Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility

TL;DR: In this paper, an alternative sociomaterial conceptualization of power in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is proposed to clarify how power works through materialized forms of CSR, and four tactics that clarify how CSR materializations can be seized by marginalized actors to "recover" CSR.

Abstract: Through the development of CSR ratings, metrics and management tools, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is currently materialized at an unprecedented scale within and across organizations. However, the material dimension of CSR and the inherent political potential in this materialization have been neglected. Drawing on insights from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the critical discussion of current approaches to power in CSR studies, we offer an alternative sociomaterial conceptualization of power in order to clarify how power works through materialized forms of CSR. We develop a framework that explains both how power is constituted within materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘assembling / disassembling’, and how power is mobilized through materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘overflowing / framing’. From this framework, we derive four tactics that clarify how CSR materializations can be seized by marginalized actors to ‘recover’ CSR. Our analysis aims to renew CSR studies by showing the potential of CSR for progressive politics.

Summary

Introduction

• The nutritional composition of Calluna vulgaris flowers as well as the phytochemical profile, antioxidant (DPPH and FRAP assays), antimicrobial and cytotoxic (in human immortalized non-tumorigenic keratinocyte and fibroblasts) activities of aqueous, hydroalcoholic and ethanolic extracts were evaluated.
• After cooling down, 2mL of deionized water and 5mL of n-hexane were added to the sample.
• The TPC, TFC and antioxidant activity of the different extracts are reported in Table 3.
• The potential antimicrobial activity of C. vulgaris flowers extracts has been studied by different authors using other solvents.

4. Conclusions and future perspectives

• C. vulgaris flowers were characterized aiming to spread its application in food or nutraceutical industries.
• The antioxidant activity was significant for all extracts evaluated and positive correlations with TPC were observed.
• Nevertheless, the hydro-alcoholic extract presented the best results.
• Until a concentration of 100 μg/mL no decrease on cell viability in HaCaT cells was observed.
• These findings indicate that C. vulgaris is a valuable source of health-promoting compounds and could be used as a sustainable food ingredient.

Figures

Table 1. Conceptualizations of Power and their Expressions in Business and Society Research

Figure 1. Constituting and Mobilizing CSR-agencements for Progressive Politics

Full text

City, University of London Institutional Repository
Citation: Gond, J-P. and Nyberg, D. (2016). Materializing Power to Recover Corporate
Social Responsibility. Organization Studies, doi: 10.1177/0170840616677630
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Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/15555/
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Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility
Jean-Pascal Gond
Cass Business School
City University London
106 Bunhill Row, EC1Y 8TZ
London, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7040 0980
Fax: +44 (0) 7040 8328
jean-pascal.gond.1@city.ac.uk
Daniel Nyberg
Newcastle Business School
University of Newcastle
University Drive, NSW 2308
Callaghan, Australia
Tel: +44 (02) 49217923
Fax: +44 (02) 4921 6911
daniel.nyberg@newcastle.edu.au
Paper forthcoming in Organization Studies.
Acceptance date: 06/09/2016.

2
Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility
Abstract
Through the development of CSR ratings, metrics and management tools, Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) is currently materialized at an unprecedented scale within and across
organizations. However, the material dimension of CSR and the inherent political potential in
this materialization have been neglected. Drawing on insights from Actor-Network Theory
(ANT) and the critical discussion of current approaches to power in CSR studies, we offer an
alternative sociomaterial conceptualization of power in order to clarify how power works
through materialized forms of CSR. We develop a framework that explains both how power is
constituted within materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘assembling /
disassembling’, and how power is mobilized through materialized forms of CSR through
processes of ‘overflowing / framing’. From this framework, we derive four tactics that clarify
how CSR materializations can be seized by marginalized actors to ‘recover’ CSR. Our
analysis aims to renew CSR studies by showing the potential of CSR for progressive politics.
Key-words: Actor-network theory, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sociomateriality, Power,
Theory-building.

