Questioning Corporate Social Responsibility

This book offers a sociological study of corporate social responsibility, looking beyond the question of whether it is primarily a marketing concern, to understand how the terms of debates around corporate social responsibility are being set with regard to responsibility - and where it lies - in the global economy. Investigating the relations between businesses, the workers who contribute to their output, and the communities in which they operate, the author draws on a textual analysis of corporate social responsibility-related documents and interviews with corporate social responsibility professionals, representatives from certification schemes, shareholder groups, government officials, trade unionists and campaigners to offer a framework for categorising discourse on corporate social responsibility. This framework is applied to a series of recent case studies, including the factory-focused ’Keep Burberry British’ campaign to prevent work being outsourced overseas; the event-focused ’PlayFair 2012’ campaign for workers making official Olympic merchandise; and product-focused campaigns for cut flower workers, to consider the ways in which globalising corporate social responsibility discourse is mobilised in practice by different groups and the consequences, With attention to the wider implications for governance that follow from the power relations that characterise corporate social responsibility, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in governance, the sociology of work and organisations, employment relationships and conditions for workers in global production networks.