infonet-economy

In this paper, we analyze an emerging problem area in CSR and the ongoing debates on corporations as political actors which we call corporate political advocacy. Advocacy denotes the phenomenon of corporations taking a stance, politically, by showing explicit and public support for certain ideals or values with the aim of convincing others to embrace them as well. An example of advocacy is Ben and Jerry's active support of a law legalizing gay marriage in Vermont. Yet, such behavior raises normative challenges: what, if any, notion of moral responsibility can account for corporate political advocacy? Under what circumstances and from what perspective can it be considered legitimate or even desirable? We argue that while advocacy shares some overlaps with existing debates on the political role and responsibility of corporations (e.g. Political CSR and Corporate Political Activity), none of these debates succeeds in making conceptual and normative sense of the phenomenon.

Interactions between corporations and nonprofits are on the rise, frequently driven by a corporate interest in establishing credentials for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, we show how increasing demands for accountability directed at both businesses and NGOs can have the unintended effect of compromising the autonomy of nonprofits and fostering their co-optation. Greater scrutiny of NGO spending driven by self-appointed watchdogs of the nonprofit sector and a prevalence of strategic notions of CSR advanced by corporate actors weaken the ability of civil society actors to change the business practices of their partners in the commercial sector. To counter this trend, we argue that corporations should embrace a political notion of CSR and should actively encourage NGOs to strengthen ‘downward accountability' mechanisms, even if this creates more tensions in corporate-NGO partnerships. Rather than seeing NGOs as tools in a competition for a comparative advantage in the market place, corporations should actively support NGO independence and critical capacity.

Partnerships between companies and NGOs have received considerable attention in CSR in the past years. However, the role of NGO legitimacy in such partnerships has thus far been neglected. We argue that NGOs assume a status as special stakeholders of corporations which act on behalf of the common good. This role requires a particular focus on their moral legitimacy. We introduce a conceptual framework for analysing the moral legitimacy of NGOs along three dimensions, building on the theory of deliberative democracy. Against this background we outline three procedural characteristics which are essential for judging the legitimacy of NGOs as potential or actual partners of corporations.

in-depth assessment of the CSR of a multinational company - This is an in-depth study on the challenges of Corporate Social Responsibility at Chiquita, which I conducted together with Prof. Guido Palazzo and which was accompanied by Fondation Guilé. The study is based on an open-book policy through which we were granted unlimited access to internal and external resources. The result is an unprecedented piece of work offering an insider's view into the complexity of a multinational company's CSR, within one of the tightest markets.

Key elements of the research:

- In the early 1990s, Chiquita began an impressive assessment of its work so that it could evolve from a multinational that did not take into account the social and environmental impacts of its activities, into a "citizens" organisation with a comprehensive commitment to its stakeholders. Despite the resulting global CSR strategy and policy, Chiquita has hardly reaped any benefits. Neither retailers nor consumers or shareholders seem to have recognised the merits of this transformation towards becoming a highly engaged company acting as a good corporate citizen.

- The fact that Chiquita has been in financial difficulty in recent years has clearly limited the scope of its possible CSR. The company has had to constantly address the problem of trying to continue to do good, while not doing well. Despite its financial problems, Chiquita has never abandoned its belief in the strategic value of its CSR policy.

- Chiquita's controversial past and the debate on its payments to paramilitary factions in Colombia continue to haunt the company and undermine the credibility of its CSR efforts.

- Chiquita's claim that it produces socially responsible bananas with respect for the environment without guaranteeing a minimum price, as supported by the Rainforest Alliance, has come under significant criticism from Fairtrade Organization activists, who believe that there can be no equity without guaranteed prices. Chiquita strives to position itself as a credible producer of an equivalent alternative to Fairtrade via its CSR policy.

- Despite the fact that Chiquita was, in many respects, a pioneer in terms of protecting the environment, it sometimes faces greenwashing criticisms.

The study shows that Chiquita has made significant efforts and spent a lot of time on protecting its social and environmental commitment by anchoring it to daily and routine processes within its teams and building its CSR policy into an integral part of its corporate culture. However the viability of this strategy will be shown by its sustainability in the long term and one cannot help but wonder whether the Cutrale group, the new owners of Chiquita, and one of the world leaders in the production of oranges, will continue the CSR commitment Chiquita began more than 20 years ago. It also remains to be seen whether Chiquita's CSR efforts can become more credible and be converted into tangible returns to the company's stakeholders.

The study is particularly aimed at practitioners, teachers and their students, and university researchers. Its goal: to improve the general understanding of Chiquita's corporate responsibility strategy in order to draw lessons for other companies.

http://www.guile.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Book-Interactif_300dpi.pdf

Political theories in general and deliberative democracy in particular have become quite popular in business ethics over the past few years. However, the model of deliberative democracy as generally referred to in business ethics is only appropriate for conceptualizing interaction between business and society which occurs within a context which is more or less institutionalized. The model cannot account for "unregulated" interaction between business and civil society. The authors argue that scholars need to resort to the so called "critical strand" of deliberative democracy if we want to conceptualize interaction that happens without the involvement of decision-making institutions as political action in a deliberative sense. Adopting this approach allows us to identify cases in which unregulated interaction between business and civil society is preferable over institutionalization.

NGOs are increasingly recognized as factual stakeholders of companies. Stakeholder Theory deals with the question whether NGOs are legitimate stakeholders of corporations. This paper argues that NGOs can only be considered legitimate stakeholders of companies if they are legitimate representatives of civil society. It is based on the assumption that NGOs act as organizations with normative claims. The aim is to outline to what normative framework NGOs as organizations with normative claims are geared. This is done by outlining the central terms of the research question and by investigating which political model provides the most adequate interpretations of these notions. It will be that the deliberative model of democracy represents the most fruitful approach to the research question at hand.

Partnerships between business and NGOs are a hot topic. After years of focusing on the question of corporate accountability, attention is shifting to the question of NGO accountability. Companies can benefit from this trend. The scrutiny to which NGOs are exposed makes it easier to understand the difficulties that companies face in their interaction with NGOs. Yet, companies should ideally have some guidelines with which to evaluate the legitimacy of NGOs as stakeholders. This paper identifies the types of criteria that help companies judge the legitimacy of NGOs as stakeholders and distinguishes between structural, procedural and substantive criteria. These types of criteria clarify the difference between NGOs and interest groups on the one hand, and the difference between NGOs and activists on the other hand. For companies this distinction implies that on the one hand nobody expects them to cooperate with activists, who put them under pressure just for the sake of getting public attention; on the other hand it is their duty not to ‘sell' cooperation with an interest group as a business-NGO-partnership. Along the types of criteria a set of guiding questions is sketched out that companies have to keep in mind when considering a partnership with an NGO.