. The article concludes with a discussion of how this approach to the case method, which moves beyond managers and their moral dilemmas, can provide students with a deeper understanding of the complexity of business ethics. (shrink)

There exists increasing pressure for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, including social reporting. Curiously in this promotional programme of CSR reporting, the only group whose ideas are not sought in this debate are the SME leaders themselves. The present ethnographic field analysis, based on discussions within entrepreneurs' circles, tends to suggest that the argument for expanding formalisation of CSR to SMEs rests upon several fallacies. It implicitly assumes that an apparent solution for (...) large multinationals can be transposed to SMEs, and it underestimates the drawbacks of bureaucracy. Moreover, many SMEs experience inconsistency between the idealistic CSR communication of some large companies and their actions, especially in the supply chain. The author concludes that reports do not constitute the validation for real CSR, nor the proof of superior ethical behaviour. Formalisation can even be counterproductive. Conversely, the absence of social reporting does not imply that SMEs do not behave responsible. CSR in SMEs needs a specific approach, adapted to the informal nature and entrepreneurial character of the small business. The essence of CSR lies in the implementation of responsible business practices. It lies in the right attitudes, in the corporate culture, not in formalisation. (shrink)

One of the fundamental struggles in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the uncertainty and inherent contradictions that stem from a company being an individual legal entity and a community of persons. The authors contend that CSR has departed from the essence of “social responsibility.” The paper is a commentary on CSR, presented as two frameworks rooted in individualism—The Merchant Trade (the strategic view of CSR) and The White Man’s Burden (self-righteous CSR heroism that assumes the shackles of responsibility normally offered (...) by others). Both, however, contradict the essence of “social responsibility” pitting individual against community, business against society, and economic needs and realities versus ethical reflection. The authors present a model that advocates a more moderate and realistic approach to CSR that goes back to the essence of social responsibility. (shrink)

Sustainability managers represent a key stakeholder in implementing and diffusing sustainability initiatives. However, there is a significant gap in the literature examining the impact of greenwashing on sustainability managers. This research examines the effects of greenwashing on sustainability managers' job satisfaction, commitment, turnover intentions, and job performance from a social identity/person–organization (P‐O) fit perspective. Our sample consists of practicing sustainability managers (n = 125) in high‐ (77%) or mid‐level (23%) positions. Results indicate that perceived greenwashing negatively affects the attitudinal outcomes (...) and job performance of sustainability managers. The results also indicate that for sustainability managers whose social responsibility identity is higher than that of their firm, greenwashing has a significant association with lower satisfaction and job performance and higher intentions to leave. However, for managers whose social responsibility identity is lower than that of their firm, employer greenwashing had no effect on the sustainability managers' attitudes, even though they recognized their own poor job performance. The cumulative effect may be a situation in which managers in the best position to enhance a firm's CSR leave the firm, and vice versa. (shrink)

Religion has significantly influenced societies throughout history and across the globe. Family firms—particularly those operating in strongly religious regions—are more likely to be subject to the influence of religion. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which religion affects business activities in family firms. We study how religion impacts business activities through a qualitative study of two Anatolian-based family firms in Turkey. We find that religion provides a dominant meaning system that plays a key role in constituting business activities (...) through three mechanisms: family imports religious practices as business practices; family adheres to religious values as a rationale for business actions; and family religious values define business taboos by avoiding the evil eye. These mechanisms highlight how religion becomes a source of well-understood business practices, how religion defines the nature of rationality that guides business activities, and how religious taboos can delimit the range of potential business activities, respectively. (shrink)

This article develops an integrative perspective on corporate responsibility by synthesising competing perspectives on the responsibility of the corporation at the organisational and societal levels of analysis. We review three major corporate responsibility perspectives, which we refer to as economic, critical, and politico-ethical. We analyse the major potential uses and pitfalls of the perspectives, and integrate the debate on these two levels. Our synthesis concludes that when a society has a robust division of moral labour in place, the responsibility of (...) a corporation may be economic without jeopardising democracy and sustainability. Moreover, the economic role of corporations neither signifies the absence of deliberative democratic mechanisms nor business practices extending beyond compliance. The study underscores the value of integrating different perspectives and multiple levels of analysis to present comprehensive descriptions and prescriptions of the responsibility phenomenon. (shrink)

With over 2 billion people lacking medicines for treatable diseases and 14 million people dying annually from infectious disease, there is undeniable need for increased access to medicines. There has been an increasing trend to benchmark the pharmaceutical industry on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in access to medicines. Benchmarking creates a competitive inter-business environment and acts as incentive for improving CSR. This article investigates the corporate feedback discourses pharmaceutical companies make in response to criticisms from benchmarking reports. It (...) determines whether these responses are part of a healthy process in increasing access to medicines or a barrier to improvement. A qualitative analysis on the feedback the industry provided was performed, and the responses seen in these statements were grouped by analysing the language used, the ideas portrayed and atti- tudes of the companies. Increasing transparency through benchmarking is a powerful tool which reveals the industry’s shortfalls to the public, affects the decisions of socially responsible investors, and is a risk to their financial bottom line. This article demonstrates the importance of benchmarking and transparency in creating inter-business competition and the translation of these responses to actual access to medicine practices. (shrink)

