Corporate Social Responsibility Discourses
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Corporate Responsibility, Media Reputation, and Risk Management - PhD Research (ongoing) - Paul Caulfield and Gabriela Miranda - supervised by Steve Brammer and Andrew Millington The recent economic crisis has drawn considerable media attention on the behaviors of large corporations and an evaluation of those behaviors as ‘responsible’ or not. In this paper we consider whether a company which has acted to build positive stakeholder relations receives favorable treatment when crises occur. Specifically, we ask if Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can act as a form of reputational insurance, which offers protection under otherwise reputation-damaging circumstances. In this empirical analysis we consider the media coverage of major oil industry incidents associated with two companies with very different CSR reputations (BP and Exxon). The study analyses the nature of media reporting of incidents affecting the companies over a five year period and compares levels of negativity in the relevant texts. Our results suggest that the insurance metaphor holds to the extent that reputable firms do inherit some protective advantage. However, there is an asymmetric failure in this protection when companies positioned as reputable are perceived to be acting contrarily to stakeholder expectations or ‘not learning from mistakes. |
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Sustainable corporate community conversations - PhD Research (ongoing) - Paul Caulfield - supervised by Steve Brammer and Andrew Millington Major corporations are also under increasing pressure to re-evaluate their relationships with society and address their impact on inequality and the natural world. They also have a have significant role to play in the discourse around sustainability, and the ability to utilize their influence and abilities to reach create solutions for the benefit of society. To achieve this requires a shift in attitude, and an increase in dialogue, to move beyond the mindset of piece-meal CSR projects to more comprehensive corporate community conversations. This report positions a framework, derived from DFID sustainable livelihoods approach (1997), to bring together direct experience from business community engagement and good practices observed in both businesses and NGOs, where these practices were seen to improve corporate community engagement projects and the quality of conversations. The most significant finding from the interviews and case studies was that companies can establish very efficient and effective community engagement programs by leveraging existing resources, especially the capability, competence and creativity of their employees; which can be underutilized.
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A Critical Examination of Service Learning in Contemporary Management Education (ongoing) - Paul Caulfield, Svenja Tams, Darius Nedjati-Gilani The renewed interest in service learning among management educators highlights the importance of considering this educational practice within its wider discursive ‘space of action’ (Daudi, 1986), that is the institutionalized systems-of-thought by which educators, students, higher education policy makers, employers and other participants legitimize management education and its particular methods. In response to the shift of service learning discourse from community service to an experiential learning intervention that enables students to develop management competences, this research examines the impact of service learning on a range of complementary capabilities and attitudes, including a behavioral repertoire of general managerial and leadership competences, Cultural Intelligence (CQ), social responsibility, and reflexivity. Using a controlled field-experiment, survey data collected in 4 waves is being triangulated with 360° evaluations and qualitative measures. |
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Responsible Careers: Systemic Reflexivity in Shifting Landscapes (completed) - Svenja Tams (with Judi Marshall, Lancaster) This article examines responsible careers, in which people seek to have an impact on societal challenges such as environmental sustainability and social justice. We propose a dynamic model of responsible careers based on studying 32 individuals in the emerging organizational fields of corporate responsibility, social entrepreneurship, sustainability and social investing. We describe six career practices—expressing self, connecting to others, constructing contribution, institutionalising, field shaping and engaging systemically. Observations suggest that development of these practices is influenced by four learning dynamics: people’s perceptions of ‘shifting landscapes’ in which they seek to orient themselves, exploration, and both biographical and systemic reflexivity. Our interdisciplinary and empirically-grounded approach, integrating psychological intentions and institutional context, strengthens theorizing about responsible careers. The proposed model depicts responsible careers as continually evolving, sometimes precarious, and as dynamically enacted in relation to pluralist, shifting landscapes. |
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Responsible Leadership: Interweaving Personal and Public in Pluralistic, Contested Space (ongoing) - Svenja Tams (with Judi Marshall, Lancaster) This article examines the notion of responsible leadership. Consistent with the contextual ‘turn’ in mainstream leadership literature, we argue that theorising about responsible leadership needs to consider responsible business practices as socially constructed and interpreted differently across individuals, organizations, institutional fields and the wider political, economic and socio-cultural context. We position responsible leadership with regards to discourses about ethical conduct, corporate responsibility (CSR), shared governance, the institutionalization of responsible business, and public debates about wider societal challenges - debates that are still emerging, inherently pluralistic and contested. Based on a study of 34 individuals, we identify three responsible leadership practices: institutionalising, field shaping and engaging systemically. We discuss four case studies to show that these practices reflect individuals’ construction of self-in-the-world and their evolving understanding of how to influence social systems. Findings show that individuals’ construction and enactment of responsible leadership interweaves personal, relational and wider systemic considerations. |