Track 14: Whose Sustainability?
Chaired by Birgitta Schwartz (birgitta.schwartz@mdh.se) Mälardalen University, School of Business, Sweden, Karina Tilling (karina.tilling@mdh.se) Mälardalen University, School of Business, Sweden, and Niklas Egels-Zandén (Niklas.Egels-Zanden@handels.gu.se) Göteborg University, Gothenburg Research Institute, Sweden.
Most literature on 'Sustainable Development' (SD) and 'Corporate Social Responsibility' (CSR) take these concepts as given or as defined from a philosophical perspective. This has led to a lack of research describing how (in practice) the current content comprising these concepts has developed, and who (in practice) has defined this content, and this in turn implying what is actually seen as legitimate CSR and SD activities in society. The purpose of this track is to critically analyse these questions, and try to identify who the influential actors are in setting the 'SD' and 'CSR' agenda.
In this track, we especially encourage papers dealing with these questions in an international setting - mainly a non-US and non-European setting. As several researchers interested in 'SD' and 'CSR' practices outside US and Europe have noted, the content given to projects under these labels from a 'Western' perspective is not perceived as unproblematic by local actors. For example, oftentimes local actors promote different, and sometimes conflicting, definitions of 'CSR' and 'SD', and also try to obstruct what they view as an infusion of values from outside partners. Hence, the process of defining 'CSR' and 'SD' can be seen as a battle between actors with differing interests, agendas and power, including and excluding possible perspectives. While this is most easily observed when ideas of 'CSR' and 'SD' move between highly different geographic and cultural settings, similar battles are constantly played out between actors even within similar settings.
Interesting themes for this track include (but is certainly not limited to):
- Critical analysis of what organisations that historically have set, and currently reproduce, the 'CSR' and 'SD' agenda
- Standardisation and institutionalisation of 'SD' and 'CSR'
- Travel of ideas of 'CSR' from one setting to another (both from 'Western' setting to other markets, and from other markets to a 'Western' setting)
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Struggles between different actors over the right to define 'CSR' and 'SD'
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Local resistance to ideas of 'CSR' and 'SD' infused from the 'outside'
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