Engineering corporate social responsibility: elite stakeholders, states and the resilience of neoliberalism

Abstract

This article aims to introduce corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an ideational concept that is being globally and regionally engineered by an epistemic community of elite stakeholders that include business, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and government. The concept of CSR engineering seeks to address gaps in the literature that neglect the emergence of a highly integrated network of elite brokers committed to neoliberal ideology and the manufacturing of ethical corporate governance. Conclusions are drawn from 60 semi-structured interviews with key CSR stakeholders and well over 250 ‘off-the-record’ conversations held at six industry-led conferences. The findings suggest that when powerbases within the elite networks are exposed, the Western nation-state is revealed as the most dominant stakeholder.

Keywords:

• corporate social responsibility
• neoliberalism
• sustainable development epistemic community
• nation-states
• business ethics

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Stephen Frost, William Case, Graeme Lang, Michael Connors, Doreen McBarnet, Nick Pisalyaput, Lee Jones, Richard Welford, Ian Holliday and two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this work. He also thanks Paul Evans for inviting him to expand on this research at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia.

Notes

Interviews were held in Cambodia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mainland China, Thailand and the UK between June 2007 and January 2010. Conferences include the 2008 CSR-Asia Summit in Bangkok, the 2007 CSR-Asia Summit in Hong Kong, the 2009 Anti-Corruption Asia Congress in Hong Kong, the 2008 Anti-Corruption South Asia Summit in Singapore and the 2009 Prime Source Forum in Hong Kong, as well as the International Seminar on Business and Human Rights in Paris.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert James Hanlon

Robert James Hanlon is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Canada. He has a PhD from City University of Hong Kong and has previously worked for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and the Asian Human Rights Commission.