Track 2: Contextualizing Corporate Social Responsibility
Chaired by: Minna Halme (Minna.Halme@hse.fi), Helsinki School of Economics, Finland, Nigel Roome (roome@fsw.eur.nl) Daniel Janssen Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility, Solvay Business School, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
and Peter Dobers (peter.dobers@mdh.se), Mälardalen University, Sweden
Over the past years, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has developed increased prominence as an idea,
as company strategy and as practical programmes in companies around the world. An array of concepts has emerged
around the phenomenon: corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, corporate community involvement,
sustainability, corporate codes of ethics - to name just a few. While the notion of CSR is increasingly evident
in the corporate world, among many civil-society advocates, and in public policies, it is ambiguous and contested
on various grounds.
CSR not only concerns the relationships between firms and other actors that can be studied empirically. It also
has a normative content that addresses what responsibilities firms might have in our changing social and economic
context. The very fact that societies are different in many respects implies that CSR can have different faces in
different societal contexts. This is found as different agendas for CSR in different parts of the world, in the
different responses by companies to those agendas, and, the differential capacity of organizations and their managers
to understand and address those issues. Taking this normative ambition seriously, we must also reveal and critically
discuss how popular ideas and management practices of CSR may function as a potential mechanism of corporate control
and power over individuals and societies. We therefore call for reflective, concept-driven and empirically grounded
papers on corporate social responsibility and how this practice may vary with different contexts. We welcome papers
that refer to, but are not limited to, themes such as:
- Understanding how the global CSR trend enfold in different societal, political and cultural contexts
- Critical perspectives on discourse and rhetorics of CSR
- The role of corporate managers as translators of CSR
- Global codes and standards as carriers of the CSR idea
- MNCs vis-a-vis governments and NGOs as actors of social responsibility
- Approaches of CSR in MNCs - standardization vs. contextual awareness
- CSR - source of restraint or innovation for organizations?
- Comparative studies of the practice and understanding of CSR
- Desirable and undesirable consequences of CSR
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