Tobacco companies have started to position themselves as good corporate citizens. The effort towards CSR engagement in the tobacco industry is not only heavily criticized by anti-tobacco NGOs. Some opponents such as the the World Health Organization have even categorically questioned the possibility of social responsibility in the tobacco industry. The paper will demonstrate that the deep distrust towards tobacco companies is linked to the lethal character of their products and the dubious behavior of their representatives in recent decades. As (...) a result, tobacco companies are not in the CSR business in the strict sense. Key aspects of mainstream CSR theory and practice such as corporate philanthropy, stakeholder collaboration, CSR reporting and self-regulation, are demonstrated to be ineffective or even counterproductive in the tobacco industry. Building upon the terminology used in the leadership literature, the paper proposes to differentiate between transactional and transformational CSR arguing that tobacco companies can only operate on a transactional level. As a consequence, corporate responsibility in the tobacco industry is based upon a much thinner approach to CSR and has to be conceptualized with a focus on transactional integrity across the tobacco supply chain. (shrink)

Firstly, Paul Ricoeur takes a phenomenological approach to memory. He then addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Finally, he describes the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering.

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. -/- Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and (...) scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. -/- Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been heightened concern regarding the marketing of potentially harmful products (PHPs) to disadvantaged markets. Three issues which commonly dominate discussions in this controversy are: (1) the potential for exploitation of vulnerable markets, (2) the tradeoff between protection of disadvantaged consumers and their rights to make informed choices and (3) the appropriateness of using the commercial speech doctrine to settle the issue of targeting minority markets with PHPs. This paper examines the arguments raised in this debate (...) so that interested parties will better appreciate the ethical complexity of marketing PHPs to minority segments. (shrink)

How do we explain organized complexity in human affairs? The most common model explain s human organization as the outcome of rational design; order in human affairs arises from the intentions, plans, and orders of those in charge. For organizational complexity on vast scales, this model is insufficient, misleading, and potentially disastrous. An alternative model, based upon self-organization within complex systems, is developed and applied to the tobacco industry.Leaked documents and public testimony point to widespread distortion of information within the (...) tobacco industry. The model developed herein describes such behaviors as emergent outcomes, not reducible to or sufficiently explained by individual fraud and deliberate deceit. Critics of the tobacco industry often fail to appreciate the role of self-organization in complex systems. They presume rational design. Consequently, they imply more intentional deceit, deliberate planning, and conspiracy than needed to explain the distortions that actually occurred. (shrink)

Introduction: An Authorial Credo -- How My Past Became Foreign -- Making This Book -- Themes and Structure -- Part I. Wanting the Past -- Nostalgia : Dreams and Nightmares -- Time Travelling -- Benefits and Burdens of the Past -- Part II. Disputing the Past -- Ancients Vs. Moderns : Tradition and Innovation -- The Look of Age : Aversion -- The Look of Age : Affection -- Part III. Knowing the Past -- Memory -- History -- Relics -- (...) Part IV. Remaking the Past -- Saving the Past : Preservation and Replication -- Replacing the Past : Restoration and Re-Enactment -- Improving the Past -- Epilogue: The Past in the Present. (shrink)

This article explores methodological problems of qualitative research templates, that is, the Eisenhardt and the Gioia case study approaches, which are relevant for the business and society scholarship and outlines a reflexive historical research methodology that has the potential to face these challenges. Building on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, we draw critical attention to qualitative B&S research and frame the methodological problems identified as the normative challenges of qualitative research, that is, to productively deal with both the researchers’ norms and (...) the research subjects’ norms. We then introduce the reflexive historical case study, a distinct research strategy to face normative challenges based on philosophical hermeneutics and the interpretive tradition of studying organizations. This research approach aims at theory elaboration while its mode of enquiry is reflexive. By explicating three of its key characteristics and using a case example to illustrate our approach, we demonstrate how B&S scholars can benefit from the “temporal filter” of the historical lens and from reflexive concerns about the nature of theory and empirical material. To tap the potential of historical research, we finally envision a research program for studying issues and debates associated with B&S scholarship. (shrink)

The dissertation abstract and the reflection commentary present the work of Judith Schrempf. The dissertation examines the latest trends in corporate social responsibility and advances a social connection approach to CSR to understand and explain those recent trends. The dissertation abstract provides an overview of the research questions and conclusions of the three-article dissertation. The reflection commentary discusses the author’s views of research process as a junior scholar.

The debate about the appropriate standards for upstream corporate social responsibility of multinational corporations has been on the public and academic agenda for some three decades. The debate originally focused narrowly on “contract responsibility” of MNCs for monitoring of upstream contractors for “sweatshop” working conditions violating employee rights. The authors argue that the MNC upstream responsibility debate has shifted qualitatively over time to “full producer responsibility” involving an expansion from “contract responsibility” in three distinct dimensions. First, there is an expansion (...) of scope from working conditions to human rights and social and environmental impacts broadly defined. Second, there is expansion in depth of this broader responsibility to the whole upstream supply chain without regard to contracting status. Upstream responsibility now includes all suppliers, including direct contractors and the chain of suppliers to such contractors. Finally, the change in CSR scope and depth has led to an evolution of CSR management practice. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in the dynamics and influences of activist groups, few studies have examined the specific tactics used by activists to achieve legitimacy and how these actions affect target firms or industries. This article studies the history and current state of the battle between tobacco control groups and Big Tobacco in search of evidence for their use of framing—a process of generating shared meaning and purpose through the creation of overarching messages—as a vehicle for carrying out their mission, achieving (...) legitimacy, and thwarting the efforts of adversaries. The authors propose that both sides marshal specific core frames in service of broader master frames, namely the projection of honesty and trustworthiness for the tobacco industry, countered by public health's master frame of distrust of the industry. The evolution of this battle may also be understood within the framework of a two-factor model of trust and distrust; the authors assert that the relationship between tobacco control and the industry will likely continue as one of low trust/high distrust, in part because the master frame of distrust has served multiple purposes for public health activists, including the establishment of greater legitimacy with the public and, by proxy, with the target industry. Several specific conclusions are drawn regarding the functions of distrust and the relationship between framing, trust, and legitimacy. (shrink)