The Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility: Techniques of Neutralization, Stakeholder Management and Political CSR

This article aims to address these questions using tobacco industry documents made publicly available (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/index.html) following litigation in the US to explore how BAT managers’ interpretation of the company’s declining political authority² shaped its CSRP. An iterative approach was taken to searching the archive. Initial searches used broad terms such as social reporting and CSR, and the documents returned from these searches were used to identify narrower search terms, such as the names of key individuals. Searches were performed between April 2008 and July 2009. In total, 143 search terms were used to retrieve 7,987 documents (many of which were duplicates). From these, over 1,784 documents were studied in detail and indexed. Analysis was informed by Forster’s (1994) approach to company document analysis which was complemented using archival techniques discussed by Hill (1993).

There are a number of potential problems in using company documents to construct in-depth accounts of companies’ activities and strategies. Comments contained in emails, presentation notes and strategy papers, for instance, may be capable of multiple interpretations, may not represent the views of all senior managers and can be coloured by personal ambition and office politics. Despite this, they are likely to provide a more reliable guide to corporate decision-makers’ thinking and motivations than interviews which can produce self-serving responses where corporate or professional reputations are at stake. We address some of the problems associated with documentary data by cross-referencing material contained in internal correspondence (including presentation notes) and strategy papers with an analysis of interviews with senior BAT head office staff undertaken by the market research company, Research International (RI). Contracted 2 years prior to the development of BAT’s CSRP, RI was asked to collate ideas about how the company’s public affairs department, CORA (Corporate and Regulatory Affairs) might develop its communications strategy to minimise growing regulatory and litigation risks. RI carried out 12 in depth interviews in December 1996 under the Market Research Society code which is designed to ensure confidentiality and, therefore, optimises the likelihood of responses reflecting honestly held beliefs (Research International, 1997a, pp. 1–5, 1997b).

Our analysis draws on and develops Sykes and Matza’s concept of techniques of neutralization, cognitive devices that social actors use to justify, excuse, or in some other way rationalise behaviour that flouts social norms (Sykes and Matza 1957). Sykes and Matza identified five techniques—denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties (see Table 1)—to explain juvenile delinquency; their basic premise being that non-observance of social rules is causally linked to a person’s ability to rationalise transgression by drawing upon a cultural reservoir of motivational vocabularies found in legal principles and dominant cultural norms (Cohen 1993). Subsequent authors have added to Sykes and Matza’s original list of techniques (Table 1) and applied the concept to other offences (see, for example, Cressey 1953; Conklin 1977; Klockars 1974; Minor 1981; Konovsky and Jaster 1989; Szwajkowski 1992; Cohen 1993, 2001; Piquero et al. 2005; and Gray 2006) as well as non-criminal behaviour (see, for example, Thompson 1980; McGraw 1990 and Bovens et al. 1999). In this article, we show how corporate decision-makers, when facing a combination of social censure and increased regulatory risk (manifestations of declining political authority), at first reject and then contest the arguments of policy entrepreneurs and reform minded policymakers using techniques of neutralization in a process that we model into three stages (see Fig. 1).

Table 1

Techniques of neutralization as they apply to corporate actors

Source	Primary technique	Explanation
Sykes and Matza (1957)	Denial of responsibility	Social actor indicates that harmful behaviour is the result of circumstances or other factors beyond their control
	Condemnation of condemners	Social actor shifts the focus of attention from their own harmful behaviour by raising questions about the motives and behaviour of those who disapprove of their actions
	Denial of harm or injury	Social actor either claims their behaviour is not harmful or disputes the amount of harm caused.
	Denial of the victim	Social actor either claims those harmed deserved it or exploits the fact that victims are physically absent, unknown or a vague abstraction
	Appeal to higher loyalties/authority	Social actor claims behaviour was necessary to conform to the norms of other groups or codes which take precedence over the rules of society or the interests of harmed individuals
Klockars (1974)	Metaphor of Ledger	Social actor characterises their actions as an aberration which is offset by past, ongoing and future good behaviour
Thompson (1980)	Dispersal of blame/transfer of responsibility	Social actors dilute the degree to which they are responsible for harmful behaviour by claiming responsibility for the problem is shared amongst a number of social actors
Minor (1981)	Defence of Necessity	Social actor mitigates blame by claiming their actions were necessary
Bandura (1990)	Dehumanisation of victim	A variant of denying victimhood, where those harmed by social actor’s behaviour are considered not truly worthy of sympathy or compassion
Present paper	Misrepresentation (denial) of the evidence	A variation of denial of harm where corporate actors question the evidence for regulatory intervention by characterising firm arguments relating to regulation as reflecting a fair, balanced or reasonable assessment of the available evidence
	The defence of legality	By pointing to the legality of their product/actions, corporate actors excuse their negative impact on public welfare and justify the existing liberty of action of the company
	For the good of the cause/for the greater good	A variant of appealing to higher loyalties. Corporate actor claims their behaviour was/is for the greater good, producing long-term consequences that serve as a justification of their actions
	Expression of right	A variant of appealing to higher loyalties where corporate actors justify behaviour with reference to (unspecified) universal rights that protect business freedoms
	Protection of the weak	A variant of appealing to higher loyalties where corporate actors claim that behaviour (producing socially suboptimal outcomes) is justified to protect the interests of other, less powerful groups
	Assertion of rationality	A variant of condemnation of the condemners where, by making claims about what is reasonable, fair, constructive and proportionate, the corporate actor questions the reasonableness, fairness, etc., of its detractors
	The world has moved on	Corporate actor claims that shifts in public attitudes rather than own their own behaviour explains public condemnation

