Corporate sustainability as a hegemonic discourse of globalization: The discourse-historical approach as a critical issues and stakeholder analysis tool

Corporate social responsibility, and its other conceptual variants such as corporate sustainability, encourages businesses to act on a range of issues outside what the law and shareholders require. But what are the limits of the concept and its discursive practices in a globalizing world marked by accentuated asymmetrical power relations between businesses, and the communities they operate in and serve (especially corporations working in less powerful global peripheries), and the regulators who are expected to police them? This study uses the discourse-historical approach (DHA) and corporate sustainability framework (CSF) to analyze a British independent oil production firm’s—Tullow—communication. It illustrates the utility of the DHA and the CSF for doing critical stakeholder and issues analysis from corporate communication texts. Second, it argues that corporate sustainability illustrates the power asymmetry between the global and local, corporations and community. Specifically, we observe how a petroleum firm uses sustainability discourse, as a form of hegemonic globalization, to perpetuate dominant tropes and conceptions about African local communities as homogeneous and lacking agency, commodifying the lived experiences of the locals in the process while entrenching the superiority of the firm’s own position as a ‘benevolent dictator.’ We also illustrate how particular mitigation and intensification discourse techniques are employed to uphold Tullow as a ‘do-good’ actor. The corporation’s discursive strategies have a cumulative effect of cementing the power asymmetry that already exists between the firm as an agent of a dominant center of global power and Ghanaian communities as less powerful interests in the globalization process. Suggestions for disrupting the hegemony are provided.     

Translating ‘Sustainability’ in Hawai'i: The Utility of Semiotic Transformation in the Transmission of Culture

This paper examines how businessmen and educators in Hawai'i have semiotically ‘translated’ sustainability to promote sustainability practices. Using data gathered from an educational institute that was co-founded by a corporation and a college, I analyse how the source discourse was, using Silverstein's term, ‘transformed’ so that the target discourse (or the signs used in the target discourse) invokes Hawaiian imageries rather than imageries of capitalism. Analyses reveal that changes to keywords of sustainability occur in a way that shifts possible local interpretations of them as cultural heritage, that is, as something ‘of Hawaiian’ and not ‘of white capitalists’. I argue that this translation effort assisted the concept's transmission by making ‘sustainability’ an inhabitable category of identity and by providing a model of a future in which locals can participate because it is now interpretable as having been modelled on the narrated past.     

Should business have ‘a sense of morality’?: Company director views on corporate engagement with socio-political issues

Increasingly, companies are expected to engage with, or be responsive to, their publics to achieve social acceptance or to be perceived as legitimate. The expectation manifests, in part, through beliefs that companies should engage with socio-political issues. This important component of public relations practice is examined through a qualitative analysis of interviews undertaken with 23 experienced Australian company directors. The empirical research identifies and explores a tension between the contemporary corporation as an amoral agent while also increasingly responsive to pressures introduced by external expectations, reflected in growing attention to the concept of social licence to operate. When resolving to engage with socio-political issues, directors were predominantly motivated by the company’s best interests and ‘good business’. This necessitated identifying issues relevant to key stakeholders and issues that tied to corporate purpose, identity or knowledge. However, some evidence is apparent of director willingness to engage with issues not directly related to core business or corporate purpose. This may reflect support for an enhanced social licence to operate or even in pursuit of wider societal legitimacy-building, pointing the way to potential future increases in corporate social engagement.     

Conveying the sense-making corporate persona: The Mobil Oil “Observations” columns, 1975–1980

Since at least the early 20th century, the corporation has arisen in the US as an entity that attempts to help individuals make sense of the world through the use of public relations. Public relations scholarship, however, tends to focus on how corporations primarily articulated their worth through touting how the products and services they offered were constructive to society. This study, however, through a review of Mobil's “Observations” advertorials that ran from 1975 through 1980, reveals how a corporation attempted to build an influential persona by offering a corporate personality, that is an empathetic fellow traveler who is also believable and aspirational. This examination of the presence of the corporate persona points to lingering concerns, especially regarding how well the corporation can realize and communicate its corporate character in a world that is increasingly complicated by the rise of non-traditional information sources (e.g., social media), and interlocking, systemic concerns (e.g., climate change, economic/ecological sustainability). Public relations can assist in better understanding such factors so that the corporate persona can act in ways that benefit stakeholders and society.     