This paper introduces the concept of business-related conspiracy theories. Drawing on Aristotelian virtue ethics and undertaking a narratological and ethical analysis of 28 BrCTs found online, I emphasize that BrCTs are narratives with structures rooted in other latent macro- and meta-narratives, including centuries-old myths. In particular, I reconstruct the fictional world of BrCTs – one in which CSR and social contracts have failed – before identifying eight different types of actors as which people can morally situate themselves in their relationships (...) with business. Finally, I elaborate on the actors’ performances and their use of external and legitimate forces to end the story. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential future research to help combat BrCTs, as well as a call for the critical study of political CSR. (shrink)

The multi-disciplinary interest in social responsibility on the part of individuals and organizations over the past 30 years has generated several descriptors of corporate social responsibility and employee social responsibility. These descriptors focus largely on socially responsible behavior and, in some cases, on socially responsible identity. Very few authors have combined the two concepts in researching social responsibility. This situation can lead to an oversimplification of the concept of CSR, thereby impeding the examination of congruence between employees and organizations with (...) regard to social responsibility. In this article, we connect two dimensions of social responsibility—identity and behavior—to build a Social Responsibility Matrix consisting of four patterns for classifying the social responsibility of employees and employers: Low Social Responsibility, Identity-based Social Responsibility, Behavior-based Social Responsibility, and Entwined Social Responsibility. The positioning of employers and employees on the same matrix is vital for assessing the level of congruence between employers and employees with regard to social responsibility and for discussing the possible outcomes for both parties. These identity and behavior-based patterns, determinants, and levels of congruence connecting employees and employers form the foundation for the multi-dimensional, dynamic ESR–CSR Congruence Model, as exemplified in a case study. This contribution enhances the existing literature and models of CSR, in addition to improving the understanding of employee–employer congruence, thereby broadening the array of possibilities for achieving positive organizational outcomes based on CSR. (shrink)

Exploration of the political roles firms play in society is a flourishing stream within corporate social responsibility research. However, few empirical studies have examined multiple levels of political CSR at the same time from a critical perspective. We explore both how the motivations of managers and internal organizational practices affect a company’s choice between competing CSR approaches, and how the different CSR programs of corporate and civil society actors compete with each other. We present a qualitative interpretative case study of (...) how a French children’s clothing retailer develops CSR practices in response to accusations of poor working conditions and child labor in its supply chain. The company’s CSR approach consists of superficial practices, such as supplier audits by a cooperative business-organized nongovernmental organization and philanthropic activities, which enable managers to silence more radical alternative models defended by other NGOs, activists, and trade unions. By this approach, the core business model based on exploitative low-cost country sourcing remains intact through self-regulated CSR. Through the case study, we develop a framework of dynamism in competing CSR programs. We discuss the implications of our study for CSR researchers, company managers, and policy makers. (shrink)

Companies operating and located in emerging economy nations routinely couch their corporate social responsibility (CSR) work in nation-building terms. In this article, I focus on the Indian context and critically examine mainstream CSR discourse from the perspective of the culture-centered approach (CCA). Accordingly, five main themes of CSR stand out: nation-building facade, underlying neoliberal logics, CSR as voluntary, CSR as synergetic, and a clear urban bias. Next, I outline a CCA-inspired CSR framework that allows corporate responsibility to be re-claimed and (...) re-framed by subaltern communities of interest. I identify such resistive openings via interrogations of culture (I focus on oft-cited Gandhian ethics here), structure (State policy, organizational strategy, and global/local flows), and agency (subaltern reframing of institutional responsibility, engagement with alternative modes of agency, and deconstructive vigilance). (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders. Although these opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are also much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. They are less the fixed, ideological “signposts” they might appear, (...) and more like “weathervanes” that move alongside changing rhetorical currents. To show this, we analyse the Securities and Exchange Commission consultation process, and legislation, relating to the provenance of “conflict minerals”. We identify two dialectically opposed camps, each seeking to influence final legislation and with end goals in keeping with the shareholder/stakeholder dichotomy. One camp lobbied for firms to scrutinize their entire supply chain, constructing the firm as a “global citizen” with very wide social responsibilities. The second camp lobbied for a lighter touch approach, constructing the firm as a “trader”, with much narrower social responsibilities. We analyse the complex interplay between these two opposed camps, our contribution being to show how both deploy competing conceptions of the corporation as discursive resources. (shrink)

