Corporate Social Responsibility – vom Reputationsmanagement zum politischen Projekt

Abstract

Luise Görges, Ulf Kadritzke: Corporate Social Responsibility – from Reputation Managementto the Strategic Advance of Corporate Power. This history of CSR exemplifies theadvancement of corporate power in the process of capitalist globalization. Initially started inresponse to reports on the violation of human rights, the transnational corporations (TNCs)managed to design the CSR concept as a voluntary and highly selective commitment to bridgethe gap between the rhetoric and the reality of corporate conduct. With the worldwide rise ofthe neoliberal paradigm in economic and social policy, these CSR-concepts were combinedinto a capital-dominated CSR-complex. The article tries to reconstruct the scientific, politicaland ideological roots of the concept and the steps transforming the corporate CSR-movementinto a successful ‘industry’. But the company-driven CSR is consistently confronted withactors and actions of a new social movement (including NGOs as well as unions). Theseorganizations of civil society steadily uncover the social consequences of corporate globalstrategies. The so far asymmetric balance of power may nevertheless give NGOs and theirallies– backed by the new media – a chance to lay open corporate misconduct and demonstratethe main ‘performance’ of global corporate power: the deepening of class polarization andecological instability.