Is Integrated Reporting the silver bullet of financial communication? A stakeholder perspective from South Africa

Companies are being forced to critically re-evaluate how they communicate their financial information to stakeholders. Integrated Reporting, as mandated by the King III Report seeks to combine the reporting of financial and nonfinancial performance measures in a way that promotes corporate strategy. South Africa is leading the way in corporate governance and financial reporting with the first large-scale adoption of Integrated Reporting by listed companies. While there is a marked increase in financial communication from companies, it is not clear how all stakeholders use and value this information. The primary aim of this paper was to investigate how financial information is consumed within the ambit of the new financial reporting standards. Through a national online survey, this study found that very few stakeholders use the Integrated Reports as their main source of financial and investment information, and that these reports are seen as additional information. Annual and interim financial reports by companies are still the mainstay for corporate financial information. While stakeholders currently seldom use the Internet for financial information, they have indicated that they would increasingly prefer to do so. The paper concludes with a discussion of opportunities and challenges that future Integrated Reporting faces based on these findings.     

Managerial power in the German model: the case of Bertelsmann and the antecedents of neoliberalism

ABSTRACT

Our article extends research on authoritarian neoliberalism to Germany, through a history of the Bertelsmann media corporation – sponsor and namesake of Germany’s most influential neoliberal think-tank. Our article makes three moves. Firstly, we argue that conceptualizing German neoliberalism in terms of an ‘ordoliberal paradigm’ is of limited use in explaining the rise and fall of Germany’s distinctive socio-economic model (Modell Deutschland). Instead, we locate the origins of authoritarian tendencies in the corporate power exercised by managers rather than in the power of state-backed markets imagined by ordoliberals. Secondly, we focus on the managerial innovations of Bertelsmann as a key actor enmeshed with Modell Deutschland. We show that the adaptation of business management practices of an endogenous ‘Cologne School’ empowered Bertelsmann’s postwar managers to overcome existential crises and financial constraints despite being excluded from Germany’s corporate support network. Thirdly, we argue that their further development in the 1970s also enabled Bertelsmann to curtail and circumvent the forms of labour representation associated with Modell Deutschland. Inspired by cybernetic management theories that it used to limit and control rather than revive market competition among its workforce, Bertelsmann began to act and think outside the postwar settlement between capital and labour before the settlement’s hotly-debated demise since the 1990s.     

Demonizing the Sensible and the ‘Revolution of Our Generation’ in Rosia Montana

Abstract

‘Save Rosia Montana’ is an emblematic socio-ecological movement in post-communist Romania. It started in 2000 as a local reaction against what was projected to be the largest open-cast gold mine in Europe; it has gradually grown into a national movement with global networking. Activists have been consistently accused of acting under the impulse of an emotional luggage which could function as an impediment to understanding the ‘real’ issue, that of Romania's development. While the corporation claims to present the ‘real’ story articulated in the supposedly objective discourse of rational science, the choice to take a stance out of other beliefs has been demonized as emotional. This article will make a critical discourse analysis of corporate texts and Rosieni's testimonies to highlight what appears as ‘legitimate’ versus ‘illegitimate’ discourse, how some phrases are presented as self-evident rationales while others are dismissed as inappropriate or ‘emotional’. Rosieni have created visibilities for new things, objects, languages, and projections that have been downplayed by the post-communist political context. The conflict is not just over cognitive aspects or valuation languages but also over how one is allowed to feel, what one is allowed to enjoy (doing), how is one supposed to live (spend time), what Ranciere calls the ‘distribution of the sensible’.     

Corporate corruption of the environment: sustainability as a process of compromise

A key response to environmental degradation, climate change and declining biodiversity has been the growing adoption of market principles in an effort to better value the social good of nature. Through concepts such as ‘natural capitalism’ and ‘corporate environmentalism’, nature is increasingly viewed as a domain of capitalist endeavour. In this article, we use convention theory and a pluralist understanding of social goods to investigate how the social good of the environment is usurped by the alternate social good of the market. Through analysis of interviews with sustainability managers and corporate documentation, we highlight how organizational actors employ compromise to temporally settle disputes between competing claims about environmental activities. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the processes of empirically grounded critique and the under‐theorized concept of compromise between social goods. Rather than protecting the environment, the corporate promotion of sustainability facilitates the corruption of the social good of the environment and its conversion into a market commodity.     

