This paper argues that the literature examining the role that MNCs play in ‘political CSR’—an emerging area of management research concern—can be enhanced by more a fulsome examination of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ that currently exist in the global economy. We argue that the willingness and capacity of a particular MNC to participate in governance activity—which we broadly equate to political CSR—are contingent, at least in part, upon the national systems of government-business relations present in its home market. We argue (...) that the decisions MNCs make in terms of whether and how to participate in governance are predicated in part on the domestic system of business-government relations out of which they emerge. The paper then asserts that our current conceptions of political CSR are limited, because they do not take fully into account the increasingly important corporate form of statism, in which home governments maintain a large ownership position in the country’s MNCs, even as they expand abroad. We posit that a key question this reality poses is whether such companies will reinforce established patterns of ‘political CSR’, whether they will challenge those established patterns, or whether some mutual adaptation will occur. We conclude the article with some suggestions for how this question might be explored in future work by interested scholars. (shrink)

Although stakeholder theory is concerned with stakeholder engagement, substantive operational barometers of engagement are lacking in the literature. This theoretical paper attempts to strengthen the accountability aspect of normative stakeholder theory with a more robust notion of stakeholder engagement derived from the concept of good faith. Specifically, it draws from the labor relations field to argue that altered power dynamics are essential underpinnings of a viable stakeholder engagement mechanism. After describing the tenets of substantive engagement, the paper draws from the (...) labor relations and commercial law literatures to describe the characteristics of good faith as dialogue, negotiation, transparency, and totality of conduct; explains how they can be adapted and applied to the stakeholder context; and suggests the use of mediation and non-binding arbitration. The paper concludes by addressing anticipated objections and shortcomings and discussing implications for theory and research. (shrink)

One of the main reasons that liberal democratic societies are not ill-prepared to confront the present challenge presented by disaffection with democratic institutions, is that the type of political theory currently in vogue is dominated by an individualistic, universalistic, and rationalistic framework. This erases the dimension of the political and impedes envisaging in an adequate manner the nature of a pluralistic democratic public sphere. This paper examines the most recent paradigm of liberal democracy: 'deliberative democracy', in order to bring to (...) the fore its shortcomings. Then, the authos puts forward some element for the elaboration of an alternative model that she proposes to call 'agonistic pluralism'. (shrink)

The partisan and ideological polarization of American politics since the 1970s appears to have affected pubic opinion in striking ways. The American public has become increasingly partisan and ideological along liberal-conservative lines on a wide range of issues, including even foreign policy. This has raised questions about how rational the public is, in the broad sense of the public's responsiveness to objective conditions. Widespread partisan disagreements over what those conditions arei.e., disagreements about the factssuggest that large proportions of the public (...) may be perceiving the facts incorrectly. The facts in question are important enough that these partisan disagreements may translate into sub-optimal policy preferences and electoral decisions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Within corporate social responsibility (CSR), the exploration of the political role of firms (political CSR) has recently experienced a revival. We review three key periods of political CSR literature—classic, instrumental, and new political CSR—and use the Rawlsian conceptualization of division of moral labor within political systems to describe each period’s background political theories. The three main arguments of the paper are as follows. First, classic CSR literature was more pluralistic in terms of background political theories than many later texts. Second, (...) instrumental CSR adopted classical liberalism and libertarian laissez-faire as its structural logic. Third, new political CSR, based on a strong globalist transition of responsibilities and tasks from governments to companies, lacks a conceptualization of division of moral labor that is needed to fully depart from a classical liberalist position. We end by providing a set of recommendations to develop pluralism in political CSR. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article assesses the proliferation of international accountability standards (IAS) in the recent past. We provide a comprehensive overview about the different types of standards and discuss their role as part of a new institutional infrastructure for corporate responsibility. Based on this, it is argued that IAS can advance corporate responsibility on a global level because they contribute to the closure of some omnipresent governance gaps. IAS also improve the preparedness of an organization to give an explanation and a justification (...) to relevant stakeholders for its judgments, intentions, acts and omissions when appropriately called upon to do so. However, IAS also face a variety of problems impeding their potential to help address social and environmental issues. The contribution of the four articles in this special section is discussed in the context of standards’ problems and opportunities. The article closes by outlining a research agenda to further develop and extend the scholarly debate around IAS. (shrink)

