Abstract
Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders (who include shareholders). Although these opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are also much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. They are less the fixed, ideological “signposts” they might appear, and more like “weathervanes” that move alongside changing rhetorical currents. To show this, we analyse the Securities and Exchange Commission consultation process, and legislation, relating to the provenance of “conflict minerals”. We identify two dialectically opposed camps, each seeking to influence final legislation and with end goals in keeping with the shareholder/stakeholder dichotomy. One camp lobbied for firms to scrutinize their entire supply chain, constructing the firm as a “global citizen” with very wide social responsibilities. The second camp lobbied for a lighter touch approach, constructing the firm as a “trader”, with much narrower social responsibilities. We analyse the complex interplay between these two opposed camps, our contribution being to show how both deploy competing conceptions of the corporation as discursive resources.
Highlights
Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm
Our focus is on the submissions and rulings by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and by the Supreme Court that were stimulated by the Dodd-Frank Act Section 1502
Misleading statements in disclosure always bring some legal sanction, but the Securities and Exchange Act involves additional liabilities to investors who traded depending on the misleading statement filed with the SEC
Summary
Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders (who include shareholders) These opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. Transport industries in the DRC are virtually unregulated and the absence of other adequately enforceable legislation on arms means that a confluence of minerals; arms and war binds together criminals; and corporations and consumers It is not the geographical and financial complexities of the supply chain, but the nature of globalized manufacturing which makes locating responsibility difficult. On the other side of the dialectic is the view of the corporation as a moral actor or ‘citizen’, with responsibilities in relation to the public good (Carcello 2009; Morrell and Clark 2010; O’Brien 2009); where auditing can be used to ascribe to corporations responsibilities that extend beyond those currently enshrined in law
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