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In the first stage, reliance by corporate decision-makers on techniques of neutralization provides the basis for declining political authority to be seen as a problem arising from poorly designed and co-ordinated political strategies (rather than a growing awareness of the company’s conduct and its social impacts). During the second stage, corporate decision-makers start attributing the company’s declining political authority to external social actors and proceed to design alternative—and potentially more effective—forms of political management (namely CSR) to annul their impact. Techniques of neutralization expedite this process by providing corporate officials with a resource of justifications that legitimise using CSR politically as a platform of stakeholder management. In the third stage, corporate decision-makers embed techniques of neutralization within the firm’s CSRP to legitimise CSR practices that work against public welfare (by reducing political support for regulatory change). Neutralization is primarily used to produce this last effect by framing opposition to regulatory change as consistent with the broader public interest, creating a distinction between sensible and unreasonable regulation, and building a constructive case for the company’s existing commercial freedoms.

By extending Sykes and Matza’s original concept to illustrate the important role neutralization plays in defending core organisational goals, we not only highlight the political and ideological dimensions of CSR, but also illustrate two interesting characteristics of techniques of neutralization that have not been discussed in the published literature. First, by demonstrating the way in which techniques are used at the corporate level (within BAT’s CSRP), our analysis points to the importance of conceptualising them as political tools and not simply cognitive devices (see Table 1). Second, our discussion also highlights the importance of power in facilitating actors’ ability to neutralise behaviour on a societal level. As we show below, corporate decision-makers seem to be both uncommonly resourceful in developing new techniques from contra-regulatory arguments developed by the tobacco industry over the last 40 years (see Table 1) and, importantly, highly creative in developing new political forms, such as CSR, to legitimise and publicise them. This, we propose, is suggestive of a link between social power and both the range of techniques available to specific classes of social actors and their capacity to broadcast them widely. For juvenile delinquents (and other relatively powerless social actors), neutralization is local, largely internalised and concerned primarily with aligning individual action with broader social norms. In contrast, for corporate actors, neutralization can also be organisational, highly public and concerned with aligning broader social norms with corporate action (see also Yang and Malone 2008).

Criticism of BAT’s political strategy by RI’s interviewees reflected a view expressed in earlier documents that the firm’s corporate affairs function was disjointed, poorly integrated across BAT’s operating companies and poorly resourced (see, for example, Proctor 1995a). This led to a new department, CORA (Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Department) being established, with responsibility for co-ordinating the company’s political activity.

CORA’s first action plan had simply constituted a synthesis of pre-existing political tactics (BAT 1995; Proctor 1995b; Opukah 1997). Additional assurances by senior management that the new department would be ‘more proactive’ in ‘better positioning the scientific argument’ and providing operating companies with additional support to ‘voice the case’ were given (Herter 1995). However, in the absence of new ideas about how this might be put into effect, it did not constitute a convincing strategy for improving BAT’s political authority. Other research by RI had found that the industry lacked credibility as a source of information on the relationship between smoking and disease (Research International 1997b, p. 83; see also Test Research 2000) and that conventional modes of political activity, which focused on raising doubts about the harm caused by both smoking and second-hand smoke, simply hardened government officials’ perceptions of the industry as untrustworthy (Research International 1997b).⁴ In this context, understanding the company’s loss of political authority as an issue of political management created the organisational impetus to experiment with alternative modes of political activity. RI’s interviewees specifically argued for measures that provided ‘an alternate stance…rather than an oppositional one’ (Research International 1997a, p. 37) and suggested that this could be achieved by repackaging the firm’s ‘philanthropic activities’ and experimenting with tactics that centred on improving the company’s reputation (Research International 1997a, p. 38).

