The Politics of Corporate Social Responsibility

Why is it that the notion of the social responsibility of business is currently gaining so much prominence worldwide? During the last decade a plethora of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies, initiatives, and organizations were created. Now they are spreading CSR around the globe and creating new forms of global social policy.

This study explains the worldwide spread of CSR with the help of the sociological neo-institutional approach. It explores the history and nature of CSR and makes the claim that CSR is becoming institutionalised as a global business norm, which in turn is integrated into the emerging global welfare sector.

Using documents and interviews with actors from business, politics and intermediate sector organizations, the study reveals the reasons behind the current success of CSR, in light of its failure in the 1970s (when it was initially promoted by International Organizations). It points out that during the last four decades there has been a rise in interactions between business, political actors and intermediate sector actors. This increase coincided with a rising awareness of firms that CSR may support their business strategies. Spurred by globalization and organizational changes, business itself started to adopt CSR as a business norm and to disseminate it worldwide. This does not only go along with new management models but also with a growing business objective towards social policy aims The study's main contributions are both empirical and theoretical. Empirically it provides a profound assessment of the diffusion of CSR by outlining the relevant actors, processes and mechanisms. Theoretically, it contributes to further developing neo-institutional theory by integrating business as a relevant actor in world polity processes; by combining constructivist and rational accounts on diffusion; and by integrating the role of time and process in neo-institutional theory (by developing a process model). It also offers new insights for

Contents

AbstractAcknowledgements

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1: The Global Institutionalization of CSR
1.1 Questions and Hypotheses
1.2 The Current State of CSR Research and First Suggestions
1.3 A Norm Approach to CSR - Neo-Institutional Suggestions
1.4 CSR - A Controversial Concept?
1.5 The Scope of the Book

Part II: Identifying and Theorizing CSR

Chapter 2: The History and Current Situation of CSR
2.1 What is CSR? Getting the Concepts Clear
2.2 The Global Expansion of CSR
2.3 CSR and Social Policy Beyond the Nation-state
2.4 Conclusion

Chapter 3: World Society Actors and the Global Diffusion of World Cultural Models
3.1 Agents and Actors in World Society
3.2 The World Culture: Norms, Institutions and Models
3.3 Diffusion Processes
3.4 Conclusion

Chapter 4: The Norm Cycle Model of CSR
4.1 Dynamic Approaches to Institutionalization
4.2 Definition: CSR as a Global Norm
4.3 The Norm Cycle Model
4.4 Conclusion: A Heuristic Model of CSR Development and Business Involvement

Part III: The Research Process

Chapter 5: The Research Process
5.1 Research Design
5.2 The Role of Theory
5.3 Data Collection
5.4 Systematizing the Data: the CSR Text Corpus
5.5 Data Analysis
5.6 Conclusion

Part IV: Empirical Analysis and Theoretical Considerations

Chapter 6: The Role of Business in the Organizational Field of CSR
6.1 The Organizational Field of CSR and its Hubs - the UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative
6.2 Business and CSR - Adopters and Actors
6.3 Conclusion

Chapter 7: The Role of Political Actors
7.1 International Organizations (IOs)
7.2 Regional Actors
7.3 The States' Involvement in CSR
7.4 Conclusion

Chapter 8: The Role of the Intermediate Sector
8.1 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
8.2 Consulting and Services Agencies
8.3 Science
8.4 Conclusion

Chapter 9: Modeling the Global Spread of CSR
9.1 Causes
9.2 Mechanisms
9.3 Conditions
9.4 Implications
9.5 Conclusion

Part V:

Ursula Mühle, Dr. phil., ist Geschäftsführerin der Graduiertenschule Graduate School of Information Science in Health (GSISH) der TU München.