The Communicative Constitution of Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is defined as a collection of standards, norms, policies and practices that reflect how society expects contemporary organizations to handle their social and environmental obligations. As such, it has potential to influence and shape the practices of contemporary organizations. Organizational CSR claims, however, are highly controversial and often attract the attention of critical stakeholders alleging that CSR is nothing but talk. While the CCO perspective allows us to challenge such a view, the CSR arena simultaneously calls on CCO scholarship to broaden its notion of communicative constitution. Specifically, we argue that CSR provides a unique opportunity for CCO research to develop and integrate dimensions of temporality, co-constitution, power and broader social dynamics. In addition, and because it involves an explicit mobilization of social norms, values and standards across organizations, CSR encourages CCO research to move beyond its largely organization-centric perspective.