Post-Partnership Strategies for Defining Corporate Responsibility: The Business Social Compliance Initiative

Author: Egels-Zandén Niklas   Wahlqvist Evelina  

Publisher: Springer Publishing Company

ISSN: 0167-4544

Source: Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.70, Iss.2, 2007-01, pp. : 175-189

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Abstract

While cross-sectoral partnerships are frequently presented as a way to achieve sustainable development, some corporations that first tried using the strategy are now changing direction. Growing tired of what are, in their eyes, inefficient and unproductive cross-sectoral partnerships, firms are starting to form post-cross-sectoral partnerships (,post-partnerships’) open exclusively to corporations. This paper examines one such post-partnership project, the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), to analyse the possibility of post-partnerships establishing stable definitions of ,corporate responsibility’. We do this by creating a theoretical framework based on actor-network theory (ANT) and institutional theory. Using this framework, we show that post-partnerships suffer from the paradox of striving to marginalise those stakeholders whose support they need␣for establishing stable definitions of ,corporate responsibility’. We conclude by discussing whether or not post-partnership strategies, despite this paradox, can be expected to establish stable definitions of ,corporate responsibility’.