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Dynamics of Stakeholders’ Implications in the Institutionalization of the CSR Field in France and in the United States

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Abstract

This study supports the idea that fields form around issues, and describes the roles of various stakeholders in the structuring, shaping, and legitimating of the emerging field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A model of the institutional history of the CSR field is outlined, of which a key stage is the appearance of CSR rating agencies as the significant players and Institutional Entrepreneurs of the field. We show to which extent the creation and further development of CSR rating agencies, and the activism of other significant stakeholders of the field (typically portrayed as “standard setters” and “regulatory agents”), contribute to the institutionalization of CSR. With this in mind, among various stakeholders that legitimate the field of CSR, we present the efforts of global and local stakeholders such as the European Union, the United Nations, the International Organization for Standardization, and governments and their interactions. We suggest that the different paths of CSR development and institutionalization in France and in the United States depend on the nature of local and global stakeholders’ involvement in this process and their interactions.

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Notes

  1. Generally, CSR rating agencies offer two types of ranking services: investor-solicited and company-solicited notations which address, respectively, investors (fund managers and financial companies) and rated entities (companies, university/business school, community, etc.).

  2. ISO is a (quasi-autonomous) non-governmental organization that forms a bridge between the public and private sectors. While many of its member institutes are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government, other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector (having been set up by national partnerships of industry associations).

  3. CREF Choice Account is the world’s largest socially screened fund for individual investors with $7.9 billion in assets and more than 200,000 investors.

  4. Coke dropped from KLD’s Broad Market Social Index | Atlanta Business Chronicle, Tuesday, July 18, 2006.

  5. Exclusion was, most of the time, applied to companies which made over 5 % of their turnover from debatable industries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SKEMA Business School, Campus Sophia Antipolis, 60 Rue Dostoïevski, BP 085, 06902, Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

    Emma Avetisyan

  2. University of Geneva, HEC Genève—UNIMAIL, Bd du Pont d’Arve 40, 1211, Geneva 4, Switzerland

    Michel Ferrary

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  1. Emma Avetisyan
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Correspondence to Emma Avetisyan.

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Avetisyan, E., Ferrary, M. Dynamics of Stakeholders’ Implications in the Institutionalization of the CSR Field in France and in the United States. J Bus Ethics 115, 115–133 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1386-3

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