CSR and equality

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 697-712

  Utting, Peter ^a  

^a United Nations Research Institute for Social Development   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EMPOWERMENT; EQUITY; HUMAN RIGHTS; INCOME DISTRIBUTION; SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT; SOCIAL JUSTICE;

EID: 34249787622     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590701336572     Document Type: Article

References (90)

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3. John G Ruggie, 'Taking embedded liberalism global: The corporate connection', in David Held & Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (eds), Taming Globalization: Frontiers of Governance, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003
4. Charles Holliday, Stephan Schmidheiny & Philip Watts, Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development, Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 2002
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7. and Ans Kolk & Rob Van Tulder, 'Poverty alleviation as a business strategy? Evaluating commitments of frontrunner multinational corporations', World Development, 34 (5), 2006, pp 789-801.
8. See UNRISD, Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World Geneva: UNRISD, 2005
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11. Edward Anderson & Tammie O'Neil, A New Equity Agenda? Re.ections on the 2006 World Development Report, the 2005 Human Development Report and the 2005 Report on the World Social Situation, Working Paper 265, London: ODI, 2006.
12. Ibid.
13. Given the expanding range of issues being addressed under the umbrella of CSR, and the fact that di.erent companies, business associations, civil society and other organisations promoting CSR emphasise di.erent aspects, it is often pointed out that there is not a uniform 'CSR agenda'. Nevertheless, there is 'an agenda' in the sense that a) there is growing consensus about the range of issues that companies should be concerned with, and b) CSR represents a particular approach to corporate regulation-one that emphasises voluntary initiatives and self-regulation.
14. This involves firms stimulating productive activity and consumer markets at the 'bottom of the pyramid', a term used to refer to the two-thirds of the world's population that live at or below the US$2 a day level. CK Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing, 2005.
15. See also UNDP, Commission on the Private Sector and Development, Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor, Report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, New York: UNDP, 2004
16. and Kolk & Van Tulder, 'Poverty alleviation as a business strategy?'.
17. Doug Guthrie, Survey on Corporate - Community Relations, 2004, at www.ssrc.org/programs/business_institutions/publications/ CCR_Selected_Results_of_the_Survey.pdf.
18. Ibid.
19. WEF, 'Building on the Monterrey Consensus: The growing role of public - private partnerships in mobilizing resources for development', United Nations High-Level Plenary Meeting on Financing for Development, September, Geneva, 2005, p 5.
20. Jessi Hempel & Lauren Gard, with Michelle Conlin, David Polek and Joshua Tanzer, 'The corporate givers', Business Week, 29 November 2004.
21. WEF, 'Building on the Monterey Consensus'.
22. Rhys Jenkins, Ruth Pearson & Gill Seyfang (eds), Corporate Responsibility and Labour Rights: Codes of Conduct in the Global Economy London: Earthscan, 2002
23. Stephanie Barrientos, Catherine Dolan & Anne Tallontire, 'A gendered value chain approach to codes of conduct in African horticulture', World Development, 31 (9), 2003, pp 1511-1526
24. Stephanie Barrientos & Sally Smith, The ETI Code of Labour Practice: Do Workers Really Benefit?, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2006
25. and Marina Prieto-Carrón, 'Corporate social responsibility in Latin America: Chiquita, women banana workers and structural inequalities', Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 21, 2006, pp 85-94.
26. OECD Watch, Five Years On: A review of the OECD Guidelines and National Contact Points, Amsterdam: Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), 2005
27. Peter Utting & Ann Zammit, Beyond Pragmatism: Appraising UN- Business Partnerships, Programme on Markets, Business and Regulation, Paper No 1, Geneva: UNRISD, 2006.
28. CCC, Looking for a Quick Fix: How Social Auditing is Keeping Workers in Sweatshops, Amsterdam, 2005.
