Corporate Social Responsibility and Labour

Corporate Social Responsibility and Labour Standards: Bridging Business Management and Employment Relations Perspectives 1 Gregory Jackson, Virginia Doellgast, and Lucio Baccaro Introduction The special symposium of the British Journal of Industrial Relations is dedicated to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and labour standards. CSR has emerged as a new field of business activity over the last decade, and has grown in salience for workers, trade unions and policy makers. Corporate activities related to employees, diversity, or international labour standards are often being reframed as part of a wider set of commitments to advancing environmental, social and governance objectives. Governance related to social issues has also shifted: from human resource departments to CSR departments in the firm, from internal forms of information sharing and consultation to more explicit reporting to external stakeholders, from state regulation to private forms of governance, from nationally organized to more transnational perspectives, and so on. CSR can be defined by corporate actions oriented toward the welfare of stakeholders and driven by instrumental, relational or ethical concerns (Aguilera et al. 2007). Viewed as a relational concept, the study of CSR is thereby concerned with both the claims about responsibility that corporations make about themselves, as well as the demands articulated by company stakeholders in relation to social, environmental and other responsibilities. In this sense, we advocate a descriptive and empirical approach to CSR that treats questions of responsibility as political ones, negotiated among business, stakeholders and the wider society. Such a definition includes the notion of corporate irresponsibility, allowing for the fact that stakeholders may view the actions of a corporation as insufficient to address their concerns or even unethical. Understood in this way, the issue field of CSR is a contested terrain (Okoye 2009). Social science can thereby open normative issues about whether corporate actions are actually responsible or not to empirical fact finding, as well as ultimately a more informed type of ethical debate. The growth of CSR has sparked quite substantial controversy. Many business management scholars have embraced CSR as a more human approach to capitalism. Taking an enlightened approach to shareholder value or business objectives more generally, CSR takes on board the notion that social legitimacy is a central prerequisite for profitability and that environmental sustainability is critical for the long-term economic development. At a minimum, CSR is a central device to curb potential excesses of capitalist enterprise. At its best, CSR may re-open doors for a renaissance of business ethics. Meanwhile, a smaller and more diverse group of scholars across different branches of the social sciences have been more critical toward CSR. While CSR has been associated with a growing acknowledgement of stakeholders by corporations, it remains unclear whether CSR delivers substantial social progress. At a minimum, CSR is a tool of symbolic management that may fail to lead to any substantive changes in corporate practices. In marginal cases, CSR may even be an active form of corporate “greenwashing” aimed to manipulate perceptions and distract stakeholders from unsustainable or unethical activities (Delmas & Burbano 2011; Marquis et al. 2015). At its worst, CSR may be associated with state deregulation and the rise of neo-liberalism, which have led to the erosion of social standards globally (e.g. Kinderman 2012) 1

This is an earlier and extended version of the paper published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56:1 March 2018, pp. 3–13, doi: 10.1111/bjir.12298. Please quote the published version.

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Regardless of how one evaluates the effects of CSR, it is undeniable that CSR interacts in important but complex ways with the development of international labour standards, state regulation of employment, and existing industrial relations practices at the sectoral or firm level. Given the rapid and sustained importance of CSR as a real world development, IR scholars cannot afford to ignore these practices or else risk seriously misunderstanding the current transformation of corporate workplaces and their changing regulation under conditions of private governance. Employment relations (ER) scholars have long studied policies and practices associated with CSR. A growing body of scholarship examines the conditions for adoption and effectiveness of attempts to regulate international labour standards via a variety of private and public initiatives. However, this body of scholarship has remained (mostly) separate from the broader discussion of CSR in the management literature. Just as trade unions themselves have been called ‘reluctant stakeholders’ in the CSR debate (Preuss 2008), ER scholars have been slow to engage with CSR scholarship. Similarly, the management literature on CSR rarely integrates the perspectives and insights from ER. Despite the plurality of perspectives in studying CSR (Taneja et al. 2011), the field remains far from the synthesis and integration needed for a more comprehensive perspective that does justice to both the promise and limitations of CSR. Here we think that ER scholarship can make important contributions to these wider debates; particularly in focusing greater attention to the role of employees, their role in negotiating and implementing CSR policies, and the embeddedness of CSR in the wider political dynamics of governance (see also discussion in Tapia et al. 2015) The goal of this BJIR Symposium is to bring together studies that bridge these disciplinary perspectives, to reach a deeper understanding of why CSR policies emerge, how they function and what kind of concrete results they achieve. An important aim is to increase dialogue between various research streams, including the business management and international business scholarship on CSR, the sociology and political science literatures on private governance across global supply chains and development of multilevel regulatory regimes in the field of labour regulation, and scholarship grounded in the traditions of employment and industrial relations. In the following sections, we first review past research in management and employment relations on CSR, and discuss the potential for both to inform each other. We then summarize the articles in the symposium, and conclude with some thoughts concerning potential future directions for scholarship in both fields. The Business Case for CSR: Key Assumptions and Limitations Much existing literature in management and organizational theory has been concerned with the socalled business case for CSR. Countless studies have analyzed the relationship between corporate social and financial performance (e.g. Orlitzky et al. 2003). Advocates of the ‘business case’ (Porter & Kramer 2011) stress the potential for a positive sum relationship between more ethical business and financial returns. By adopting strategic elements of CSR, firms may be able to improve their longterm financial results. Thereby seeking to provide largely instrumental justifications for CSR, business scholars have, intentionally or not, become normative advocates for firms to adopt these practices. Indeed, this idea has become something of a conventional wisdom within public debates around CSR and strongly institutionalized in the field of socially responsible investing and international standards around non-financial reporting and increasing the transparency of ESG related activities (for Germany, see Lohmeyer 2017). The CSR literature on the business case is built around several interrelated assumptions, which warrant critical scrutiny.

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First, this literature assumes that CSR creates tangible benefits for stakeholders, and that these in turn give benefits back to the firms themselves -- including stronger corporate reputation and ultimately better financial performance (Brower & Mahajan 2013; Tang et al. 2012). Policies of central concern in employment relations, such as worker safety, social benefits, and internal communication, may be linked to greater worker productivity due to less employee turnover and protection of firm-specific skills. Similarly, CSR policies related to workplace diversity may encourage better use of human capital through retention of skilled female employees or employee satisfaction related to work-life balance. On the surface, these sort of CSR policies sound very much like “high performance” human resource management practices (Delaney & Godard 2001), and indeed there is much overlap. However, most of the literature on CSR does not attempt to measure the impact on employment outcomes and related productivity gains directly. Methodologically, employment practices are simply one element of a larger bundle of CSR practices, which are measured at a higher level of aggregation. Consequently, relatively few studies isolate the effects of particular CSR dimensions—while some distinguish between social and environmental aspects, few isolate the effects of particular subdimensions of social responsibilities related to employees, safety, diversity, community and so on. Likewise, the dependent variables in these studies tend to be financial returns. Few studies measure the intermediate outcomes posited to cause improvements in financial performance, such as employee turnover. 2 For example, CSR may be used to build the employers’ brand and attract workers, even at lower wage levels, who identify with the corporation mission (Nyborg & Zhang 2013). Given the scarcity of detailed attention to the mechanisms linking CSR and financial performance, it is perhaps unsurprising that the business management scholars have yet to find clear supportive evidence. Rather, these relationships are considered to be highly contingent, and apply only in certain market niches (Vogel 2006). Others suggest that CSR activities also have related costs, suggesting a more curvilinear relationship between these variables (Barnett & Salomon 2006). Moreover, the business case for CSR relies on an implicit converse argument—namely, that stakeholders are able not only to reward ‘good’ corporate behaviours, but also to sanction ‘bad’ behaviour. A large body of theory and empirical evidence across fields, however, demonstrate this link to be extremely weak (see detailed discussion in Jackson et al. 2014). Financial markets have a relatively short reaction to scandals, just as major brands such as Apple maintain positive reputations as most consumers quickly forget controversies surrounding labour conditions or tax avoidance (see more generally Hoi et al. 2013). Recent studies have also documented that firms adopting more CSR tend to engage in more irresponsible activities, not less (Kotchen & Moon 2012), and that CSR bears a strong relationship with corporate scandals, particularly in the USA, UK, and Germany (Jackson & Bartosch 2016). Second, the literature on the business case for CSR is managerialist in orientation. CSR is framed largely in terms of a strategic choice by managers, which is voluntary and shaped by their instrumental motivations or in some cases also their personal characteristics, such as age, gender or educational background. This framing is also widespread in both academia and policy discourse, of CSR as a set of voluntary business activities aimed at promoting improvement of social and environmental standards. For example, the EU defined CSR in 2001 as “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interactions with stakeholders on a voluntary basis.” [emphasis added] A related assumption of this 2

The most widely used quantitative data on CSR is the KLD dataset, which measures the adoption of company policies related to different CSR dimensions. More recently, some studies incorporate measures of objective outcomes, such as employee turnover, into the overall index measuring CSR.

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literature relates to stakeholder salience, or the legitimacy, urgency and power of stakeholders vis-àvis the firm (Mitchell et al. 1997). The business case for CSR is argued to be stronger where salience is higher. But analyses of how and why particular stakeholders become salient are still relatively underdeveloped (Perrini et al. 2011). Some important literature examines the role and impact of NGOs in the adoption and implementation of CSR (Arenas et al. 2009; Doh & Guay 2006; Seitanidi & Crane 2009). Likewise, a literature on socially responsible investment looks at how institutional investors’ use of CSR-related screening affects corporate behaviours (Barnea & Rubin 2010; Renneboog et al. 2008). It is striking that employees and trade unions have played almost no role in the business literature on CSR. While workers are often the addressees of CSR activities, their role in shaping CSR and how CSR influences their well-being are rarely studied. 3 Management research on CSR has given insufficient attention to the tensions related to the plurality of actors that negotiate and implement CSR within organizations (Locke 2013), and thereby the symbolic and contestable nature of CSR itself. Third, the business literature on CSR has only begun to address the institutional embeddedness of CSR. In emphasizing the strategic dimension of CSR, business scholars have tended to neglect its more macro-level political and regulatory dynamics as an emerging field of “private regulation” (Brammer et al. 2012) and its relationship to new forms of soft law in the transnational domain (Baccaro & Mele 2012). Neo-institutional scholars have examined CSR as a global norm, which has undergone transnational diffusion and various local adaptation (e.g. Lim & Tsutsui 2012). But the relationship of CSR with regulatory institutions remains largely unclear. Some scholars have argued that CSR builds upon institutionalized forms of stakeholders rights, and therefore develops to a greater extent in the presence of more “coordinated” forms of capitalism (Campbell 2007). Matten and Moon (2008) argued further that CSR has shifted from being largely ‘implicit’ in these contexts to being more ‘explicit’ and transparent to the market. But other studies have also found evidence that CSR may develop as a substitute for state regulation, seeing more extensive adoption in liberal market-oriented contexts (Jackson & Apostolakou 2010). This perspective resonates with studies showing that multinational firms may adopt CSR when they operate in host countries characterized by weak institutions or even failed states (Rathert 2016). While most scholars agree that CSR is closely linked to a broader institutional context, we have a fairly limited understanding of how institutions influence CSR. Is CSR more or less effective in promoting the welfare of stakeholders across different institutional contexts? In sum, business scholars have developed a rich understanding of CSR practices, tools for measuring these practices at the level of the firm, and examined some conditions under which a ‘business case’ may exist for CSR. At the same time, this perspective has clear limitations in understanding the contingencies that may CSR more or less effective, both for business and stakeholders. Addressing these limits would entail shifting attention: from financial performance to how different CSR practices influence stakeholders, from management strategy to a wider understanding of how stakeholders negotiate the content and implementation of CSR, and more generally from the firmlevel to the wider political economy. Here, we argue, ER scholars would appear to have some paradigmatic strengths that may offer new perspectives on CSR. Toward an ER perspective on CSR?

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On this point, we are indebted to the excellent presentation by Divya Jyoti (2017) Making Room for Factory Workers in Corporate Social Responsibility, at Stanford PACS PhD Workshop on Alternative Organizational Forms in the Economy, Hertie School of Governance Berlin, 21-22 June.

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While ER scholarship encompasses very heterogeneous theoretical traditions, a few contrasts with the assumptions found in the CSR literature are readily evident. Here we refer to a few selective works that have examined CSR from this perspective. First, in studying CSR, ER scholars have placed a clear emphasis on outcomes related to employee welfare. A key example is the very detailed study of compliance with labour standards, often drawing on in-depth access to shop floor workers. Pioneering work on the case of Nike has shown compliance to remain surprisingly low, and fraught with challenges related to implementation (Locke 2013). Studies based on detailed ethnographic data of workplaces in industrialized countries have also revealed a more ambiguous impact of CSR policies on workers. Costas and Kärreman (2013) found that employees often participated in or demanded CSR activities as a way to express their identities and ethical conscience to the organization, but at the same time such practices could facilitate greater social control and ethical distancing to morally questionable activities within the firm. Second, ER scholars have adopted a more pluralistic view of the firm and its stakeholders. A key finding emerging from ER research is the positive role played by trade unions and collective representation of workers for the effective implementation of CSR. For example, Oka (2016) examines unions’ role in improving compliance with labour standards in Cambodia’s garment export sector, showing that factories with union presence were more likely to comply with standards on wages, working hours, and employee leave. Unions in the Indonesian footwear industry have also been able to use CSR to strengthen their foothold, but also to leverage stronger implementation of labour-relevant CSR standards (Bartley & Egels-Zandén 2016). Union democracy and collective representation has also strengthened the input legitimacy of CSR (Harvey et al. 2017; Sobczak & Havard 2015). Collective agreements and legal enforceability of CSR policies has been largely ignored in the management literature. While most collective agreements continue to be sectoral or national in scope, ER scholars have shown union responses to the globalization of firms and supply chains with international forms of collective bargaining. These Transnational Collective Agreements (TCAs) take different forms, including International Framework Agreements (IFAs) and, within Europe, European Framework Agreements (EFAs). Findings concerning these agreements’ effectiveness are mixed. Most research shows difficulties enforcing them at the local level (Fichter & McCallum 2015; Helfen & Sydow 2013). However, they can also serve as resources for unions in local bargaining. Mustchin and Lucio (2017) show that UK trade unions in four MNC case study firms referenced or engaged with these agreements to strengthen their influence; with best outcomes where institutions supported coordination across different levels of the firm (see also Fichter et al. 2011). Third, the role of CSR as a political ideology has been examined by ER scholars. Historically, the emergence of CSR in the USA was closely linked with paternalistic and anti-union positions by employers, and often a strategy to defeat organized labor (Kaplan 2015; Marens 2012). This pattern of corporate dominance and avoidance of meaningful stakeholder participation carries onto this day, in cases such as Walmart (Elder & Dauvergne 2015). Nonetheless, ER scholars have also demonstrated the role of workers and organized labor in creating complementary relationships between CSR and state regulations (Amengual 2010). In their case study of a global electronics firm, Locke et al. (2013) show the very contingent relations between CSR, state regulation and organized labor, which may exhibit both complementary and substitutive relationships with one another depending on the political context. This very selective review of ER scholarship on CSR and private governance of labor standards suggests a number of important complements to the CSR literature on the business case. We submit

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that CSR scholars could benefit from concepts and research approaches, often grounded in qualitative or even ethnographic work, found in ER scholarship. ER research has focused more squarely on the role of employees and work-related outcomes, examined more concretely the role of (employee) stakeholders in the negotiation and implementation of CSR policies, and examined the complex linkages between firms and their regulatory and political environments. Equally, the rich findings from this body of research suggests that ER scholars have reason to take CSR more seriously, both from a critical perspective and as an important context and tool to improve working conditions globally. CSR is an important platform for union engagement with civil society actors and new forms of social movements that are likely to be important for their long-term revitalization. The Symposium A first theme of the Symposium papers concerns international labour standards in the context of global supply chains. MNEs often locate production in countries with low labour costs, which are the same time the countries with the greatest violations regarding Freedom of Association. In China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or many other countries, independent trade unions do not have strong political support. Yet these countries have received massive inflows of foreign direct investment, and are now fully integrated into global value chains involving lead firms from all around the world. Labour standards figure very prominently in these debates, prompted by scandals surrounding child labour, poor worker health and safety, and the continued problems of low wages and inequality (Hassel 2008; Weil & Mallo 2007). Global firms face challenges in dealing with heterogeneous labour regulations across countries, but also face public pressure regarding their role as lead firm in long chains of buyer-supplier relations. Here CSR has been used as an instrument of private of governance to address labour standards along global supply chains, holding promise that such lead firms should and can be held accountable not only for the working conditions of their own employees, but also for labour issues across this wider network of firms. Needless to say, it is most often in the distant and often invisible reaches of these supplier networks that the worst abuses of workers take place. The Rana Plaza disaster in 2013 quickly became emblematic for all the problems related to labour standards in global supply chains. Juliane Reinecke and Jimmy Donaghey (this issue) examine the divergent responses of global firms to this crisis as manifest in the ‘Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh’ (Accord) versus the ‘Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety’ (Alliance), drawing on interviews and field research in Bangladesh. Their analysis contrasts approaches to international labour standards grounded in logics of CSR versus in those of industrial democracy. The unitarist concept of the firm central to CSR results in a flexible and voluntarist approach to accountability for labour standards. In contrast, more pluralistic notions of industrial democracy conceive of legitimacy and accountability in terms of democratic participation, worker rights, and credible commitments based on binding negotiated agreements. The authors argue that the Accord reflects an industrial democracy logic, based on legally binding agreements involving global union federations, utilizing a structured set of negotiated rights. This model was rejected by 29 US brands led by Gap and Wal-Mart, which in response launched the Alliance, following more closely the logic of CSR, based on brand reputation and voluntary and unilateral actions of leading firms. These two approaches interacted, however, to shape outcomes. Engagement with CSR in the Accord case helped to speed responses, leveraging the role of brands within the supply chain in the absence of direct state support and employer apathy or opposition. Meanwhile, the parallel existence of the Accord helped raised public scrutiny of the Alliance and push standards higher than what they would have been otherwise.

