Peter Lund-Thomsen

CSR As Imperialism: Towards a Phenomenological Approach to CSR In the Developing World

The voices of local manufacturers have largely been overlooked in academic and policy debates on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the developing world. This article makes a contribution towards filling this gap in the literature by explicitly taking a phenomenological approach that maps the interpretations given to Western-based CSR initiatives by local manufacturers. Data from two qualitative research projects on CSR initiatives in the soccer ball industry of Sialkot, Pakistan, are utilized to explore this issue in an inductive and exploratory manner. The article suggests that many soccer ball manufacturers in Sialkot perceive CSR as part of the wider historic project of Western imperialism in the developing world through which economic resources are extracted from local manufacturers while their perceptions of what constitutes socially responsible behaviour are delegitimized. This counter-discourse of CSR as Western imperialism paves the way for an alternative reading of CSR that challenges both more management-oriented mainstream conceptions of CSR and more critical contributions to the CSR and development literature. The article suggests that this alternative reading of CSR as Western imperialism may have significant implications for future change management research and practice.

SMEs and CSR in Developing Countries

This article is the guest editors’ introduction to the special issue in Business & Society on “SMEs and CSR in Developing Countries.” The special issue includes four original research articles by Hamann, Smith, Tashman, and Marshall; Allet; Egels-Zandén; and Puppim de Oliveira and Jabbour on various aspects of the relationship of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries.

CSR Institutionalized Myths in Developing Countries An Imminent Threat of Selective Decoupling

This article examines joint action initiatives among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing industries in developing countries in the context of the ascendancy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the proliferation of a variety of international accountability tools and standards. Through empirical fieldwork in the football manufacturing industry of Jalandhar in North India, the article documents how local cluster-based SMEs stay coupled with the global CSR agenda through joint CSR initiatives focusing on child labor. Probing further, however, also reveals patterns of selective decoupling in relation to core humanitarian and labor rights issues. Through in-depth interviews with a wide range of stakeholders involved in the export-oriented football manufacturing industry of Jalandhar in North India, the article highlights the dynamics of coupling and decoupling taking place, and how developing country firms can gain credit and traction by focusing on high visibility CSR issues, although the plight of workers remains fundamentally unchanged. The authors revisit these findings in the discussion and concluding sections, highlighting the main research and policy implications of the analysis.

CSR in industrial clusters: an overview of the literature

Purpose – The paper seeks to review the literature on CSR in industrial clusters in developing countries, identifying the main strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in this literature, pointing to future research directions and policy implications in the area of CSR and industrial cluster development.Design/methodology/approach – A literature review is conducted of both academic and policy‐oriented writings that contain the keywords “industrial clusters” and “developing countries” in combination with one or more of the following terms: corporate social responsibility, environmental management, labor standards, child labor, climate change, social upgrading, and environmental upgrading. The authors examine the key themes in this literature, identify the main gaps, and point to areas where future work in this area could usefully be undertaken. Feedback has been sought from some of the leading authors in this field and their comments incorporated in the final version submitted to Corporate Governance.Findings – The...

Value Chain Restructuring, Work Organization and Labour Outcomes in Football Manufacturing in India

This article seeks to understand why developing country suppliers internalize or outsource labour-intensive aspects of production as well as how these internalization/externalization processes affect working conditions in export-orientated industries in the global South. In order to achieve this aim, the article develops a new analytical framework based upon the global value chain approach. Applying this framework to the football manufacturing industry of Jalandhar, India, the article concludes that value chain restructuring produces both new forms of work organization and highly gendered outcomes for labour in this industry.

Social Upgrading in Developing Country Industrial Clusters: A Reflection on the Literature

In this article, we examine the role of social upgrading in developing country industrial clusters. We argue that while economic growth and productivity enhancement matter, social conditions within clusters are influenced by state monetary, fiscal, and labour policies and regulations, as well as by dynamic processes of agency among cluster governance actors. We find that the states policies and regulations might enable or constrain cluster actors to behave in ways that affect social upgrading or downgrading. These policies and regulations may also be used by the state to directly change social conditions in national contexts, including in cluster settings, in order to further the governments overall economic strategy. The conclusion outlines our main findings, and the research and policy implications of our analysis.

CSR in SMEs: An Analysis of Donor-Financed Management Tools

In this article, we set out to analyze the management tools that have been developed by international development agencies with the aim of promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. In doing so, we made an original contribution to the literature on this topic in two ways. First, we developed a conceptual framework using insights from the literatures on institutional theory, critical perspectives on CSR in developing countries, and writings on the relationship between CSR and SMEs in the developing world to enable an analysis of the potential and limits of management tools aimed at promoting CSR in developing country SMEs. Here we argued that attention to poverty reduction and the silent/sunken CSR practices in such tools might be relevant yard sticks to assess their potential relevance and applicability in the South. Second, our empirical analysis of the contents of these tools indicates that they pay little or no attention to advocating the alleviation of income related poverty as part of SMEs’ CSR strategies in the developing world. They might, however, indirectly promote poverty reduction if we think of poverty as relating to the enhancement of capabilities and/or the reduction of vulnerability of SMEs, workers, and communities in the developing world. At the same time, the tools examined encourage the adoption of explicit CSR approaches, similar to those employed by large firms in the Western world, while they tend to ignore the silent or sunken CSR approaches that one would usually expect to find in SMEs operating in the developing world. In terms of policy implication of our analysis, there appears to be a very real risk that the promotion of such CSR tools are likely to be perceived as a top-down, outside-in imposition by SME managers in developing countries who may find that they embody assumptions and practices that have very little or nothing to do with the reality of their every-day operations. Hence, in our view, it might be a better starting point for international development agencies to first map the informal CSR practices of SMEs and then use such a mapping process to enhancing or strengthening existing social responsibility practices which are already present in these firms. Otherwise the use of such tools might result in a process of CSR capacity destruction instead of CSR capacity development for such firms. Finally, we suggest that future research in this area would benefit from a broader examination of the spread, relevance and effectiveness of tools intended to promote CSR in SMEs in developing countries in two ways. First, it would be important to conduct in-depth interviews with aid agency personnel, consultants, SME managers, workers, and community members with a view to probing their views of their relevance and effectiveness of these tools in the South. Second, we suggest that similar tools produced by developing country governments, business associations, consultants, and other stakeholders with an interest in this area could be mapped and analyzed using the theoretical framework developed in this study. In this way, we would gain a better understanding of how the spread of these tools mediate the processes through which CSR is institutionalized in developing country settings.