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Corporate Social Responsibility as Institution: A Social Mechanisms Framework

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Abstract

Recent research suggests that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is institutionalised amongst multinational corporations. Yet CSR scholarship faces considerable challenges. An agreed definition is lacking, even amongst researchers adopting aligned approaches. Studies remain heavily focused on making a business case for CSR, despite its widespread acceptance into business practice. Few studies examine CSR’s on-ground implications for the communities it purports to help, favouring instead a macro-level focus. And concerns about CSR’s sincerity, motivations and ethics perpetuate questions about its integrity. This article argues that new institutionalism is well placed to respond to these core challenges for CSR, and that new institutionalist perspectives can complement and enrich other common theoretical approaches. It contributes a social mechanism-based framework for CSR, identifying and exploring the key social mechanisms that institutionalise it; namely, discourse, mimesis, normative learning and coercion. Understanding CSR as an institution facilitates new and different explorations of its causes and effects and opens new avenues for scholarly inquiry. Illustrative examples from a 3.5-year study of CSR in the global mining industry are presented to explore the implications of CSR as an institution and to suggest pathways for innovative research.

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Notes

  1. Only two reports were available for one company, as they stopped publishing sustainability reports in 2006, moving instead to production of an annual sustainability report website. The design and technical issues presented by the annual sustainability website meant that later year data for this company could not be comparably analysed against traditional reports.

Abbreviations

CFP:

Corporate financial performance

CSP:

Corporate social performance

CSR:

Corporate social responsibility

GRI:

Global reporting initiative

ICMM:

International Council on Mining and Metals

UNGC:

United Nations Global Compact

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Bice, S. Corporate Social Responsibility as Institution: A Social Mechanisms Framework. J Bus Ethics 143, 17–34 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2791-1

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