The Paradox of Corporate Social Responsibility Standards

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• 作者：Simone de Colle (1)
  Adrian Henriques (2)
  Saras Sarasvathy (3)
  
• 关键词：Corporate social responsibility ; CSR Standards ; American pragmatism ; Paradox ; ISO26000 ; Corporate accountability standards
• 刊名：Journal of Business Ethics
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：December 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：125
• 期：2
• 页码：177-191
• 全文大小：340 KB
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• 作者单位：Simone de Colle (1)
  Adrian Henriques (2)
  Saras Sarasvathy (3)
  
  1. Institute of Ethics, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
  2. Middlesex University Business School, London, UK
  3. Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
  
• ISSN：1573-0697

文摘

The purpose of this paper is to provide a constructive criticism of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards. After pointing out a number of benefits and limitations in the effectiveness of CSR standards, both from a theoretical point of view and in the light of empirical evidence, we formulate and discuss a Paradox of CSR standards: despite being well-intended, CSR standards can favor the emergence of a thoughtless, blind and blinkered mindset which is counterproductive of their aim of enhancing the social responsibility of the organization. We analyze three problems that might underlie the Paradox—namely the problem of deceptive measurements; the problem of responsibility erosion and the problem of blinkered culture. We apply the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism to reflect on these issues in relation to different types of existing standards, and conclude by suggesting a number of considerations that could help both CSR standards developers and users to address the Paradox.