Short abstract (98 words). Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given humans’ exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of (...) evidence in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. (shrink)

IN the last decade deliberative democracy has developed rapidly from a “theoretical statement” into a “working theory.”1 Scholars and practitioners have launched numerous initiatives designed to put deliberative democracy into practice, ranging from deliberative polling to citizen summits.2 Some even advocate deliberation as a new “revolutionary now.”3 Deliberative democracy has also experienced the beginning of an empirical turn, making significant gains as an empirical (or positive) political science. This includes a small, but growing body of literature tackling the connection between (...) the normative standards of deliberation, how well they are met, and the empirical consequences of meeting them.4 This trend has, for instance, included the use of methods and frameworks borrowed from other fields, such as political and social psychology. Such studies suggest that cases approaching ideal deliberation are rare, but that group interaction sometimes works surprisingly well according to such ideals.5. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article, I offer a proposal to clarify what I believe is the proper relation between value maximization and stakeholder theory, which I call enlightened value maximization. Enlightened value maximization utilizes much of the structure of stakeholder theory but accepts maximization of the long-run value of the firm as the criterion for making the requisite tradeoffs among its stakeholders, and specifies long-term value maximization or value seeking as the firm’s objective. This proposal therefore solves the problems that arise (...) from the multiple objectives that accompany traditional stakeholder theory. I also discuss the Balanced Scorecard, which is the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory, explaining how this theory is flawed because it presents managers with a scorecard that gives no score—that is, no single-valued measure of how they have performed. Thus managers evaluated with such a system (which can easily have two dozen measures and provides no information on the tradeoffs between them) have no way to make principled or purposeful decisions. The solution is to define a true (single dimensional) score for measuring performance for the organization or division (and it must be consistent with the organization’s strategy), and as long as their score is defined properly, (and for lower levels in the organization it will generally not be value) this will enhance their contribution to the firm. (shrink)

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1971.

ABSTRACTThe question of how to engage with stakeholders in situations of value conflict to create value that includes a plurality of conflicting stakeholder value perspectives represents one of the crucial current challenges of stakeholder engagement as well as of value creation stakeholder theory. To address this challenge, we conceptualize a discursive sharing process between affected stakeholders that is oriented toward discursive justification involving multiple procedural steps. This sharing process provides procedural guidance for firms and stakeholders to create pluralistic stakeholder value (...) through the discursive accommodation of diverging stakeholder value perspectives. The outcomes of such a discursive value-sharing process range from stakeholder value dissensus to low and increasing levels of stakeholder value congruence to stakeholder value consensus. Hence, this article contributes to the emerging literature on integrative stakeholder engagement by conceptualizing a procedural framework that is neither overly oriented towards dissensus nor consensus. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article studies multi-stakeholder initiatives as spaces for both deliberation and contestation between constituencies with competing discourses and disputed values, beliefs, and preferences. We review different theoretical perspectives on MSIs, which see them mainly as spaces to find solutions to market problems, as spaces of conflict and bargaining, or as spaces of consensus. In contrast, we build on a contestatory deliberative perspective, which gives equal value to both contestation and consensus. We identify four types of internal contestation which can be (...) present in MSIs—procedural, inclusiveness, epistemic, and ultimate-goal—and argue that embracing contestation and engaging in ongoing revision of provisional agreements, criteria, and goals can enhance the democratic quality of MSIs. Finally, we explore the implications of this perspective for theorizing about the democratic quality in MSIs and about the role of corporations in transnational governance. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many companies engage in dialogue with nongovernmental organizations about societal issues. The question is what a regulative ideal for such dialogues should be. In the literature on corporate social responsibility, the Habermasian notion of communicative action is often presented as a regulative ideal for stakeholder dialogue, implying that actors should aim at consensus and set strategic considerations aside. In this article, we argue that in many cases, communicative action is not a suitable regulative ideal for dialogue between companies and NGOs. (...) We contend that there is often an adversarial element in the relation between companies and NGOs, and that an orientation towards consensus can be in tension with this adversarial relation. We develop an alternative approach to stakeholder dialogue called ‘agonistic deliberation.’ In this approach, conflict and strategic considerations play a legitimate and, up to a certain point, desirable role. (shrink)

