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Abstract
This article revolves around the debate surrounding the lack of a coherent definition for corporate social responsibility
(CSR). I make use of Jacques Derrida’s theorizing on contested meaning to argue that CSR’s ambiguity is actually necessary
in light of its functional role as a “supplement” to corporate profit-seeking. As a discourse that refuses to conclusively
resolve the tension between profit-seeking and prosociality, CSR expresses an important critical perspective which demands
that firms act responsibly, while retaining the overall corporate frame of shareholder supremacy. CSR does this by ambivalently
affirming both profit-seeking and prosociality, a necessary contradiction. Attempts to reduce CSR’s ambiguity can thus only
succeed by undermining its viability as a normative discourse that captures how certain elements of society understand how
firms should act. The analysis suggests that greater scholarly attention is needed with regard to the material discursive
environments within which discourses such as CSR are deployed. A discursive approach to research could thus benefit future
practitioners, who have to act according to fluid standards of responsibility that cannot be authoritatively defined, but
which can be better understood than they are at present.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 1-15
- DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0890-1
- Authors
- Cameron Sabadoz, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, 100 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5R3G3, Canada
- Journal Journal of Business Ethics
- Online ISSN 1573-0697
- Print ISSN 0167-4544