Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulatory Governance: Towards Inclusive Development?

The corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement has been instrumental in raising awareness that firms have responsibilities other than to their owners and 'the bottom line'. Yet despite all the talk about the importance of stakeholders, transparency, corporate citizenship and sustainability, the developmental and regulatory impacts of CSR remain highly questionable. This book, edited by Peter Utting and José Carlos Marques, assesses the global rise of private regulation and CSR from the perspective of social and sustainable development. By adopting a multidisciplinary lens, it examines why the experience of CSR pales in comparison with the promise, what needs to be done to address 'the intellectual crisis' of CSR, and forms of corporate accountability and regulation more conducive to inclusive patterns of development.

This timely and important collection addresses many of the critical shortcomings in conventional approaches to CSR by emphasizing issues of power and the role of regulatory governance in promoting corporate responsibility, and restraining acts of corporate irresponsibility. Professor Peter Newell, School of International Development, University of East Anglia

Ongoing and recent crises have raised profound questions about the effectiveness and virtues of corporate social responsibility and deregulation. However, concerns about the difficulties and costs of developing adequate, appropriate and effective regulation continue to command attention. This volume sheds much light on these complex issues. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development

CSR has become the dominant framework within which business and civil society struggle over corporate practices and governance structures. Historically informed, theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded, this excellent volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of prominent authors to provide a piercing examination of the practices, potential and limitations of CSR. Professor David L. Levy, Department of Management and Marketing, University of Massachusetts, Boston

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Table of Contents:

Introduction: The Intellectual Crisis of CSR; P.Utting & J.C.Marques
CSR and Changing Modes of Governance: Towards Corporate Noblesse Oblige?; C.Crouch
Wal-Martization and CSR-ization in Developing Countries; N-L.Sum
Corporate Social Responsibility in a Neoliberal Age; P.Ireland & R.G.Pillay
Linking Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Policy in Zambia; N.Noyoo
Business, Corporate Responsibility and Poverty Reduction; M.Blowfield
Transnational Corporations and Poverty Reduction: Strategic and Regional Variations; R.van Tulder
Cross-sector Partnership as an Approach to Inclusive Development; R.Findlay-Brooks, W.Visser & T.Wright
Growing Sustainable Business in East Africa: The Potential and Limits of Partnerships for Development; C.Gregoratti
Private Food Governance: Implications for Social Sustainability and Democratic Legitimacy; D.Fuchs & A.Kalfagianni
Spaces of Contestation: The Governance of Industry's Environmental Performance in Durban, South Africa; J.Van Alstine
Challenging Governance in Global Commodity Chains: The Case of Transnational Activist Campaigns for Better Work Conditions; F.Palpacuer