تفسیر مجدد اصول مسئولیت اجتماعی شرکتی: رویکرد کاربردی A Reinterpretation of the Principles of CSR: A Pragmatic Approach

THE THEORY OF CORPORATE SOCIAL PERFORMANCE (CSP) REPRESENTS ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL APPROACHES within the business and society literature (Melè, ۲۰۰۸). This theory – which holds that business and society are interwoven entities and by that reason business has a responsibility to society in some way or the other – is perhaps best represented by Wood’s (1991) CSP model. The CSP model is a synthesis that includes (1) principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR); (2) processes of corporate social responsiveness; and (3) outcomes of corporate behavior. The CSP model thus encompasses a normative foundation or principles of CSR expressing what companies ought to do; a descriptive element focusing on what companies in fact do in response to the principles of CSR; and an instrumental element that draws attention to the actual outcomes of CSR. Finally, the CSP model demonstrates the interrelationship between these three topics. An important strength of the CSP model is its comprehensiveness and its logical synthesis of the conceptual CSR literature up to the beginning of the 1990s; CSP serves for many as an overarching framework for the Business and Society fi eld (Whetten et al., 2002). Theories of CSP and the Wood’s (1991) model have, however, also met criticism. First of all, they have been criticized for only being a classifi catory device because of an unclear relationship between the model’s principles, processes, and outcomes, and thus providing few possibilities for generating explanations and predictions (Mitnick, 1993; Husted, 2000; Whetten et al., 2002). They have also been criticized for lacking a clear normative theory of business in society (Swanson, 1995; 1999; Whetten et al., 2002; Scherer and Palazzo, 2007; van Oosterhout and Heugens, 2008) capable of prescribing what appropriate business behavior is, and what it is not. It is this second critique that constitutes the point of departure for our inquiry in this paper. In brief, this paper argues for a pragmatic approach to the role and responsibility of business in society (Wicks and Freeman, 1998) in which the normative defi ciencies of CSP theory can be strengthened trough democratic iterations (Benhabib, 2006; 2008) of some or the other ethical treatise, and thus provide a justifi ed foundation for companies’ efforts in the societal arena, and for judging those efforts. We illustrate our approach to a normative theory of business in society by reinterpreting the principles of CSR from the ethical concept of sustainable development (WCED, 1987). Since the publication of Our Common Future (also referred to as the Brundtland Report) in 1987, the concept of sustainable development has achieved relatively broad acceptance in the political, civil, and business spheres of society. In addition, the United Nations (UN) increasingly subscribes a role for business in addressing the challenges of sustainable development, a role that has been warranted through international political processes (Langhelle et al., 2008). We further argue that such a reinterpretation has important implications, both for the action counterpart (Wood, 1991) to the principles of CSR and for evaluating the outcomes of companies’ CSR efforts. This paper proceeds as follows: First, we present the principles of CSR and the CSP model. Then we discuss the limitations of the CSR principles as a normative foundation for companies’ CSR efforts and for evaluating the outcome of those efforts. After introducing the concept of sustainable development, we present the concept of jurisgenerative politics and democratic iterations in order to reconcile the somewhat contrasting approaches to the role and responsibility of business in society suggested by the relativistic principles of CSR and the more universal norms of sustainable development. This discussion paves the way for reinterpreting the CSR principles. Finally, we briefl y discuss some implications of the reinterpreted principles of CSR for companies CSR efforts, and for judging about those efforts.