29. Barrientos & Smith, The ETI Code of Labour Practice
30. and Kolk & Van Tulder, 'Poverty alleviation as a business strategy?'.
31. Dara O'Rourke, Monitoring the Monitors: A Critique of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Labor Monitoring, 2000, at http://Web.mit.edu/dorourke/www/index.html; and CCC, Looking for a Quick Fix.
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33. UNRISD, Corporate Social Responsibility and Development: Towards a New Agenda?, Report of the UNRISD Conference, Geneva, 17-18 November 2003, Geneva: UNRISD, 2004
34. and Zammit, Development at Risk.
35. See David Fig et al, The Political Economy of Corporate Responsibility in South Africa (provisional title), Geneva: UNRISD, forthcoming
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37. Paola Cappellin & Gian Mario Giuliani, The Political Economy of Corporate Responsibility in Brazil: Social and Environmental Dimensions Programme on Technology, Business and Society, Paper No 14, Geneva: UNRISD, 2004
38. and Clay et al, Exploring the Links between International Business and Poverty Reduction.
39. Joao Sucupira, 'Balančo social: Diversidade, participacão, e segurança a do trabalho', Democracia Viva, 20, 2004, pp 58-63, at www.premiobalancosocial.org.br/artigos.asp.
40. Kevin Farnsworth, 'Promoting business-centred welfare: International and European business perspectives on social policy', Journal of European Social Policy, 15 (1), 2005, pp 65-80
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42. Naren Prasad, 'Privatization results: Private sector participation in water services after 15 years', Development Policy Review, 24 (6), 2006, pp 669-692.
43. Kolk & Van Tulder, 'Poverty alleviation as a business strategy?'.
44. See Maureen Kilgour, 'The UN Global Compact and substantive equality for women', in this issue.
45. Barrientos & Smith, The ETI Code of Labour Practice.
46. Oxfam International, Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia, Oxford: Oxfam International, 2006, p 3.
47. Peter Utting, 'Regulating business via multistakeholder initiatives: A preliminary assessment', in NGLS/UNRISD, Voluntary Approaches to Corporate Responsibility: Reading and a Resource Guide, Geneva: NGLS, 2002.
48. With the participation of the US and the UK governments, oil, mining and energy companies, and human rights, labour and corporate responsibility organisations, the Voluntary Principles were established in 2000 with the goal of maintaining the safety and security of extractive operations while ensuring that human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected.
49. John G Ruggie, Human Rights Policies and Management Practices of Fortune Global 500 Firms: Results of a Survey, Cambridge, MA: John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2006, p 7.
50. Ibid.
51. See, for example, the Public Eye on Davos Awards for 2005. See also Peter Utting & Kate Ives, 'The politics of corporate responsibility and the oil industry', St Antony's International Review, 2 (1), 2006, pp 11-34.
52. At the time of writing, the IFC, in collaboration with the International Business Leaders Forum, is developing one such tool. For a discussion on human rights impact assessments, see Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Interim Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary- General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, UN document E/CN.4/2006/97, Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, 2006.
53. McKinsey & Company, Assessing the Global Compact's Impact, 2004.
54. Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Interim Report.
55. Anne Phillips, '"Really" equal: Opportunities and autonomy,' Journal of Political Philosophy, 14 (1), 2006, p 30.
56. Ronen Shamir, 'Corporate social responsibility: A case of hegemony and counter-hegemony', in Santos & Rodgrǐ guez-Garavito, Law and Globalization from Below, p 93.
57. Jem Bendell, Barricades and Boardrooms: A Contemporary History of the Corporate Accountability Movement, Programme on Technology, Business and Society, Paper No 13, Geneva: UNRISD, 2004
58. Robin Broad, Global Backlash: Citizen Initatives for a Just World Economy, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002
59. and Peter Utting, 'Corporate responsibility and the movement of business', Development in Practice, 15, 2005, pp 375-388.
60. UNRISD, Corporate Social Responsibility and Development.