RI made this a key recommendation of its report and it was later embedded in CORA’s strategic objective which aimed to generate a perception of BAT as a responsible company in a controversial industry (Prideaux and Smith 1999; BAT 2000b). This approach was judged to be capable of producing two key benefits. First, it was considered to be a potentially powerful agenda setting device (Research International 1997a; see also Brendan Brady, former director of corporate and regulatory affairs for BAT Australasia cited in Burton and Rowell 2002 and Prideaux 2000). This was particularly thought to apply in developing economies where, according to one RI interviewee, greater levels of ignorance over tobacco and health ‘issues’ gave BAT a ‘much better chance of being able to manage the situation (Research International 1997a, p. 30)’. Second, it was regarded as an effective way of protecting employees from criticism by friends and family of deceased smokers they met outside of work (Research International 1997a, pp. 33–34, 36). Some staff were unapologetic, refusing to express contrition on the basis of the considerable time and effort they put into their work (Research International 1997a, p. 34). However, most of RI’s interviewees wanted the company to take a more active role in managing the impressions of others (Research International 1997a, p. 35; Goffman 1959). BAT staff, it seems, saw CSR as a resource they could draw on to defend themselves in social settings by maintaining their preferred definition of the company and, therefore, themselves.

To understand how these aims were put into effect, some understanding of the link between techniques of neutralization and organisational myths is required. We use the term organisational myth in this discussion to refer to a narrative form or frame which defines problems, identifies their causes, makes moral judgements about them and offers solutions for their resolution (Entman 1993). They play a central role in the creation of organisational cultures and are either actively developed by senior managers, in the context of managed communication to shape the shared beliefs and values of employees (Kaye 1995) or simply emerge through shared stories and accounts independently of managed communication (Cohen and Prusak 2001). BAT documents suggest that CORA employees repackaged several techniques of neutralization into a myth of political persecution which was then used in the company’s strategy documents and managed communication to both legitimise and guide the development of, the company’s CSRP.

The essence of the myth was that declining political authority was attributable to the potency of public health advocates. Advocates were characterised as voluble, extreme and highly effective at securing public consent for new forms of tobacco control using ‘emotionally charged’ arguments (Marshall 2000a, p. 2; BAT 2000c, p. 4; Weishaar et al. under review). The widespread scepticism BAT encountered as a result was described as an ‘emotional wall’—a metaphor used by CORA officials to encapsulate BAT’s marginalisation in policymaking and public debate (Marshall 2000a, p. 5).

By defining the public as passive recipients of information, and public health advocates as emotive and extreme, BAT’s management collapsed two mutually reinforcing ideas into the myth—that the mainstream case against tobacco was non-objective and unscientific and that the company’s position was reasonable and sensible (Marshall 2000b). These ideas (which implicitly denied the harm associated with tobacco products, condemned the company’s condemners and asserted the company’s own rationality—see Table 1) were applied to all stakeholders seeking to use legal and political channels to hold BAT to account. Thus, judges and plaintiff lawyers were accused of attempting to ‘rig trials’, the WHO was portrayed as promoting extreme and unreasonable regulation (Weishaar et al. under review) and the House of Commons Select Committee investigating the tobacco industry was dismissed as ‘an ill informed and poorly briefed “kangaroo court” convened to harass the industry in an attempt to harden public opinion and enable them to push through tougher regulation’ (Marshall 2000a). By maintaining these myths and simultaneously asserting that the company’s ‘primary responsibility’ of commercial success was good for the countries in which it operated (BAT 1998) (the good of the cause), BAT managers essentially manufactured the moral justification for CSR to be used politically to align the views of external stakeholders with the commercial interests of the firm.

