Conscience as control – managing employees through CSR

Jana Costas · Dan Kärreman

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Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting Ethics in Business and Education Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility has become an important topic for both academics and practitioners. CSR typically stands for corporate responses to ethical, environmental and social issues. Whilst extant research has predominately focused on CSR in relation to external stakeholders and taking a macro-institutional and/or functionalist perspective, we provide a critical engagement with the interactions between CSR, employees and management control within organizations. Qualitative data gathered at two management consultancy firms demonstrate how CSR discourses and practices serve to construct an idealized image of a socially, ecologically and ethically responsible corporate self. In this way, CSR works as a form of aspirational control that ties employees’ aspirational identities and ethical conscience to the organization. The article discusses the implications of CSR concerning cynical distancing, ethical sealing and the space for politics and critique in corporations.

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References

1980Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 1978Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison 1978Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.2007The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits 2001Corporate Social Responsibility: A Theory of the Firm Perspective 1999Corporate Social Responsibility 2007Why would corporations behave in socially responsible ways? an institutional theory of corporate social responsibility 2008“Implicit” and “Explicit” CSR: A Conceptual Framework for a Comparative Understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility

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2013Review Article: When ‘life itself’ goes to work: Reviewing shifts in organizational life through the lens of biopower 2019Critical Essay: The reconciliation of fraternal twins: Integrating the psychological and sociological approaches to ‘micro’ corporate social responsibility 2019Too Much of a Good Thing? On the Relationship Between CSR and Employee Work Addiction 2018Shared Responsibility for Societal Problems: The Role of Internal Activists in Reframing Corporate Responsibility

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