Critical perspectives on CSR and development: What we know, what we don't know, and what we need to know

International Affairs

Volumn 82, Issue 5, 2006, Pages 977-987

  Prieto Carrón, Marina ^a   Lund Thomsen, Peter ^b   Chan, Anita ^c   Muro, Ana ^d   Bhushan, Chandra ^e  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

^b Department of International Economics and Management   (Denmark)

^c AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

^d Centre for Study of Corporate Sustainability   (Argentina)

^e Centre for Science and Environment (CES)   (India)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749519038     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2006.00581.x     Document Type: Review

References (84)

1. Michael Blowfield and Jedrzej George Frynas, 'Setting new agendas: critical perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in the developing world', International Affairs 81: 3, 2005, pp. 499-513.
2. Tom Fox, 'Corporate social responsibility and development: in quest of an agenda', Development 47: 3, Sept. 2004, pp. 29-36.
3. Chandra Bhushan, 'CSR in India: debate, perspective and challenges',
4. Ana Muro, 'CSR in Argentina: a dependency mentality',
5. Anita Chan, 'CSR in China: labour standards and the welfare of employees of corporations'
6. and Marina Prieto-Carrón, 'A conceptual and methodological perspective on CSR and Central American women workers', papers presented to conference on 'Southern perspectives in the global CSR debate', Copenhagen, Sept. 2005;
7. Peter Lund-Thomsen, Aisha Mansur and Hina Lotia, 'Corporate social responsibility and sustainability of donor-financed interventions in the South: the case of Pakistan', in Esben Rahbek- Pedersen and Mahad Muniche, eds, Corporate citizenship in developing countries (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, 2006).
8. Commission of the European Communities, Promoting a European framework for corporate social responsibility, green paper (Brussels: European Commission, 2001).
9. David Graham and Ngaire Woods, 'Making corporate self-regulation effective in developing countries', World Development 34: 5, 2006, pp. 868-83.
10. Bhushan, 'CSR in India';
11. Lund-Thomsen et al., 'Corporate social responsibility and sustainability'.
12. Bhushan, 'CSR in India'.
13. Blowfield and Frynas, 'Setting new agendas', p. 503.
14. That is, the idea that it should be profitable for businesses to engage in CSR initiatives.
15. That is, where companies improve their profitability while improving the conditions of workers and communities in the areas where they operate.
16. See e.g. Marcus Wagner and Stefan Schaltegger, Managing the business case for sustainability: the integration of social, environmental, and economic performance (Sheffield: Greenleaf, 2006);
17. Allen White, 'Business brief: intangibles and CSR' (San Francisco: Business for Social Responsibility, 2006; available at http://www.bsr.org/ CSRResources/index.cfm, accessed 13 July 2006.
18. Fox, 'Corporate social responsibility and development';
19. Peter Utting, 'CSR and development: is a new agenda needed?', in UNRISD, Corporate social responsibility and development: towards a new agenda?, summaries of the presentations made at UNRISD conference, 17-18 Nov. 2003, Salle XVI, Palais des Nations, Geneva (Geneva: UNRISD, 2003);
20. Darryl Reed and Ananya Mukherjee Reed, Corporate social responsibility and human development: towards a new agenda and beyond (Toronto: International Secretariat for Human Development, York University, 2004).
21. Blowfield and Frynas, 'Setting new agendas';
22. Gill Coleman, 'Gender, power and post-structuralism in corporate citizenship: a personal perspective on theory and change', Journal of Corporate Citizenship 5, Spring 2002, pp. 17-25;
23. Reed and Reed, Corporate social responsibility and human development. Reed and Reed mention that corporations should (1) not be allowed to dominate CSR regulations; (2) not cut costs in inappropriate ways; (3) incorporate social interests at the level of board of directors; and (4) ensure that their interaction with society conforms to norms of political democracy.
24. For an explanation of the process by which we arrived at these four areas, see the asterisked footnote on the first page of this article.
