Question
There is a developing view, in academic circles, that many corporate social responsibility approaches do not achieve a position in business that is sufficiently dominant to be transformative of corporate behaviour and performance. This being concerned with the objective of meeting the legitimate sustainability expectations of stakeholders.
In this context, critically discuss whether non-financial reporting initiatives such as triple bottom line-based frameworks (e.g. TBL, GRI), Integrated Reporting (IR) or alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contribute to businesses legitimately connecting with the societies in which are embedded.
Guidance:
- Provide a short introduction and short conclusion
- After your introduction you must define your understanding of “legitimately connecting” (i.e. being embedded). For that you should consult and reference the following reading (full references are at the end of this document):
- Milne, M.J. and Gray, R. (2013)
- Dirk. Matten (ed.) (2010) Chapter 2: Framing Business Ethics – Corporate Responsibility, Stakeholders and Citizenship. In: Business ethics : managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization . 3rd ed.; 3rd ed. [Online]. Oxford :, Oxford University Press. pp. 44ff. Available from:
- Matten, D. and Crane, A. 2005. “Corporate Citizenship: Toward an Extended Theoretical Conceptualisation”. Academy of Management Review, 30 (1), pp.166-179.
- Scherer, A. G. and Palazzo, G. 2007. “Toward a Political Conception of Corporate Social Responsibility: Business and Society seen from a Habermasian Perspective”. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), pp.1096-1120
One important point is to distinguish “legitimately connecting” from issues such as marketing (i.e. firms engaging with stakeholders such as consumers purely for profit). Milne & Gray provide a good critique of a lack of a connection or embeddedness.
- Then you can answer the question which is: “critically discuss whether non-financial reporting initiatives … contribute to businesses legitimately connecting with the societies in which are embedded”
- So the question is asking you to provide arguments as to whether firms reporting to one of the frameworks can achieve a legitimate connection (or being embedded in society) or not?
- Therefore, you need to have discussed what is meant by embeddedness (or legitimate connection) – because you are assessing whether firms are achieving this benchmark (or goal).
- Choose just ONE of the listed reporting frameworks (TBL, GRI OR IR) – but do not provide a detailed explanation or examination of the reporting framework you have chosen – the question does not require this
- Focus on systemic sustainability issues and how they relate to non-financial reporting. The question is about the ‘big picture’, and not about a detailed explanation of a reporting framework.
- Systemic issues: these are the planetary/global problems in sustainability, for example, climate change, loss of biodiversity, sea level rise, globablization, planetary boundaries. Milne & Gray (2013) and Whiteman, G. Walker, B. and Perego, P. (2013) provide relevant discussions on this.
- A consideration of relevant practitioner views is also indicated (refer to Indicative References and Module Resources). Relevant practitioner views can come from those covered in the module, such as in lectures, seminars or own discovery. The indicative reading list for the assessment includes some practitioner views as well: Browne, J. and Nuttall, R. (2013), Browne, J., Nuttall, R. and Stadlen, T. (2015), Polman, P. (2014).
- Your answer should include a reflection on the Stakeholder Systems Model which is advocated by Mason and Simmons (2014) and/or the role of business purpose. We argue that either of these provide potential solutions to a lack of embeddedness or legitimate connection (if that was lacking).
- Structure and word count
- Introduction (10%) (approximately 100 words)
- Main Body (80%) – define what is legitimate connection (embeddedness) and then provide arguments whether firms reporting to one of the frameworks can achieve a legitimate connection or not? (approximately 1200 words)
- Conclusion (10%) (approximately 100 words)
References to use from :
Banerjee, S. B. (2008), Necrocapitalism, Organisation Studies, 29(12): 1541–1563.
Browne, J. and Nuttall, R. (2013), Beyond corporate social responsibility: Integrated external engagement. http://www.dse.univr.it/documenti/OccorrenzaIns/matdid/matdid320082.pdf, [Accessed 1 November 2019].
Browne, J., Nuttall, R. and Stadlen, T. (2015), Connect: How companies succeed by engaging radically with society, WH Allen.
Grayson, D., Coulter, C., & Lee, M. (2018). All In: The Future of Business Leadership (1st ed.). Routledge.
Hahn, R. (2013), ISO 26000 and the Standardisation of Strategic Management Processes for Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, Journal of Business Strategy and the Environment 22,442-455.
Haski-Leventhal, D. (2018) Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility; Tools and Theories for Responsible management. Sage.
Hillier, J. (2013), The Benefit Corporation and Social Responsibility, Journal of Business Ethics 118:287-301
Mason, C. And Simmons, J. (2014), Embedding Corporate Social Responsibility in Corporate Governance: A Stakeholder Systems Approach, Journal of Business Ethics 119:77-86.
Milne, M.J. and Gray, R. (2013), W(h)ither the Ecology? Triple Bottom Line, the Global Reporting Initiative, and Corporate Sustainability Reporting, Journal of Business Ethics 118:13-39.
Polman, P. (2014), Business, society and the future of capitalism, McKinsey and Company.
Raworth, K. (2017) A doughnut for the Anthropocene: humanities compass in the 21st century.
Reinecke, J., Donaghey, J., Bocken, N. and Lauriano, L. (2019), “Business Model and Labour Standards: Making the Connection” Ethical Trading Initiative, London.
Scherer, A. G. and Palazzo, G. (2010), The New political Role of Business in a Globalised World: a review of a new perspective on CSR and its implications for the firm, governance and democracy, Journal of Management Studies.
Searcy, C. Defining True Sustainability. MIT Sloan Management Review. [Online].
Whiteman, G. Walker, B. and Perego, P. (2013), Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Corporate Sustainability, Journal of Management Studies, 50:2.
Williams, A., Kennedy, S., Philipp, F., Whiteman, G., 2017. Systems thinking: A review of sustainability management research. Journal of Cleaner Production.
