The Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility: Techniques of Neutralization, Stakeholder Management and Political CSR

Gary Fooks,Anna Gilmore,Jeff Collin,Chris Holden,Kelley Lee

doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1250-5

Abstract

Since scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily focused on the synergies between social and economic performance, our understanding of how (and the conditions under which) companies use CSR to produce policy outcomes that work against public welfare has remained comparatively underdeveloped. In particular, little is known about how corporate decision-makers privately reconcile the conflicts between public and private interests, even though this is likely to be relevant to understanding the limitations of CSR as a means of aligning business activity with the broader public interest. This study addresses this issue using internal tobacco industry documents to explore British-American Tobacco’s (BAT) thinking on CSR and its effects on the company’s CSR Programme. The article presents a three-stage model of CSR development, based on Sykes and Matza’s theory of techniques of neutralization, which links together: how BAT managers made sense of the company’s declining political authority in the mid-1990s; how they subsequently justified the use of CSR as a tool of stakeholder management aimed at diffusing the political impact of public health advocates by breaking up political constituencies working towards evidence-based tobacco regulation; and how CSR works ideologically to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the relative merits of competing approaches to tobacco control. Our analysis has three implications for research and practice. First, it underlines the importance of approaching corporate managers’ public comments on CSR critically and situating them in their economic, political and historical contexts. Second, it illustrates the importance of focusing on the political aims and effects of CSR. Third, by showing how CSR practices are used to stymie evidence-based government regulation, the article underlines the importance of highlighting and developing matrices to assess the negative social impacts of CSR.

Highlights

Notwithstanding attempts by public institutions such as the European Commission to define corporate social responsibility (CSR), the absence of a widely agreed framework on CSR, which specifies minimum outcome-based standards of social performance, creates an enabling milieu for socially harmful companies which externalise many of their costs to pass themselves off as socially responsible
This study suggests that British-American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris use CSR politically to prevent the introduction of legally enforceable tobacco control measures which have a proven record of effectiveness in reducing tobacco consumption
There are some exceptions to this focus in the public health literature where studies examine CSR practices that work against the broader public welfare

Summary

Introduction

Notwithstanding attempts by public institutions such as the European Commission (see, for example, Commission of the European Communities, 2001, 2006) to define corporate social responsibility (CSR), the absence of a widely agreed framework on CSR, which specifies minimum outcome-based standards of social performance, creates an enabling milieu for socially harmful companies which externalise many of their costs to pass themselves off as socially responsible. This study suggests that BAT and Philip Morris use CSR politically to prevent the introduction of legally enforceable tobacco control measures which have a proven record of effectiveness in reducing tobacco consumption This has involved them using CSR to broker access to public officials, influence the policy alternatives under consideration by elected representatives, break up opposing political constituencies, rebuild tobacco companies’ reputations as providers of reliable information and as a platform for strategic regulation—voluntary forms of corporate governance that are designed to pre-empt formal government regulation which has a proven record of effectiveness in reducing tobacco consumption (Maxwell et al 2000; Collin and Gilmore 2002; World Health Organization 2004; Action Against Smoking and Health, Friends of the Earth and Action Aid 2005; Thomson 2005; Palazzo and Richter 2005; Tesler and Malone 2008; Yang and Malone 2008; McDaniel and Malone 2009; Fooks et al 2009; 2009; Fooks and Gilmore 2011)

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Conclusion