In practice, the company sought to achieve this using stakeholder engagement to reduce the influence of public health advocates over stakeholders’ opinions about tobacco regulation (BAT 2000c). Engagement was organised around six ‘reputation management initiatives’, which covered issues such as consumer information, ‘responsible marketing’ and youth smoking prevention. Stakeholder analysis, planning, engagement and communication were identified as central to developing these initiatives (BAT, undated-a). An extensive stakeholder mapping exercise was planned (BAT 2000d). This involved identifying individuals and institutions who were likely to have ‘the greatest impact on BAT’s ability to do business’ and categorising them according to whether they were decision-makers (actors having an immediate impact on ‘BAT’s ability to achieve long-term growth’) or influencers (actors able to exert influence over the views and activities of decision-makers or influential groups such as media and pressure groups). Once identified, stakeholders were surveyed to assess their relative enmity towards BAT and the potential flexibility of their views (BAT 2000d, e). The results were converted to a numerical rating, reflecting stakeholders’ ‘attitude’ and ‘flexibility’, and then integrated into a series of maps to identify ‘decision-makers’ and ‘influencers’ who should be ‘strategically managed from the centre’ [emphasis added] (BAT 2000d, g, h, undated-b, undated-a, undated-c).

‘Managed’ can take on different meanings, depending on the context in which it is applied. BAT documents suggest that it implied a highly active process of impression management. A key element of this was to create divisions within alliances favouring evidence-based tobacco control and reduce support for them amongst the general public (BAT 2000c, d, f, g, h, undated-b, undated-a). In the section below, we focus on how the company uses neutralization in its Framework for CSR (hereafter referred to as Framework) as an ideological or framing tool⁵ to produce this effect.

Until 2006, the Framework was published in BAT’s social reports and selectively quoted in response to points raised by stakeholders (see, for example, BAT 2005). At the time of writing, it is no longer produced in the company’s new Sustainability Reports, but remains available on the company’s website (BAT, undated-d). The core beliefs (second level), proposed actions and suggested responsibilities (third level) relating to the principles of mutual benefit and responsible product stewardship contain a number of techniques of neutralization that BAT has drawn on to validate political activity aimed at opposing the introduction of widely supported (and evidence based—see, for example, Hopkins et al. 2010) forms of tobacco control (see, for example, BAT, undated-e; BAT, undated-f; BAT, undated-g; BAT, undated-h). By prescribing how the relative strengths of competing approaches to controlling tobacco products should be conceived by politically influential stakeholders (such as policy élites and civil society groups), these parts of the Framework play an important role in BAT’s efforts to shape the agenda for tobacco control (Brendan Brady, former co-director of CORA BAT Australasia, cited in Burton and Rowell 2002; see also Millson 1999; McCombs et al. 1997).

To illustrate this effect, we have extracted the techniques of neutralization embedded in the principles of ‘mutual benefit’ and ‘responsible product stewardship’ in Tables 2 and 3. By collectively promoting proprietary and other economic interests over-and-above public health, the techniques we identify work to justify BAT’s existing commercial freedoms (hereafter described as regulatory conservatism) and define political activity that works against public welfare as socially responsible.

Regulatory conservatism is defended partly in terms of the importance of protecting shareholders’ and smokers’ rights (expression of right/appeal to higher loyalty/protection of the weak) and partly in terms of the economic contribution that BAT’s investment makes to ‘host communities’ (for the good of the cause). The internal logic of these propositions is maintained by relying on other less explicit techniques that ignore the epistemological complexities involved in building a case for the manufacture and sale of tobacco as socially responsible. Hence, the idea that BAT’s investment benefits communities glosses over the net economic harm of tobacco manufacture (misrepresentation of the evidence/denial of harm) (World Bank 1999) and the moral validity of both claims is underwritten by misleading references to the health effects of second-hand smoke as a ‘source of annoyance’ and of a health concern only to ‘some public health authorities’ (misrepresentation of the evidence/denial of harm). Finally, by asserting the company’s privileged access to rationality (assertion of rationality) through constant use of terms such as balanced and proportionate, the Framework formalises an intellectual basis for the faux distinction between sensible and unreasonable regulation—a contrast BAT has consistently used to support regulation in principle but contest it in practice (BAT (Mauritius) 2004; BAT 2000i).

BAT defends socially suboptimal political activity by characterising it as a crucial tool for achieving a balanced approached to health policy which protects the interests of shareholders and smokers. By requesting balance, the company effectively represents itself as a neutral broker of equally competing interests and, therefore, its political activity as arbitration, rather than partisan lobbying. Furthermore, by emphasising the rights and effective disenfranchisement of shareholders and smokers BAT also links its political work to the defence of minority interests and inalienable rights (protecting the weak/expression of right). The persuasive power of this approach derives partly from the fact that it inverts the nature of the relationship between the company and its customers and partly from the fact that it sets the company’s political activity within the traditions of classic liberalism. Smokers, particularly those who begin smoking before adulthood⁹ and who express a desire to quit,¹⁰ are victims in the conventional meaning of the term in that their health and well-being are negatively affected by an addiction developed before reaching an age when they are deemed capable of giving informed consent. By reclassifying them as victims of state intervention,¹¹ BAT effectively negates their status as victims of tobacco manufacture and marketing, and reinforces its preferred definition of political activity as protective and socially progressive. Moreover, by referring, albeit implicitly, to the importance of protecting fundamental rights from state power (Ashcraft 1987), the approach also binds BAT’s political activity to the broader egalitarian aspirations of liberal politics and by describing it as a ‘support’ to governments, presents it as a free subsidy to policy makers.