3
Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility
Introduction
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is currently materialized at an unprecedented scale
within and across organizations. CSR has become an accepted operational and managerial
construct that is widely implemented in organizations (Bondy, Moon & Matten, 2012) and
sustained by a growing infrastructure of standards, reports, metrics and management tools
(Waddock, 2008). This institutionalization is characterized by a clear business orientation
within which a new breed of CSR experts and professionals—CSR auditors, managers,
consultants and investors—aim to build new market opportunities while addressing pressing
social or environmental problems (Brès & Gond, 2014). As a result, CSR can now be
regarded as an organizational “field of practice” of its own within which a variety of actors—
academics, NGOs, corporations and governmental organizations—interact to shape the
meaning and content of CSR discourse and practice (Shamir, 2005, pp. 231-232).
Despite the successfully institutional materialization of CSR across countries and
industries, current evaluations of CSR suggest that it has not lived up to its potential.
Supporters of CSR admit that CSR activities are not conducted without financial gains (Van
der Byl & Slawinski, 2015), while critics argue for the abandonment of CSR and similar
concepts (e.g., sustainability, corporate citizenship) and have called for ‘the end of CSR’ as
currently practiced by most corporate actors (Fleming & Jones, 2013). What was once seen as
an opportunity for progressive politics (Bowen, 1953; Dale, 1960) became theorized as forms
of manipulation to strengthen and solidify corporate power (Banerjee, 2010; Jones, 1996).
While sympathetic to the critical accounts of CSR that notes its (thus far) limited impact, we
oppose the abandonment of the concept.
We suggest that the unprecedented scale of CSR materialization offers an opportunity to
‘recover’ CSR to serve an emancipatory purpose. With the aim of rejuvenating CSR, we use

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Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Latour, 1986, 2005a; Law, 1986) to propose an alternative
sociomaterial approach to power that recognizes and capitalizes on the political potential of
ANT (Alcadipani & Hassard, 2010; Vosselman, 2014). By engaging with ANT, we develop a
framework that explains both how power is constituted within materialized forms of CSR
through processes of ‘assembling / disassembling’, and how power is mobilized through
materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘overflowing / framing’. From this
framework, we derive four tactics that clarify how CSR can be seized by interventions in the
constitution and mobilization of CSR materializations. Thus, while CSR materializations, to
date, mainly have been supporting the increase of corporate power, we envision that
materially constituted forms of power can also be used by marginalized actors, such as NGOs
or environmental activists, to ‘recover’ CSR for progressive politics.
The paper contributes to the fields of Business and Society and Organizational Studies in
a threefold manner. First, it highlights the thus-far neglected ‘emancipatory potential’ of CSR
(Wickert & Schaeffer, 2014) as well as the need for organizational scholars who are interested
in CSR to engage with the material aspects of CSR to influence this growing field of
discourse and practice (Cabantous, Gond, Harding & Learmonth, 2016; Nyberg & Wright,
2015). Second, our development of the material aspects of power responds to recent calls to
advance our understanding of the role of power in CSR (Banerjee, 2010; Gond, Barin Cruz,
Raufflet & Charron, 2016) by proposing an approach to power that considers how materiality
is involved in governmental activities (Butler, 2010; Latour, 2014). Third, our
conceptualization of power and its bearings on CSR contributes to recent discussions of
‘critical performativity’ within organizational studies (Spicer, Alvesson & Kärreman, 2009,
2016). By developing ‘performativity as politics’ (Cabantous et al., 2016; Nyberg & Wright,
2015), we connect the suggested tactics with the potential to transform business organizations.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "Materializing power to recover corporate social responsibility" ?

The authors develop a framework that explains both how power is constituted within materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘ assembling / disassembling ’, and how power is mobilized through materialized forms of CSR through processes of ‘ overflowing / framing ’. From this framework, the authors derive four tactics that clarify how CSR materializations can be seized by marginalized actors to ‘ recover ’ CSR. Their analysis aims to renew CSR studies by showing the potential of CSR for progressive politics. 

Q2. What are the future works in "Materializing power to recover corporate social responsibility" ?