25. We owe this point in part to Michael Blowfield. See also Commission on the Private Sector and Development, Unleashing entrepreneurship, report to the Secretary General of the United Nations (New York: UNDP, 2004);
26. Khalid Nadvi, 'Globalisation and poverty: how can global value chain research inform the policy debate?', IDS Bulletin 35: 1, 2004, pp. 20-30;
27. Olaf Kula, Jeanne Downing and Michael Field, 'Value chain programmes to integrate competitiveness, economic growth and poverty reduction', Small Enterprise Development 17: 2, 2006, pp. 23-35.
28. C. K. Prahalad, The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: eradicating poverty through profits (New Jersey: Wharton School, 2005);
29. Ans Kolk and Rob van Tulder, 'Poverty alleviation as business strategy? evaluating commitments of frontrunner multinational corporations', World Development 34: 5, 2006, pp. 789-801.
30. We see poverty as a multi-dimensional concept that encompasses lack of income, social and physical isolation, powerlessness, lack of voice, low social status and physical weakness.
31. Phil Bloomer, When jobs lock women into poverty (Oxford: Oxfam, 2005), http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/art_bloomer_labour.htm, accessed 4 July 2006.
32. Marina Prieto-Carrón, 'Gender power and corporate social responsibility: Central American women workers and codes of conduct', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Bristol, July 2005, p. 121.
33. A social entrepreneur is someone who takes notice of a social problem, passionately pursues it, creatively innovates new solutions and entrepreneurially addresses the issue through a business plan approach, allowing him/her to ensure the financial sustainability of the social venture undertaken.
34. The Ashoka foundation's mission is to shape a citizen sector that is entrepreneurial, productive and globally integrated, and to develop the profession of social entrepreneurship around the world. The Avina Foundation works in partnership with civil society and business leaders in their initiatives towards sustainable development in Ibero-America.
35. M. Paladino and L. Blas, 'Tendido de la Red de Gas Natural en Cuartel Quinto, Moreno. Cooperación para el desarrollo', in J. Llach, ed., El Renacer de lo local (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Altos Estudios Empresariales, Escuela de Dirección y Negocios de la Universidad Austral, 2005).
36. See Michael Hopkins, The planetary bargain·corporate social responsibility matters (London: Earthscan, 2003);
37. Harvard Business School Press et al., Harvard Business Review on Corporate Responsibility (Boston, MA; Harvard Business School Publishing, 2003).
38. Soeren Jeppesen, 'Environmental practices and greening strategies in small manufacturing enterprises in South Africa: a critical realist approach', unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School, 2004;
39. Valerie Nelson, Adrienne Martin and Joachim Ewert, 'What difference can they make? Assessing the impact of corporate codes of practice', Development in Practice 15: 3-4, 2005, pp. 539-45.
40. For Nigeria, see Uwafiokun Idemudia and Uwem E. Ite, 'Corporate-community relations in Nigeria's oil industry: challenges and imperatives', Corporate Social Responsibility and environmental management 14: 3, 2006, pp. 194-206.
41. For Peru, see David Szablowski, 'Mining, displacement and the World Bank: a case analysis of Compania Minera Antamina's operations in Peru', Journal of Business Ethics 39: 3, 2002, pp. 247-73.
42. For Sudan, see Pablo Idahosa, 'Business ethics and development in conflict (zones): the case of Talisman Oil', Journal of Business Ethics 39: 3, 2002, pp. 227-46.
43. See e.g. on industrial clusters, CSR and poverty reduction, Khalid Nadvi and Stephanie Barrientos, Industrial clusters and poverty reduction: towards a methodology for poverty and social impact assessment of cluster development initiatives (Geneva: UNIDO, 2004);
44. on codes of conduct, see Nelson et al., 'What difference can they make?';
45. on labour, see Stephanie Barrientos, 'Labour impact assessment: challenges and opportunities of a learning approach', Journal of International Development 17: 2, 2005, pp. 259-70;
