Providing a much-needed critique of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice and scholarship, this book seeks to redress CSR advocacy, from a political and critical perspective.

A strident approach backed up by extensive use of case studies presents the argument that most CSR-related activity aims to gain legitimacy from consumers and employees, and therefore furthers the exploitative and colonizing agenda of the corporation. By examining CSR in the context of the political economy of late capitalism, the book puts the emphasis back on the fact that most large corporations are fundamentally driven by profit maximization, making CSR initiatives merely another means to this end. Rather than undermining or challenging unsustainable corporate practices CSR is exposed as an ideological practice that actually upholds the prominence of such practices.

As CSR gathers momentum in management practice and scholarship, students in the fields of CSR, business ethics, and strategy, will find this text a useful companion to counter received wisdom in this area.

Welcome to the House of the Blind: What CSR Does Not See

Welcome to the house of the blind: What CSR does not see

While the ethicality of business has long been a topic of scholarly discussion, CSR has only emerged over the last 20 years or so as a fully fledged academic field. As noted by many observers (cf. Jones, 2009a; van Oosterhout, 2005), however, the discipline has yet to constitute itself fully around core epistemological assumptions, including: an agreed-upon definition of the central construct of CSR itself; methodological issues of measuring the construct; the scope of relevant empirical enquiry; the relationship between positive and normative theory; and whether the field is intent on locating itself only within the business school or at a greater ...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles