Micro-strategies of Contextualization Cross-national Transfer of Socially Responsible Investment

This paper examines how individuals select and mobilize local institutions when they transfer business practices across societies that are construed as dissimilar to one another. We investigate empirically how the American business practice of socially responsible investment (SRI) was transferred to France and Quebec. Our analysis identifies five micro-strategies that were employed to contextualize SRI, namely filtering, rerouting, stowing, defusing, and coupling. This repertoire of micro-strategies extends previous research on contextualization, translation, and institutional transfers and links them to one another. They may also help explain why some transfers succeed while others fail.Contextualization; transfer; translation; institutional theory; socially responsible investment

The Politics of Reactivity:Ambivalence in corporate responses to corporate social responsibility ratings

Organizational ratings exude anxiety and allure, but relatively little is known about how managers balance resisting and mobilizing ratings. We explore this duality with a qualitative study on managerial responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings. Based on interviews focused on CSR ratings with managers of 60 companies, we induce four responses to ratings: grumbling, contestation, cherry-picking and microstatactivism. We further show how managers combine resistance and mobilization in two ambivalent engagement modes. Our analysis contributes to the literature by developing a more nuanced theory of corporate responses to organizational ratings, which demonstrates the importance of ambivalence in managing institutional pressure

Governing Corporations in National and Transnational Spaces:Cross-Level Governmental Orchestration of Corporate Social Responsibility in South Korea

The loose spatial and temporal coordination of national and transnational governmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies enables multinational corporations (MNCs) to externalize irresponsible behaviours. Political CSR (PCSR) and ‘government and CSR’ studies show how governmental authority shapes CSR at the domestic and transnational levels but provide only limited insights into how to govern MNCs across levels and over time. Combining the concept of orchestration with insights from power transition theory, we theorize cross-level governmental orchestration as power-imbued, dynamic, and involving multiple modes of orchestration. Through an analysis of how the South Korean state has deployed CSR domestic and transnational strategies over 30 years, we induce three configurations of cross-level governmental orchestration, blending coercive, directive, delegative and facilitative modes of orchestration, and identify the mechanisms behind Korea's transition from one configuration to another. Our results: (1) contribute to PCSR and ‘government and CSR’ studies by conceptualizing a systemic and dynamic view of cross-level orchestration of governmental CSR strategies; (2) advance transnational governance studies by consolidating orchestration theories and considering coercive power, and (3) add to power transition theory by explaining how regulatory capacity-building enables shifts of cross-level orchestration configurations

La responsabilité sociétale des entreprises : enjeux stratégiques et méthodologies de recherche.

Cette contribution se propose de confronter le point de vue théorique et le point de vue des praticiens sur le concept de responsabilité sociétale des entreprises (RSE). Après avoir esquissé les fondements théoriques et montré l’importance stratégique des dimensions sociétales de la gestion dans le contexte contemporain, nous analysons les convergences entre les problèmes théoriques et managériaux liés à la définition, la mesure et l’impact financier de la RSE. Cette analyse nous conduit à proposer de nouveaux modes d’investigation de la responsabilité sociétale tenant mieux compte du rôle des acteurs.This paper proposes to confront theoretical and professional perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is the subject of renewed interest by both academics and practitioners. After outlining the conceptual bases and showing the strategic importance of social dimensions in the contemporary context, we study the degree of convergence between theoretical and managerial problems related to the definition, as well as the measurement and the financial impact of CSR. This analysis emphasizes the necessity to better account for the role of various actors by viewing CSR as a social and cognitive constructionResponsabilité sociétale; Corporate social responsibility; Stratégie d'entreprise;

Institutional entrepreneurs as translators : a comparative study in an emerging activity.

This paper analyzes the reasons why some institutional entrepreneurship strategies failed to translate an institution while other succeeded, by paying a specific attention to the interaction between material and discursive dimensions in the translation process. A theoretical framework integrating both dimensions of translation is first proposed in order to study strategies of competing entrepreneurs. Then a comparative study of three entrepreneurs translating practices of corporate social evaluation in the French context is used to investigate the processes through which competing translators achieved their objective more or less successfully.neo-institutionalisme; translation; corporate social responsibility;

How do external regulations shape the design of ethical tools in organisations? An open polity and sociology of compliance perspective

In response to the numerous hard and soft ethical regulations that have emerged in the wake of recurrent corporate scandals, Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have adopted ethical tools. This move is often interpreted as a means to garner legitimacy and as loosely coupled to corporate activities. Little is known, however, about the processes by which external regulations affect the design of ethical tools. Approaching organisations as open polities and building on institutional theory and the sociology of compliance, we conducted a qualitative study of the development of 23 ethical tools at four MNCs. We analytically induced a three-stage model that explains how ethical tools are externally sourced (importation), then subjected to competing pressures from distinct professional groups that replicate legal features of the environment (politicisation), to become finally turned into quasi-legal procedures (legalisation). Our analysis contributes to theory by explaining how external regulations relate to the organisational production of ethical tools in a self-reinforcing manner, while specifying the role of ethics professionals in the process of ethical tool production.</p