In this regard, CSR materializations may have an emancipatory potential that still has to be explored in future empirical studies and through action research. Future research could investigate this sociomaterial conceptualization in contrast and/or in relation to alternative approaches to power derived from the post-colonial or Foucauldian tradition ( Banerjee, 2000 ; Vallentin & Murillo, 2012 ), Bourdieu ’ s analysis ( Aaken, Splitter & Seild, 2013 ) or aligned with the radical view proposed by Lukes ( 2005 ) ( Giamporcaro & Gond, 2016 ; Gond et al., 2016 ). Although Bergström and Diedrich ( 2011 ) have already mobilized ANT to investigate how CSR can be used to consolidate power positions in an organizational context of downsizing, their account focuses on human actors and pays surprisingly little attention to the role of non-humans. In contrast, their framework suggests paying more attention to materialized forms of CSR to document performative power effects and forms of resistance that could be otherwise overlooked. 

Q3. What is the role of the CSR-sphere in the assembling process?

Reconfiguring political relations through interventions in the assembling / disassembling processes is not only a question of materializing CSR practices appropriately to alter power dynamics; it can also involve bringing within the CSR spheres material devices that aim to democratize decision-making by including silenced or ignored stakeholders’ voices in alternative assemblings. 

Q4. What can be done to make assembling visible and traceable?

With CSR agencements continuously being produced and upheld by entangled actors andrelationships, the assembling can be made visible, traced and held to account. 

Q5. What are some of the ‘materialized arenas’ within which the politics of CSR are?

Material contexts such as newspapers, parliament,public hearings, and social media constitute some of the ‘materialized arenas’ within which the politics of CSR are played out. 

Q6. What can be done to re-internalize CSR?

Reframing negative externalities or social and environmental issues can alter the capacity of powerful actors to ignore (and hence produce) these externalities through existing CSR arrangements and facilitate their subsequent ‘re-internalization’ within these arrangements (Callon, 1998b). 

Q7. What role does business and society research play in revealing new meanings?

Business and society research has a role to play here in mobilizing and revealing alternative and inclusive spaces for assembling identities and entities to construct new meanings. 

Q8. What is the role of the intervention in shaping the constitution of forms of power and politics?

Although interventions focused on the process of assembling / disassembling offer the opportunity to shape the constitution of forms of power and politics for CSR-agencements, interventions in the process of overflowing / framing open up the possibility of mobilizing, amplifying or undermining the power and political effects produced by such agencements. 

Q9. What is the meaning of radical critique?

To be radical, a ‘radical critique’ of an unfair, destructive and unsustainable ‘system’ should abstain from falling into the trap of fighting a system. 

Q10. What is the main idea behind the reframeing of CSR-agencements?

Another set of approaches that intervene in the effects produced by CSR-agencements consists of focusing on the framing rather than the overflowing process by reframing existing forms of material CSR that change the contexts within which they are interpreted and evaluated to strengthen (or weaken) their performative effects. 

Q11. What is the meaning of the alternative conceptualization of power?

This alternative conceptualization of power rests on two basic assumptions: the relational materiality of power and its performative effects. 

Q12. What is the key to understanding the translation process of DDT?

The key to understanding the translation process of DDT was not the negative impacts of DDT but how new alternative practices became acceptable (Maguire & Hardy, 2009). 

Q13. What are the four tactics used to assemble CSR-agencements?

In doing this, the authors rely on the concepts of ‘hybrid forums’ and ‘critical performativity engines’ to discuss how to assemble more democratic CSR-agencements and how to repurpose existing ones. 

Q14. What is the sociomaterial alternative concept of power?

In line with recent calls to reconsider the role of power in the CSR domain (Banerjee,2010; Gond et al., 2016), the sociomaterial alternative concept of power enriches current critical and political studies of CSR that have often overlooked the role of materiality. 

Q15. What are the four tactics that actors can rely on to influence these two sets of processes?

The authors then identified four tactics that actors can rely on to influence these two set of processes so that CSR-agencements can deliver on goals such as welfare creation or social justice.