Being fair and being seen to be fair: Corporate reputation and CSR partnerships

Abstract

Over the past two decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a growth area in managerial practice and academic consideration, as companies pursue the strategy to advance their corporate reputation goals. A popular CSR activity for many companies has been to enter into social alliance partnerships with nonprofit organisations [Berger, I., Cunningham, P., Drumwright, M., 2004. Social alliances: company/nonprofit collaboration. California Management Review 47 (1), 58–90]. This has been met by a sceptical yet pragmatic public, willing to support the partnerships so long as corporates are seen to be fair and just in their dealings with the nonprofit partner. Currently, however, there is little ability for stakeholders to know whether the partnerships are fair. This paper considers conflicting conceptions of how justice may be understood in corporate-nonprofit partnerships. It offers a model for how stakeholders may judge justice in CSR partnerships and relate this to corporate reputation.