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In global supply chains, sustainability standards, such as Fairtrade certification, are one form of voluntary regulation that targets socially conscious consumers. Here CSR is intended not only to improve working conditions, but also to combat poverty within communities in the global South – particularly those dependent on agriculture or other commodities subject to large price and demand fluctuations. Maja Tampe (this issue) asks under what conditions these sustainability standards succeed or fail, based on a comparison of two similar certified groups of Ecuadorian cocoa farmers organized in certified rural enterprises. Her findings show more favourable outcomes in the case study enterprise that developed diversified, learning-oriented relationships with buyers; and that also passed these benefits on to its member farmers. Tampe’s findings contribute to the literature on Global Production Networks (GPN) through examining how supplier and labour agency can shape the process of supplier upgrading. She agrees with the GPN literature (e.g. Gereffi and Lee 2014) that a close buyer-supplier relationship oriented to learning drives upgrading – which, in turn is a key condition for sustainability standards to actually improve local livelihoods in rural communities. However, she shows that this relationship is not sufficient: instead, ties have to be diversified across multiple buyers; and mechanisms have to be in place within the enterprise itself to experiment with and adapt taught practices. Thus, access to ‘premium markets’ was not enough on its own to improve local labour conditions: the farmer group’s capacity and willingness to share benefits with members were both crucial for outcomes. CSR initiatives more generally have important impacts on worker power and the role of organized labour in global value chains. Marc Anner (this issue) examines the apparel industry in Vietnam to show the prospect and limitations of worker power in global supply chains. He uses an innovative approach to document the ‘sourcing squeeze’ whereby lead firms pressure their suppliers to produce for low prices and with accelerating turn-around times, showing a 20% decline in price paid per square meter of apparel exports from Vietnam to the United States during the period 20052016. The market power of lead firms sourcing apparel product pressures management in the host country to keep wages low and working hours long. Using extensive evidence based on field observation, survey data, and interviews, Anner shows that the realities of fast production often undermine the effective use of worker voice, despite the existence of worker-management participation committees and union representation within the CSR framework of the Better Work initiative. While the sourcing squeeze remains a strong constraint on worker voice, Anner shows the main exercise of worker power comes from wildcat strikes. He documents how the use of often very short local strike activity has proven remarkably effective for workers. Shorter lead times mean that supplier firms remain very vulnerable to disruptions in production, and elicit short-term responses from employers to make small changes in working conditions or wages. A second theme of the Symposium relates to the impact of CSR on workplace diversity. In their study, Takao Kato and Naomi Kodama (this issue) investigate the relationship between CSR practices and gender diversity at work in Japan. This is an area where Japanese firms have remained seriously behind many OECD countries in providing opportunities for the female labour force, a fact particularly striking given the renown of Japanese firms for long-term employment and cooperative industrial relations. The global discourse on CSR, however, has helped put the issue of gender equality more strongly onto the agenda of firms. As a type of outside pressure, the development of CSR practices has offered new ways to frame old issues, often stressing the positive ‘business case’ of diversity rather than the negatives of preventing discrimination. Kato and Kodama take advantage of firm-level panel data to show that increases in CSR activities do positively impact gender diversity, distinguishing between direct and indirect pathways. CSR is