This article provides a conceptual map of the debate on ideal and non‐ideal theory. It argues that this debate encompasses a number of different questions, which have not been kept sufficiently separate in the literature. In particular, the article distinguishes between the following three interpretations of the ‘ideal vs. non‐ideal theory’ contrast: (i) full compliance vs. partial compliance theory; (ii) utopian vs. realistic theory; (iii) end‐state vs. transitional theory. The article advances critical reflections on each of these sub‐debates, and highlights (...) areas for future research in the field. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Deliberative democratic theory, commonly used to explore questions of “political” corporate social responsibility, has become prominent in the literature. This theory has been challenged previously for being overly sanguine about firm profit imperatives, but left unexamined is whether corporate contexts are appropriate contexts for deliberative theory in the first place. We explore this question using the case of Starbucks’ “Race Together” campaign to show that significant challenges exist to corporate deliberation, even in cases featuring genuinely committed firms. We return to (...) the underlying social theory to show that this is not an isolated case: for-profit firms are predictably hostile contexts for deliberation, and significant normative and strategic problems can be expected should deliberative theory be imported uncritically to corporate contexts. We close with recent advances in deliberative democratic theory that might help update the PCSR project, and accommodate the application of deliberation to the corporate context, albeit with significant alterations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This paper argues that, although stakeholder engagement occurs within the context of power, neither market-centered CSR nor the deliberative model of political CSR adequately addresses the specter of power asymmetries and the inevitability of conflict in stakeholder relations, particularly for powerless stakeholders. Noting that the objective of stakeholder engagement should not be benevolence toward stakeholders, but mechanisms that address power asymmetries such that stakeholders are able to protect their own interests, I present a framework of stakeholder engagement based on agonistic (...) pluralism that seeks to structure and utilize discord rather than reduce or eliminate it. I then propose arbitration as an agonistic mechanism to address power asymmetries in stakeholder engagement and explore its implications. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is a revolutionary political ideal that requires fundamental changes in political institutions, bases of collective decision making, and the distribution of resources. Perhaps because of its revolutionary character accounts of deliberation in political theory thus far have offered little guidance for actors in actually-existing democratic circumstances. This article develops an ethical account of deliberative democratic action under imperfectly just conditions characterized by material and political inequality and failures of reciprocity. Under such conditions, appropriate principles of action can resolve (...) the tension between deliberation and confrontational political activism. The logic of this account parallels the justification for civil disobedience: the extent of permissible deviationfrom deliberative norms increases according to the adversity of political circumstances. This ethical account is composed of principles of deliberative activism, applications of those principles to four kinds of increasing unfavorable circumstances, and a menu of institutional and political strategies that increase deliberative inclusion and equality. (shrink)

Negotiation and deliberation are two context types or genres of discourse widely studied in the argumentation literature. Within the pragma-dialectical framework, they have been characterised in terms of the conventions constraining the use of argumentative discourse in each of them. Thanks to these descriptions, it has become possible to analyse the arguers’ strategic manoeuvres and carry out more systematic, context-sensitive evaluations of argumentative discussions. However, one issue that still must be addressed in the pragma-dialectical theory—and other contextual approaches to argumentation—is (...) how to distinguish negotiation and deliberation in practice. In this paper, I seek to develop criteria that can help the analyst identify them in discourse. To this end, I characterise the felicity conditions of the superordinate speech acts defining and structuring deliberation and negotiation encounters. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Partnerships between companies and NGOs have received considerable attention in CSR in the past years. However, the role of NGO legitimacy in such partnerships has thus far been neglected. We argue that NGOs assume a status as special stakeholders of corporations which act on behalf of the common good. This role requires a particular focus on their moral legitimacy. We introduce a conceptual framework for analysing the moral legitimacy of NGOs along three dimensions, building on the theory of deliberative democracy. (...) Against this background we outline three procedural characteristics which are essential for judging the legitimacy of NGOs as potential or actual partners of corporations. (shrink)