Sustainability reporting patterns of companies listed on the Johannesburg securities exchange

The demand by stakeholders for information about companies’ social and environmental performance has led to sustainability reporting becoming essential. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines are the international reporting standard whereas the Johannesburg Securities Exchange Socially Responsible Investment (JSE SRI) Index guidelines are used in South Africa. Although South Africa is regarded as one of the leaders in sustainability reporting in the world, the JSE SRI Index is still a relatively new standard and its efficiency will only be proved over time. The research on which this paper is based, determined whether reporting patterns exist across specific market sectors of the sustainability reports of companies listed on the JSE in order to establish if the JSE SRI Index guidelines on reporting are efficient. Results indicated that all the selected market sectors reported on the environment, society and governance (ESG) categories as per requirements of the JSE SRI Index. The mining and materials sector reported more in the environment and the society categories than the other sectors, while in the governance category less reporting on indirect impacts by all the sectors was noted. The implication of this is that in general, companies find the JSE SRI Index guidelines on reporting easy to implement. However, less reporting of companies’ indirect impacts on their operating environments could mean that there is still a lack of completeness and transparency from the companies’ reports, which could be as a result of a lack of firmer guidelines by the JSE SRI Index guidelines on reporting of such issues.     

United Airlines crisis from the stakeholder perspective: Exploring customers’ ethical judgment,trust and distrust,and behavioral intentions

In the context of the United Airlines crisis, this study investigated the relationships among customers’ ethical judgment, trust and distrust toward United Airlines, and post-crisis behavioral intentions. Results from an online survey (N = 579) demonstrated that customers’ negative ethical judgment was positively associated with the level of trust and negatively predicted their distrust toward the corporation. Distrust had a bigger impact on stakeholders’ behavioral intentions such as information seeking, mobilizing, and consulting than trust. Findings indicated the important role of customers in corporate crisis management. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.     

‘Heroes and Matriarchs’: Working‐Class Femininities,Violence and Door Supervision Work

Door supervision work is traditionally seen as a working‐class, male‐dominated trade. In addition, it is deemed to be one that is physically risky, where violence is seen as a ‘tool of the trade’ and where ‘bodily capital’ and ‘fighting ability’ are paramount to the competent performance of the job. This paper is a timely analysis on the manner in which the increasing numbers of women who work in door supervision negotiate their occupational identity and construct their work practices. The analysis focused on the way in which discursive constructions of both violence and workplace identities are variably taken up, reworked and resisted through the intersection of gender and class. This resulted in the identification of two main discourses; ‘playing the hero’ and the ‘hard matriarch’. These findings allow us to theorize that multiple, gendered and classed occupational identities exist beyond normative expectations and can be seen to be both emancipatory for working women, while simultaneously bolstering exploitation, workplace harassment and violent practices.     

Corporate Transformation to the Multilayered Subsidiary Form: Changing Economic Conditions and State Business Policy

Despite the prevalence of corporate change in the last decade, researchers have not examined whether a change occurred in the corporate form. The analysis here presents a historical case study of a large U.S. corporation and quantitative data on the largest 100 U.S. industrial corporations. The case study examines the effects of changing economic conditions and state business policy on the corporate form. This study demonstrates that the corporation changed to a multilayered subsidiary form (MLSF): a corporation with a hierarchy of two or more levels of subsidiary corporations with a parent company at the top of the hierarchy operating as a management company. Whereas rising debt and increasing competition in the 1970s and 1980s undermined corporations' capacity to accumulate capital, changes in state business policy in the mid-1980s provided the political-legal structure for corporations to restructure their assets as subsidiary corporations tax free. Changes in state business policy also provided a means for corporations to merge, acquire, and spin-off subsidiary corporations tax free. Quantitative data on the 100 largest U.S. industrial corporations show that while the multidivisional form decreased, the MLSF increased between 1981 and 1993. Findings support a capital dependence framework. The MLSF constructs liability firewalls among corporate entities and creates internal capital markets, reducing dependence on external capital markets.     

Social capital,guanxi and political influence in Chinese government relations

Social capital has emerged as a promising theoretical approach to understanding political influence in the public relations literature. However, the rationale of using social capital to influence corporate government relations in authoritarian societies is indistinct. To remedy this, we integrate Bourdieu’s (1986) and Lin’s (2001) social capital theories to explore how applying a variant form of social capital (e.g., guanxi) might shape corporate government relations in authoritarian China. A multi-method, qualitative approach was employed involving 44 interviews, participant observation and document review. The findings highlighted an underexamined “vertical” dimension of social capital (i.e., links with authority in a hierarchy), which enables corporations to exercise agency over the pre-existing and often vague regulatory environment. This study adds a new perspective to social capital with hierarchical guanxi that enriches our understanding of guanxi-based political influence in Chinese corporate government relations.     