61. Michael Conroy, 'Can advocacy-led certification systems transform global corporate practices?', in Broad, Global Backlash.
62. Peter Evans, 'Counter-hegemonic globalization: Transnational social movements in the contemporary global political economy', in Janoski et al, Handbook of Political Sociology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
63. Boaventura de Sousa Santos & Cé sar Rodriguez-Garavito, 'Law, politics and the subaltern in counter-hegemonic globalization', in Santos & Rodgr íguez-Garavito, Law and Globalization from Below
64. and Niamh Garvey & Peter Newell, 'Corporate accountability to the poor? Assessing the e.ectiveness of community-based strategies', Development in Practice, 15 (3-4), pp 389-404.
65. Bendell, Barricades and Boardrooms.
66. CCC, Looking for a Quick Fix.
67. Jem Bendell, Towards Workplace Participatory Rural Appraisal: Report from a Focus Group of Women Banana Workers, New Academy of Business, Occasional Paper, Bristol: New Academy of Business, September 2001.
68. Clay et al, Exploring the Links between International Business and Poverty Reduction.
69. Naila Kabeer, 'Globalization, labor standards, and women's rights: dilemmas of collective (in)action in an interdependent world', Feminist Economics, 10 (1), 2004, pp 3-35
70. and Zammit, Development at Risk
71. See David Levy & Peter Newell, 'Business strategy and international environmental governance: Toward a neo-Gramscian synthesis', Global Environmental Politics, 2 (4), 2002, pp 84-101
72. Jem Bendell & David Murphy, 'Towards civil regulation: NGOs and the politics of corporate environmentalism', in Peter Utting (ed), The Greening of Business in Developing Countries: Rhetoric, Reality and Prospects, London: Zed Books/UNRISD, 2002
73. and Peter Utting, Business Responsibility for Sustainable Development Occasional Paper No 2, Geneva: UNRISD, 2000.
74. Ngai-Ling Sum, 'From "new constitutionalism" to "new ethicalism": global business governance and the discourses and practices of corporate social responsibility, paper prepared for the European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions, Workshop 24: Transnational Private Governance in the Global Political Economy, Granada, 14-19 April 2005.
75. See, in particular, Shamir, 'Corporate social responsibility'; Santos & Rodríguez-Garavito, 'Law, politics and the subaltern in counter-hegemonic globalization'
76. and Peter Utting, Rethinking Business Regulation: From Self-Regulation to Social Control, Programme on Technology, Business and Society, Paper No 15, Geneva: UNRISD, 2005.
77. Rob Van Tulder, 'The power of core companies', European Business Forum, 10, 2002.
78. UNCTAD, World Investment Report: Transnational Corporations and Export Competitiveness, Geneva: UNCTAD, 2002.
79. Ibid, p 91.
80. Paul Dembinsky, 'Economic power and social responsibility of very big enterprises-facts and challenges', Finance & The Common Good/Bien Commun, 15, 2003, pp 27-34.
81. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 'Income inequality in the United States 1913-1998', Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXVIII (1), 2003, pp 8-10
82. and David Harvey, 'Neo-liberalism as creative destruction', Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 88 (2), 2006, p 148.
83. Harvey, 'Neo-liberalism as creative destruction', p 149.
84. Christopher Schmitt, 'Corporate charity: Why it's slowing', Business Week, 18 December 2000, at www.businessweek.com.
85. Dan Roberts, 'America's dilemma: As business retreats from its welfare role, who will take up the burden?', Financial Times, 13 January 2005.
86. Carol Hymowitz, 'Big companies become big targets unless they guard images carefully', Wall Street Journal, 12 December 2005.
87. Arindrajit Dub & Ken Jacobs, Hidden Cost of Wal-Mart Jobs: Use of Safety Net Programs by Wal-Mart Workers in California, Briefing Paper Series, University of California Berkeley Labor Center, 2 August, Berkeley: Center for Labor Research and Education, 2004.
88. OECD, Recent Tax Policy Trends and Reforms in OECD Countries, OECD Tax Policy Studies, No 9, Paris: OECD, 2004.
89. Manuel Riesco, 'Pay your taxes! Corporate social responsibility and the mining industry in Chile', in Riesco et al, The 'Pay Your Taxes' Debate: Perspectives on Corporate Taxation and Social Responsibility in the Chilean Mining Industry, Programme on Technology, Business and Society, Paper No 16, Geneva: UNRISD, 2005.
90. See www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=162359,00.hml