Flagging labor governance in far-flung supply networks has prompted greater scrutiny of instrumental CSR and calls for models that are tethered more closely to accountability, constraint, and oversight. Political CSR is an apt response, but this paper seeks to buttress its deliberative moorings by arguing that the agonist notion of ‘domesticated conflict’ provides a necessary foundation for substantive deliberation. Because deliberation is more viable and effective when coupled with some means of coercion, a concept of CSR solely premised on reciprocal (...) corporate-stakeholder engagement is pre-mature; efforts should first be directed toward the antecedents of reciprocity and how it is to be achieved, and only then does deliberation become a reliably substantive exercise. The resulting account of agonistic CSR is generated through agonistic principles of realism, pro-action, contestation, and countervailence, and illustrated by the Bangladesh Accord. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:I here advance a critical research agenda for the political perspective of corporate social responsibility (Political CSR). I argue that whilst the ‘Political’ CSR literature is notable for both its conceptual novelty and practical importance, its development has been hamstrung by four ambiguities, conflations and/or oversights. More positively, I argue that ‘Political’ CSR should be conceived as one potentialformof globalization, and not as aconsequenceof ‘globalization’; that contemporary Western MNCs should be presumed to engage in CSR for instrumental reasons; that ‘Political’ (...) CSR should be associated with a corresponding ‘political’ model of corporate governance; and that both a ‘Rawlsian’ and ‘Habermasian’ perspective of Political CSR are different from ‘Political’ CSR. In concluding, I use these four critiques to identify a number of areas within which increasingly robust and sophisticated positive and normative theories of Political CSR are required. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Global multi-stakeholder initiatives are important instruments that have the potential to improve the social and environmental sustainability of global supply chains. However, they often fail to comprehensively address the needs and interests of various supply-chain participants. While voluntary in nature, MSIs have most often been implemented through coercive approaches, resulting in friction among their participants and in systemic problems with decoupling. Additionally, in those cases in which deliberation was constrained between and amongst participants, collaborative approaches have often failed to materialize. (...) Our framework focuses on two key aspects of these breakdowns: assumptions about the orientation of MSI participants, and the deliberation processes that participants use to engage with each other to create these initiatives and sustain them over time. Drawing from stakeholder and deliberation theories, we revisit the concept of MSIs and show how their deliberative capacity may be enhanced in order to encourage participants to collaborate voluntarily. (shrink)