The Governance of Forced Labour in the Global Economy

Abstract

The problem of forced labour in the contemporary global economy is attracting increasing attention in global governance debates and policy circles. The effectiveness of governance initiatives depends on underlying understandings of the root causes of the problem. We explore how the root causes of forced labour in global production networks (GPNs) are framed in global governance debates. Focusing on the dominant frameworks mobilized by international institutions, with some attention to cognate national-level and corporate governance strategies, we identify certain limitations to dominant interpretations, which derive from their ‘residual’ character and their associated neglect of the manner in which the roots of forced labour reach deeply into the organization of GPNs, the forms of exploitation which are integral to them, and the connections between exploitation and poverty. We set out an alternative, ‘relational’ perspective on the roots of forced labour in GPNs, based on the concept of ‘adverse incorporation’, and consider the implications of the insights generated by this perspective for contemporary governance frameworks.     

Social capital in the field of power: the case of Norway

This paper analyses social capital structures in the field of power, based on data from the Norwegian Power and Democracy Survey on elites. Separating between objectified, institutionalised, embodied, and inherited social capital, and inspired by Bourdieu's approach, we analyse the relations between social capital and the other forms of capital by way of specific multiple correspondence analysis and ascending hierarchical cluster analysis. First, we find that the level of institutionalised social capital varies from one fraction of the Norwegian elite to another. Secondly, the range of networks established through previous work experiences is related to field seniority. Thirdly, the positions of highest endogamy are situated in the religious field, and to a lesser extent, in the scientific field, and in the juridical field. Finally, the ‘core of the core’ is defined by actors who are strongly interconnected inside what is called ‘the tripartite system’, with a high level of multipositionality and intersectorial connections.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEGAL FORM OF ORGANIZATION ON SMALL CORPORATION EXTERNAL FINANCING

This article quantitatively evaluates the impact of legal form of organization (LFO) choices, C versus S corporation, on small business external financing. A treatment effect model is formulated and estimated to examine the relationship between corporate types and chances of obtaining external financing. The estimation takes into account self‐selection bias associated with LFO choices. This article finds that LFO choices mainly affect small corporations' access to external equity capital, but have no significant impact on loan financing. Specifically, when a small corporation selects the C corporate legal form, the probability of obtaining new external equity is eight times higher compared to when it selects the S corporate legal form. Furthermore, the results suggest that better access to external equity investments, loosening business capital constraints, leads to better growth prospects for small C corporations. These empirical results have important macro‐economic implications on corporate financial and fiscal policies. (JEL G32, G38)     

THE TRANSFORMATION FROM MULTIDIVISIONAL FORM TO CORPORATE GROUPS OF SUBSIDIARIES IN THE 1980s:

In the 1980s, the corporate form shifted from multidivisional forms to corporate groups of subsidiaries. Although many aspects of corporate change during the 1980s have been examined, the magnitude and nature of changes in corporate form have received relatively little attention. Moreover, this transformation of corporate form has been inadequately explained by the dominant theoretical perspectives on corporate form—managerialism, institutionalism, and agency theory. A new theory that incorporates dimensions of the existing perspectives is presented. This perspective maintains that corporate change occurs as a dialectical process, which in the 1980s involved a shift of corporate control from managers to owners, resulting from a crisis in the accumulation of capital in the corporation. After gaining control through institutional investments, owners insisted on greater return on their investments. Mergers and acquisitions transferred corporate capital from corporations, controlled by managers, to shareholders. The relative utility of this perspective compared to existing perspectives for explaining the transformation of corporate form in the 1980s is demonstrated, and hypotheses for understanding changes in corporate form in the 1990s are proposed.     

Organisational Gothic

This paper illustrates and theorises a tradition of ‘gothic’ representations of organisation in the last two centuries. It links Marx’s conjunction between capital and the vampire, Dickensian melodrama, and Weber and Kafka’s labyrinthine bureaucracy, to contemporary films that show power‐crazed lunatics at the top of corporate skyscrapers. I argue that this represents a powerful form of cultural critique through representation. Organisational gothic is, I believe, one cultural trope that has commonly been employed in order to reframe sanitised visions of a brave new world. More generally, the paper also exemplifies a certain approach to the cultural aspects of organization, in this case by making a claim for the importance of a cultural history of representations of industry and organisation.     

What constitutes great IDEA? An examination of corporate diversity communication on facebook and external and internal stakeholder reactions

This study conducted a quantitative content analysis to examine corporate Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) communication (n = 1216) from 48 corporations on Facebook through the lens of dimensionality, stakeholders, drivers (legitimation), and level of investment. Findings indicated that most of the IDEA communication on Facebook focused on gender and racial/ethnicity diversity, employee, and community stakeholders. The IDEA communication was almost equally value- and performance-driven and reflected external promotion level of investment. External stakeholders engaged more with performance-driven and external promotion IDEA communication. The volume of IDEA posts reflected corporate internal diversity practice and was positively related with Glassdoor ratings of the corporation by African American, Middle Eastern, and LGBTQ+ employees.