Journal
ORGANIZATION
Volume 20, Issue 3, Pages 372-393Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/1350508413478310
Keywords
aspirational talk; consistency; corporate social responsibility; CSR; differences between words and action; hypocrisy
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Most writings on corporate social responsibility (CSR) treat lack of consistency between organizational CSR talk and action as a serious problem that needs to be eliminated. In this article, we argue that differences between words and action are not necessarily a bad thing and that such discrepancies have the potential to stimulate CSR improvements. We draw on a research tradition that regards communication as performative to challenge the conventional assumption that CSR communication is essentially superficial, as opposed to CSR action. In addition, we extend notions of organizational hypocrisy to argue that aspirational CSR talk may be an important resource for social change, even when organizations do not fully live up to their aspirations.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available