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Signposts or weathervanes? The curious case of corporate social responsibility and conflict minerals
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Arikan, Ozlem, Reinecke, Juliane, Spence, Crawford and Morrell, Kevin (2017) Signposts or weathervanes? The curious case of corporate social responsibility and conflict minerals. Journal of Business Ethics . doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2935-3
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2935-3
Abstract
Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders (who include shareholders). Although these opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are also much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. They are less the fixed, ideological “signposts” they might appear, and more like “weathervanes” that move alongside changing rhetorical currents. To show this, we analyse the Securities and Exchange Commission consultation process, and legislation, relating to the provenance of “conflict minerals”. We identify two dialectically opposed camps, each seeking to influence final legislation and with end goals in keeping with the shareholder/stakeholder dichotomy. One camp lobbied for firms to scrutinize their entire supply chain, constructing the firm as a “global citizen” with very wide social responsibilities. The second camp lobbied for a lighter touch approach, constructing the firm as a “trader”, with much narrower social responsibilities. We analyse the complex interplay between these two opposed camps, our contribution being to show how both deploy competing conceptions of the corporation as discursive resources.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Accounting Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Strategy & International Business Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Social responsibility of business, Mines and mineral resources -- Social aspects, International business enterprises -- Auditing, Disclosure of information -- Law and legislation, United States. -- Securities and Exchange Commission | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Business Ethics | ||||||
| Publisher: | Springer Netherlands | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0167-4544 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 2017 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| DOI: | 10.1007/s10551-015-2935-3 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access |
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