How Political Actors Co‐Construct CSR and its Effect on Firms' Political Access: A Discursive Institutionalist View

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores how corporate social responsibility (CSR) can incentivize political actors to increase firms' political access. Taking a discursive institutional perspective, I argue that the types of access negotiated depend on how political actors co‐construct the multiplicity of CSR meanings. To study this process, I focus on the empirical case of the European Union (EU), offering a novel analysis of event observations, policy documents, and interviews with Commission officials, Euro‐parliamentarians, and other stakeholders. I find that the value of CSR is highly contested in the EU political arena. I then elucidate four discursive strategies through which political actors interactively refined, reframed, and reinterpreted the meaning of CSR and its relevance for firm access in ways beneficial to their perceived interests. The findings highlight the importance for nonmarket strategy studies to conceptualize CSR as a co‐constructed idea and access as negotiated, putting the micro‐dynamic relationship between firms and political actors centre stage.

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