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associated with adoption of HR practices aiming at improved work-life-balance, and these in turn positively influence gender diversity. However, the evidence also suggests that CSR adoption has an additional impact, most likely as a signal to gender equality. In this sense, the paper contributes to debates on CSR by documenting a variety of channels through which CSR effects outcomes, disentangling some elements related to CSR and more traditional HR management. Finally, the authors show an important role for stakeholder salience, as in the previous literature on CSR, but make important links here to industrial relations factors. In Japan, the norm of long-term employment is a strong element of firm-centred industrial relations, often underpinned by enterprise unions and extensive employee participation. The authors show that the impact of CSR is stronger in firms with a strong lifetime employment norm, as measured by a proxy using employee turnover of young recruits. While it would be premature to generalize these findings beyond Japan, the results do suggest potential complementarities between CSR and other forms of worker voice. A final theme of the Symposium relates to the political dynamics of CSR and its relation to regulation and governance. Brian Burgoon and Luc Fransen (this issue) examine the potential tensions between public and private regulatory activity on labour and social standards. They use public opinion data from 27 EU countries to explore the links between the extent of CSR activities in different countries and the degree of public support for redistribution and foreign aid policies. Findings show that CSR activities may indeed crowd out public support for domestic redistribution of income, largely through weakening the links between individual characteristics and public support. Their study has interesting implications for the wider political economy understanding of private governance by demonstrating a clear mechanisms for the substitutional hypothesis, namely that private governance activities may actively push countries toward reduction of public activities. However, no such effect is evident regarding support for foreign aid. In this case, private governance activities may be more complementary to public ones. While the authors are very cautious about generalizing across different areas of public policy, their results suggest an important research agenda in understanding these political dynamics, both in terms of political power of interest groups but also public opinion. Continuing the theme of public regulation of CSR, Jette Knudsen (this issue: ‘more on CSR’) asks how and why public CSR regulation differs across two liberal market economies, the UK and the US. She argues that differences in each country’s legal and political systems explain why government initiatives targeting apparel industry labour standards and tax transparency in extractive industries took different forms in the late 2000s to early 2010s. The UK government encouraged multistakeholder initiatives in both industries, which Knudsen argues can be traced to the UK’s more flexible, informal legal system and parliamentary system of government (with the majority party controlling both branches). These initiatives grew out of informal collaboration between the government, labour unions, and NGOs, and were based on soft regulation with voluntary standards. In contrast, the US government has favoured mandatory regulation in extractives and apparel. Knudsen attributes this to US traditions of adversarial legalism, grounded within a more politically fragmented decision-making system that relies more heavily on judicial action to implement public policy. In addition, there is no strong labour party dominated by union federations. The common thread linking initiatives in the two industries was adversarial policy-making, in a context where both organized business and labour interests have difficulty collaborating or finding common ground. It is noteworthy that the initiatives studied were implemented under the Labour Party in the UK and Democratic Party in the US. More recently, Knudsen argues, there has been a move to policy convergence -- pointing to diversifying and possible strengthening of government CSR initiatives. At the same time, recent developments suggest these improvements are fragile, threatened by attempts to roll back major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act (which includes provisions on conflict minerals and tax transparency in extractives) by the Trump Administration and Republican-

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controlled Congress; and the UK’s ‘Brexit’ from the EU (and its trade policies mirroring key provisions of Dodd-Frank). Outlook Debates on CSR increasingly cross disciplines, intersecting with a number of the questions and concerns that are core to ER research. In engaging with this topic, this Symposium highlights several ways in which CSR may have positive impacts on employees, and may complement more traditional institutions of worker voice. CSR scholars have long realized that state regulation may be absent or weak (even where desirable) and sought to understand what factors may support greater engagement of corporate managers with social issues. This literature introduces a number of important actors, such as NGOs and investors, which are often outside the purview of ER scholars. Understanding these wider stakeholder interactions and use of private governance mechanisms related to CSR may make important contributions to understanding union revitalization, transnational labour solidarity, and the influence of global value chains or financialization on workers—grand challenges raised in the 50th anniversary issue of BJIR (Jackson et al. 2013). While the instrumental focus on a ‘business case’ may help persuade managers that pursuing CSR is in the interest of their firms, this perspective also has important limits. We hope that this Symposium also raises awareness of the strengths of ER scholarship and its potential contribution to the business management scholarship on CSR. The tradition of ER scholarship has very deep knowledge of one key corporate stakeholder: the employee. This research offers well-developed conceptual tools to understand governance as a politically negotiated process, and examine the interactions between voluntary and mandatory, private and public, and other governance dichotomies. We also believe it is important to acknowledge the research sensibility of ER scholarship—which has drawn on ethnographic and other qualitative research traditions. ER researchers are best placed to go into the workplace to look very concretely at the real situation of those people allegedly being addressed by CSR measures, allowing them to confront claims about corporate responsibility with academic fact finding.

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