46. on women workers, see Marina Prieto-Carrón, 'Is there anyone listening? Women workers in factories in Central America, and corporate codes of conduct', Development 47: 3, 2004, pp. 101-5.
47. On the use of social auditing, see Angela Hale and Maggie O'Pondo, 'Humanizing the cut flower chain: confronting the realities of flower production for workers in Kenya', Antipode 37: 2, 2005, pp. 301-23.
48. On industry-wide environmental impact, see Bhushan, 'CSR in India'.
49. Nelson et al., 'What difference can they make?'
50. Dara O'Rourke, 'Multi-stakeholder regulation: privatizing or socializing global labor standards?', World Development 34: 5, 2006, pp. 899-918.
51. Chan, 'CSR in China';
52. Pun Ngai, 'Global production, company codes of conduct, and labour conditions in China: a case study of two factories', The China Journal 54, 2005, pp. 101-13.
53. O'Rourke, 'Multi-stakeholder regulation'.
54. Bhushan, 'CSR in India', p. 4.
55. At least, if we investigate how widely the concept of CSR is used in these countries; although developing country firms may have social commitments which are not currently recognized as CSR. See Bhushan, 'CSR in India'.
56. In fact, some observers do not include corporate philanthropy as part of their definition of CSR as this is not related to the core business strategies of companies. See e.g. Rhys Jenkins, 'Globalization, Corporate Social Responsibility and poverty', International Affairs 81: 3, 2005, pp. 525-40.
57. Peter Newell, 'Corporate accountability and citizen action: communities and companies in India', in Ranjita Mohanty and Rajesh Tandon, eds, Participatory citizenship: identity, exclusion, inclusion (New Delhi: Sage, 2006), pp. 129-50.
58. Ritu Kumar, David F. Murphy and Viraal Balsari, Altered images: the 2001 state of corporate social responsibility in India poll (New Delhi: TERI-India, 2001), pp. 10-11.
59. Utting, 'CSR and development'.
60. Bhushan, 'CSR in India'.
61. Chan, 'CSR in China'.
62. UNRISD, Conference news: corporate social responsibility and development: towards a new agenda (Geneva: UNRISD, 2003), p. 21.
63. Richard E. Freeman and David Reed, 'Stockholders and stakeholders: a new perspective on corporate governance', California Management Review 25: 3, 1983, pp. 88-106 at p. 96.
64. Blowfield and Frynas, 'Setting new agendas', p. 507.
65. Catherine Dolan and Maggie O'Pondo, 'Seeking common ground: multi-stakeholder processes in Kenya's cut flower industry', Journal of Corporate Citizenship 18, 2005, pp. 1-12.
66. Hale and O'Pondo, 'Humanising the cut flower chain'.
67. Prieto-Carrón, 'Gender power and corporate social responsibility'.
68. Szablowski, 'Mining, displacement and the World Bank'.
69. Jem Bendell, 'In whose name? The accountability of corporate social responsibility', Development in Practice 15: 3-4, 2005, pp. 362-74.
70. Diane Auret, Participatory social auditing of labour standards: a handbook for code of practice implementers (Harare: Agricultural Ethical Assurance Association of Zimbabwe, 2002);
71. Prieto-Carrón, 'A conceptual and methodological perspective'.
72. Jon Pierre, ed., Debating governance: authority, steering and democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3-4.
73. Harriet Bulkeley and Arthur P. J. Mol, 'Participation and environmental governance: consensus, ambivalence and debate', Environmental Values 12: 2, 2003, pp. 143-54.
74. Dolan and Opondo, 'Seeking common ground'.
75. Chan, 'CSR in China';
76. M. Prieto-Carrón, 'Corporate Social Responsibility in Latin America: Chiquita, women banana workers and structural inequalities', Journal of Corporate Citizenship 21, 2006, pp. 85-94;
77. Lund-Thomsen et al., 'Corporate social responsibility and sustainability';
78. Bhushan, 'CSR in India'.
79. Peter Utting, 'Corporate responsibility and the movement of business', Development in Practice 15: 3-4, June 2005, pp. 375-88;
80. Ann Zammit, Development at risk: rethinking UN-business partnerships (Geneva: UNRISD, 2003).
81. Muro, 'CSR in Argentina'.
82. Chan, 'CSR in China'.
83. Bhushan, 'CSR in India'.
84. Although countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela appear to be less welcoming towards foreign investors.