Drawing out the considerable range of techniques of neutralization embedded within BAT’s Framework, points to the defensive nature of CSR for companies, like BAT, which face acute regulatory risks. Importantly, it also illustrates the way in which CSR practices provide a platform for highly externalising companies to reassert both the moral primacy of their shareholders’ economic interests, and the legitimacy of political activity aimed at maximising the return on capital invested irrespective of its social impacts. Moreover, by highlighting BAT’s inventiveness in stretching the existing range of techniques covered in the academic literature (see Table 1), it also points to the ability of powerful economic actors to optimise the political value of neutralization.

BAT’s innovation in using techniques of neutralization appears to be built on its ability to develop arguments used in previous political campaigns by the tobacco industry (see, for example, Arno et al. 1996; Menashe and Siegel 1998; Cohen et al. 2000; Ong and Glantz 2001; Apollonio and Bero 2007; Apollonio and Bero 2009) and repackage them as positive principles which ‘seek solutions’ and indicate a willingness to ‘work with’ and provide ‘support’ to government (BAT, undated-d).¹² This highlights BAT’s ability to collectivise the resources of the industry and exploit its historical investment in public relations (see, for example, Ong and Glantz 2001; SourceWatch, undated). Further, its ability to neutralise through positive statements is a direct result of its capacity to invest in CSR practices, such as social reporting, which exist alongside, and independently, of formal policy making networks. One consequence of this is that BAT can assert arguments, based on its Framework for CSR, without engaging directly with the evidence-based arguments of public health professionals and reform minded public officials. The effect is a sort of highly managed monologue, in which BAT selectively summarises opposing arguments (see Diethelm and McKee 2009 for an analysis of some of the techniques involved in this process) and sets out the appropriate role of government and, therefore, appropriate scope of government intervention (see BAT 2004 and 2005). In short, the ability to fund CSR practices provides BAT with a platform to amplify excuses and justifications for socially harmful behaviour in a way that appears constructive and socially progressive.

Research on the strategic dimensions of CSR and corporate philanthropy has historically concentrated on measures that further the immediate interests of the corporation, whilst also producing social benefits (Burlinghame and Young 1996; Saiia 2001; Porter and Kramer 2002; Orlitzky et al. 2003; Saiia et al. 2003; Thorne et al. 2003; Campbell and Slack 2008; Heslin and Ochoa 2008). There are some exceptions to this focus in the public health literature where studies examine CSR practices that work against the broader public welfare (see, for example, Landman et al. 2002). However, these studies leave unexplored how corporate decision-makers reconcile the obvious conflicts involved in using CSR in this way and how these modes of thinking then shape CSR practices. Our analysis explores these questions by focusing on how the concept of neutralization helps make sense of BAT’s CSR programme. The study supports two broad conclusions.

First, it shows how neutralization can resolve contradictions in the way in which a firm’s management makes sense of the two quite different concepts of stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management and create the conditions necessary for them to ignore the ethical implications of using CSR as a mode of regulatory management. By illustrating how BAT’s management dismissed social censure of tobacco manufacturers as scientifically ill-informed and driven by extreme organisations and reform minded policymakers, the concept of neutralization helps us to understand why the firm’s CSR practices only superficially address the important issue of tobacco consumption (Action Against Smoking and Health 2005). Despite the nature of the company’s business, and a long history of commercial dishonesty ranging from silence over the addictive nature of nicotine to complicity in tobacco smuggling (see, for example, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids 2001; Campbell 2004; Bates and Rowell 2004; Beelman et al. 2000), heavy reliance on neutralization meant that BAT’s management never doubted that they were working for a socially responsible corporation trading in a socially responsible way. ‘Essentially’, as RI’s report put it, ‘staff believed that British-American Tobacco was a good international citizen currently, but had failed historically to project itself as such’ (Research International 1997a, p. 39). This not only set the background to efforts aimed at focusing CSR practices on issues such as reputational benefit, political access and opportunities for constituency building, rather than on the company’s impact on local communities, customers or the environment (see, for example, Oliver 1998), it also meant that fundamental changes in either the company’s business model or levels of investment in social activity were unnecessary. This is consistent with strategy papers indicating that CORA staff believed BAT was already investing heavily in socially responsible activity, but was not doing enough—through branding and publicity—to convey this to a sceptical public (BAT 2000e).