In a globalizing world, governments are not always able or willing to regulate the social and environmental externalities of global business activities. Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI), defined as global institutions involving mainly corporations and civil society organizations, are one type of regulatory mechanism that tries to fill this gap by issuing soft law regulation. This conceptual paper examines the conditions of a legitimate transfer of regulatory power from traditional democratic nation-state processes to private regulatory schemes, such as MSIs. Democratic legitimacy is (...) typically concerned with input legitimacy (rule credibility, or the extent to which the regulations are perceived as justified) and output legitimacy (rule effectiveness, or the extent to which the rules effectively solve the issues). In this study, we identify MSI input legitimacy criteria (inclusion, procedural fairness, consensual orientation, and transparency) and those of MSI output legitimacy (rule coverage, efficacy, and enforcement), and discuss their implications for MSI democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power (...) is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) was created in 2000 to leverage UN prestige and induce corporations to embrace 10 principles incorporating values of environmental sustainability, protection of human rights, fair treatment of workers, and elimination of bribery and corruption. We review and analyze the GC’s activities and impact in enhancing corporate social responsibility since inception. First, we propose an analytical framework which allows us to assess the qualities of the UNGC and its principles in the context of external and (...) internal elements that influence code effectiveness and implementation. Second, we analyze UNGC performance in encouraging companies to become signatory members and bring about demonstrable change in corporate CSR-sustainability activities. In its 10-year report, UNGC has proclaimed growth in both membership and program activity. However, all credible and publicly available data and documentation conclusively demonstrate that the UNGC has failed to induce its signatory companies to enhance their CSR efforts and integrate the 10 principles in their policies and operations. The result has been a loss of public trust and support of UNGC from important constituencies among civil society organizations, and those individuals and groups adversely impacted by corporate activities and resultant negative externalities. This diminished credibility has also made UNGC largely dependent on the corporate sector for its very survival. We conclude that this dependence has in turn impaired and would continue to hinder UNGC’s ability to fulfill its mission. Such an outcome raises serious questions as to the viability, usefulness, and continued existence of UNGC. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives involve actors from several spheres of society in collaborative arrangements to reach objectives typically related to sustainable development. In political CSR literature, these arrangements have been framed as improvements to transnational governance and as being somehow democratic. We draw on Mouffe’s works on agonistic pluralism to problematize the notion that consensus-led multi-stakeholder initiatives bring more democratic control on corporate power. We examine two initiatives which address two very different issue areas: the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and the (...) Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety. We map the different kinds of adversarial relations involved in connection with the issues meant to be governed by the two initiatives, and find those adversarial relations to take six main shapes, affecting the initiatives in different ways: competing regulatory initiatives; pressure-response relations within multi-stakeholder initiatives; pressure-response relations between NGOs and states through multi-stakeholder initiatives; collaboration and competition between multi-stakeholder initiatives and states; pressure-response relations between civil society actors and multi-stakeholder initiatives; and counter-hegemonic movements against multi-stakeholder initiatives as hegemonic projects. We conclude that multi-stakeholder initiatives cannot be democratic by themselves, and we argue that business and society researchers should not look at democracy or politics only internally to these initiatives, but rather study how issue areas are regulated through interactions between a variety of actors—both within and without the multi-stakeholder initiatives—who get to have a legitimate voice in this regulation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to Jonathan Kuyper, deliberative democratic theory, having taken a “systemic turn,” is now better able to deal with the complexity of the real world. Central to this development is the democratic “division of epistemic labor,” under which experts, public servants, and the politically engaged may compensate for the relative ignorance of democratic citizens at large. However, the systemic turn raises the question of whether deliberation has been reconstituted as a means to the end of citizens’ interests, or whether it (...) remains an end in itself. To the extent that deliberation has been accepted as a means to the realization of common interests, the systemic turn begs the question of why we should expect the epistemic division of labor to be effective in identifying public policies that serve those interests. To the extent that deliberative democrats seek to avoid this problem by retaining an a priori commitment to deliberative inclusion, it is more than conceivable that the systemic turn will descend into a simplistic and unedifying form of functionalism. (shrink)

According to Palazzo and Scherer, the changing role of business corporations in society requires that we take new measures to integrate these organizations into society-wide processes of democratic governance. We argue that their model of integration has a fundamental problem. Instead of treating business corporations as agents that must be held accountable to the democratic reasoning of affected parties, it treats corporations as agents who can hold others accountable. In our terminology, it treats business corporations as “supervising authorities” rather than (...) “functionaries.” The result is that Palazzo and Scherer’s model does not actually address the democratic deficit that it is meant to solve. In order to fix the problem, we advocate removing business corporations from any policymaking role in political CSR and limiting participation to political NGOs and other groups that meet the standards we set out for a politically representative organization (PRO). (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The transition from modern to postmodern society leads to changing expectations about the purpose and responsibility of leadership. Habermas’s social theory provides a useful analytical tool for understanding current societal transition processes and exploring their implications for the responsibility of business vis-à-vis society. We argue that integrative responsible leadership, in particular, can contribute to the reconciliation of business with societal goals. Integrative responsible leadership understood in a Habermasian way is not only a strategic endeavor but also a communicative endeavor. An (...) essential part of integrative responsible leadership in light of the current societal transformation processes is the facilitation of discourses about a shared base of norms and values. This is exemplified alongside current societal developments like the European migration crisis or the emerging nationalist and fundamentalist movements in some countries. We specify how and when leadership should resort to communicative action and discuss the implications for leadership. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that in the contemporary globalized economy business firms face two interrelated challenges that result from the growing complexity and dynamics of corporate environments increasing threats to corporate legitimacy and growing efficiency problems. As a result, corporate legitimacy and efficiency are potentially weakened. We specifically explore the communicative requirements for tackling both the problems of organizational legitimacy and of efficiency. On this basis, we suggest to make business firms subject to democratic processes based on stakeholder participation (...) and open communication. The partial democratization of business firms can serve as a corrective to the dominant economic logic underlying corporate structures and processes by simultaneously addressing economic and moral considerations and by enhancing both efficiency and legitimacy. (shrink)