Regulatory responses to the business failures of 1998–2001 framed them as a general failure of governance and ethics rather than as firm-specific problems. Among the regulatory responses are Section 406 of Sarbanes–Oxley Act, SEC, and exchange requirements to provide a Code of Ethics. However, institutional pressures surrounding this regulation suggest the potential for symbolic responses and decoupling of response from organizational action. In this article, we examine Codes of Ethics for a stratified sample of 75 U.S. firms across five distinct (...) industries and find that content and language converge across organizations in ways undesired by the regulators, and that language is used to minimize the effects of the Code on constraining organizational behavior. There is, however, a noteworthy exception in the sections of the Codes dedicated the ethics of financial reporting. Although this material still contains legalistic boilerplate information, it does offer concrete guidance and emphatic language pertaining to the need to maintain the integrity of reporting practices. This suggests that the corporate understanding of the source of the failures is one of fraudulent financial reporting. Aside from the matter of financial reporting, the vague and stylized content of the Codes was a predicted response and constitutes a rational response to the regulation. The regulation, however, clearly states the belief that Codes should vary from firm to firm and that individual firms should determine the specific content of a Code. Aside from financial reporting matters, the observed result suggests that regulatory efforts may have failed to instigate corporate change in attitudes toward and enforcement of higher ethical standards by corporate actors. (shrink)

There exists increasing pressure for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, including social reporting. Curiously in this promotional programme of CSR reporting, the only group whose ideas are not sought in this debate are the SME leaders themselves. The present ethnographic field analysis, based on discussions within entrepreneurs' circles, tends to suggest that the argument for expanding formalisation of CSR to SMEs rests upon several fallacies. It implicitly assumes that an apparent solution for (...) large multinationals can be transposed to SMEs, and it underestimates the drawbacks of bureaucracy. Moreover, many SMEs experience inconsistency between the idealistic CSR communication of some large companies and their actions, especially in the supply chain. The author concludes that reports do not constitute the validation for real CSR, nor the proof of superior ethical behaviour. Formalisation can even be counterproductive. Conversely, the absence of social reporting does not imply that SMEs do not behave responsible. CSR in SMEs needs a specific approach, adapted to the informal nature and entrepreneurial character of the small business. The essence of CSR lies in the implementation of responsible business practices. It lies in the right attitudes, in the corporate culture, not in formalisation. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility pedagogies and teaching techniques have been extensively discussed in the literature. They are viewed as crucial for illustrating business–society relationships and encouraging business students to act ethically. Although the experiential learning perspective prevails in the discussions on CSR education, little attention has been paid to the discursive nature of CSR learning. Considering this gap, the paper explores the role of discourses in CSR education by drawing upon the discursive perspective on CSR and the relational social-constructionist orientation to (...) management learning. To that end, a story co-creation exercise implemented in a CSR course in a Nordic University is used to demonstrate how discourses enable and constrain certain CSR meanings within a business educational context. The paper contributes to the field of CSR education and critical CSR research by suggesting how the discursive nature of CSR can be used to promote more reflexive practices among business students. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has repeatedly been described as an “essentially contested concept,” which means that its signification is subject to continuous struggle. We argue that the “CSR institution” (CSRI; i.e., the set of standards and rules regulating corporate conduct under the banner of CSR) is legitimized by narratives which “decontest” the underlying concept of CSR in a manner that safeguards the CSRI from calls for alternative institutional arrangements. Examining several such narratives from a structuralist perspective, we find them to (...) be permeated with six recurrent ambiguities that we show to be reflective of three deep-set taboos: the taboo of the noncongruency between corporate profit objectives and societal needs, the taboo of multinational firms’ continued contribution to the emergence of global socioenvironmental issues, and the taboo of the CSRI’s moderate results in solving these problems. We contend that the perpetuation of these taboos contributes to inhibiting substantial change in the way of doing business, and we sketch out possibilities for initiating a “recontestation” of CSR’s meaning. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethics of the Australian business community’s responses to the phenomenon of modern slavery. Engaging a critical discourse approach, we draw upon a data set of submissions by businesses and business representatives to the Australian government’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade ‘Parliamentary Inquiry into Establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia’—which preceded the signing into law of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018—to examine the business community’s discursive construction in their submissions of the ethical–political (...) concept of freedom. The paper shows how the concept of freedom was employed by Australian business in a manner that privileged their own subject status and advocated for legislation with minimal burden. Relating this contemporary case to a longer historical context, we show how Australian business responses towards modern slavery map onto liberal and neoliberal ethics in which the freedom of the propertied takes precedent over that of the property-less. Further, we show discursive similarities in the arguments presented by modern Australian businesses and certain historical efforts by members of the business community to privilege commercial freedoms in responses to 18th and 19th Century abolitionist movements. Overall, our research makes two important contributions: first, it highlights the value of a critical discourse lens in business ethics research to show how business and other stakeholders in the field construct and shape their own and other’s ethically-laden understanding of reality; and second, it presents a case for considerable scepticism about the motivation of business to employ the freedoms made available to it under neo/liberal discourse to confront a key human rights challenge. (shrink)