The second conclusion concerns the potential ideological effects of neutralization and centres on the way in which neutralising techniques relied on during the development of the company’s CSRP spill over into CSR practices and underpin their use as a political tool. Specifically, neutralization was central to how corporate decision-makers used CSR as a framing device to transmit a specific view of the problems relating to tobacco and its control that redefine the range of legitimate solutions (Entman 1993). In practice, this has involved BAT using its CSRP to reject further regulation, provide a moral framework for defining political activity that works against public welfare as socially responsible and create an intellectual basis for the contrived distinction between sensible and unreasonable regulation.

Company documents suggest a key aim of this approach was to break up and, therefore, weaken opposition to BAT’s efforts to optimise its commercial freedom and that it was guided by two main impulses: the need for BAT employees to reconcile the nature of their work with the perceptions of friends, family and acquaintances, as well as their own sense of self; and the commercial pressure to produce ‘potential benefits’, such as ‘increased marketing freedoms, increased self-regulation, greater intention to buy’ (BAT, undated-i; Canning 1999). This second driver illustrates the importance of identifying and quantifying the negative effects of CSR practices when assessing their broader social impact.

Our analysis has potentially important implications for the capacity of voluntary forms of corporate governance, such as social reporting and stakeholder dialogue, to reduce business’ negative social and environmental impacts. The extent to which these CSR practices can bring corporate activity more closely into line with the broader public interest is predicated on their capacity to make corporations more accountable to stakeholders whose interests are not purely confined to optimising returns on capital invested. Our analysis, in contrast, strongly suggests that stakeholder dialogue (and, therefore, social reporting) is primarily a defensive practice aimed at preventing stakeholders from forcing change on companies through formal government intervention. In this sense, our data indicate that the ‘managerial capture’ of CSR (Puxty 1991; Owen et al. 1997; Owen et al. 2000 and O’Dwyer 2003) is an ongoing and active process which takes effect in the day-to-day practices of stakeholder engagement. Whilst strong commercial drivers underlie this approach, it is facilitated by corporate decision-makers’ reliance on neutralization which provides them with a cognitive repertoire for responding to some aspects of stakeholder opinion, but not others—a vital stage in the process of subscribing to stakeholder engagement in principle, but using it in practice as a means of managing regulatory risk.

The extent to which our analysis helps to explain the finding of other studies on the appropriation of CSR by corporate managers (see, for example, Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington 2001; O’Dwyer 2003; Corporate Watch 2006; Crowther 2006), and addresses the broader limitations of CSR as a means of aligning business activity with public welfare, is ultimately dependant on whether we make sense of large tobacco companies as a special case. Tobacco is the only product that kills when used as intended. Further, the mortality rate of long-term tobacco use is unusually high (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2002). Nevertheless, the behaviour of tobacco company executives is not unique. Litigation against corporations tells us that company executives in other sectors such as mining (Rosner and Markowitz 1994), pharmaceuticals (Abraham and Davis 2006), asbestos (Tweedale 2000; McCulloch and Tweedale 2008), chemicals (Pearce and Tombs 1998) and oil (Rosner and Markowitz 2006), have been dishonest about the degree of harm their businesses cause. Furthermore, companies in these sectors have misrepresented scientific knowledge to reduce regulatory and litigation risk (Tucker 2006; McGarity and Wagner 2008; Wagner and Steinzor 2006; Hoggan and Littlemore 2009). In fact, many of the political strategies used by the tobacco industry are common tools of the public relations industry (Stauber and Rampton 1995), and it is therefore not surprising to find neutralization being linked to CSR practices in other industrial sectors (Baumberg, undated). If, in rejecting tobacco industry exceptionalism, we assume that the findings summarised in this article are capable of being extended to other companies, the prognosis for voluntary forms of CSR as a means of managing the increasing costs of business activity to public health and the environment seems limited, at least where socially responsible business practices diminish company earnings. If managers typically start from an assumption that a firm is already socially responsible, and that criticism directed at the firm is unjustified or politically motivated, then they are more likely to come to regard CSR as a public relations tool or device for managing regulatory environments than as a medium for undertaking meaningful change.