Abstract
While cross-sectoral partnerships are frequently presented as a way to achieve sustainable development, some corporations that first tried using the strategy are now changing direction. Growing tired of what are, in their eyes, inefficient and unproductive cross-sectoral partnerships, firms are starting to form post-cross-sectoral partnerships (‚post-partnerships’) open exclusively to corporations. This paper examines one such post-partnership project, the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), to analyse the possibility of post-partnerships establishing stable definitions of ‚corporate responsibility’. We do this by creating a theoretical framework based on actor-network theory (ANT) and institutional theory. Using this framework, we show that post-partnerships suffer from the paradox of striving to marginalise those stakeholders whose support they need␣for establishing stable definitions of ‚corporate responsibility’. We conclude by discussing whether or not post-partnership strategies, despite this paradox, can be expected to establish stable definitions of ‚corporate responsibility’.
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Niklas Egels-Zandén is a PhD student at the School of Business, Economics and Law at Göteborg University, Sweden. His areas of research are international business and corporate social responsibility, especially in relation to multinational corporations in developing countries. He has previously published in Journal of Business Ethics, Business Strategy and the Environment, and Journal of Corporate Citizenship.
Evelina Wahlqvist is a research associate at the Department of Human and Economic Geography at the School of Business, Economics and Law at Göteborg University, Sweden. Her research in Corporate Social Responsibility mainly focuses on TNC operations in low cost countries. Her current area of research is urban geography of creativity with special interest in tolerance and diversity issues.
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Egels-Zandén, N., Wahlqvist, E. Post-Partnership Strategies for Defining Corporate Responsibility: The Business Social Compliance Initiative. J Bus Ethics 70, 175–189 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9104-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9104-7