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Corporate social responsibility (CSR): an institutionalist Polanyian analysis

Nicolas Postel (University of Lille, Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France and Centre Lillois d’Etudes et de Recherches Sociologiques et Economiques, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Hauts-de-France, France)
Richard Sobel (University of Lille, Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France and Centre Lillois d’Etudes et de Recherches Sociologiques et Economiques, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Hauts-de-France, France)

Society and Business Review

ISSN: 1746-5680

Article publication date: 27 November 2019

Issue publication date: 27 November 2019

182

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to focus on the understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR), this “novel” form of corporate engagement, and evaluating its capacity to regulate capitalism. The authors advance the following thesis: CSR constitutes a new variety of regulation of capitalism which, to work efficiently, must be built on collective institutions (through both collective agreements and forms of coercion), instead of strictly contractual forms (based on inter-individual relations and voluntary commitments).

Design/methodology/approach

To support this thesis, the authors use Karl Polanyi’s theory, in particular his concept of “fictitious commodities”. Like Polanyi, we contend that CSR is a necessary reaction to the new “great transformation” brought about by the financialisation of our economy which is currently in crisis. Polanyi agrees that this kind of regulation can yield results only when based on collective institutions. In the last section of the study, the authors attempt to determine how a “conventionalist analysis” of CSR could help us to precisely describe this phenomenon and how it could be institutionalised by actors (both inside and outside companies).

Findings

This paper theoretically demonstrates the role of institutions in CSR processes and the need to weigh them theoretically. In this sense, the paper demonstrates the aporia of a strictly contractualist framework, not only for the understanding of the phenomenon, but for its deployment.

Research limitations/implications

This study proposes a theoretical framework, which is yet to be consolidated by empirical research.

Practical implications

The paper proposes salient elements of a public policy of responsibility.

Social implications

The paper proposes a methodological framework to go beyond a bilateral representation of the institutional framework and to produce a collective representation of the negotiation.

Originality/value

This is an original paper in its theoretical positioning and the implications it suggests for economic policy.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper forms part of a special section “From business and society to business for society: coming (back) to a sounder relation between knowledge and organization”, guest edited by Rémi Jardat, Jérôme Méric and Corinne Vercher-Chaptal.

Citation

Postel, N. and Sobel, R. (2019), "Corporate social responsibility (CSR): an institutionalist Polanyian analysis", Society and Business Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 381-400. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBR-07-2019-0096

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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