In his invited essay for Business & Society’s 60th anniversary, Archie B. Carroll refers to human rights as “a topic that holds considerable promise for CSR [corporate social responsibility] researchers in the future.” The objective of this article is to unpack this promise. We discuss the momentum of business and human rights in international policy, national regulation, and corporate practice, review how and why BHR scholarship has been thriving, provide a conceptual framework to analyze how BHR and corporate social responsibility (...) relate to each other, and provide a research agenda outlining how BHR can expand business and society scholarship in general and one of its foundational constructs, CSR, in particular, beyond the current confines of the business and society field. (shrink)

The concept of scientific field lacks a definition in a form allowing the distinction of whether a particular academic area of study is or is not a true scientific field. Starting with the classic definition by Whitley of a field as a “reputational work organization,” this essay extracts eleven explicit and implied features of a field from Whitley’s definition and discussion, extending his analysis. The article reviews Hambrick and Chen’s model of field formation as an “admittance-seeking social movement.” Hambrick and (...) Chen argue that strategic management followed that model with success, offering the SIM Division of the Academy of Management as an unsuccessful example. The article notes errors in their assessment of SIM, argues that Hambrick and Chen are really offering a model of what I term condensation and promulgation of a field and that their model cannot be used to determine whether a field exists. The article applies the extended Whitley model of a field to examine three candidate fields within SIM: corporate social responsibility (CSR)/corporate social performance (CSP), stakeholder theory, and corporate political activity (CPA). I conclude that none is technically a field, and considering as well the comments of three senior scholars who contributed to the symposium, the article discusses the potential trajectory of fields in SIM. (shrink)

Stakeholder engagement has grown into a widely used yet often unclear construct in business and society research. The literature lacks a unified understanding of the essentials of stakeholder engagement, and the fragmented use of the stakeholder engagement construct challenges its development and legitimacy. The purpose of this article is to clarify the construct of stakeholder engagement to unfold the full potential of stakeholder engagement research. We conduct a literature review on 90 articles in leading academic journals focusing on stakeholder engagement (...) in the business and society, management and strategy, and environmental management and environmental policy literatures. We present a descriptive analysis of stakeholder engagement research for a 15-year period, and we identify the moral, strategic, and pragmatic components of stakeholder engagement as well as its aims, activities, and impacts. Moreover, we offer an inclusive stakeholder engagement definition and provide a guide to organizing the research. Finally, we complement the current understanding with a largely overlooked dark side of stakeholder engagement. We conclude with future research avenues for stakeholder engagement research. (shrink)

The emerging field of responsible management (RM) studies the integration of sustainability, responsibility, and ethics in managerial practices. Therefore, turning to practice theories for the study of RM appears to hold great promise of conceptual and methodological contribution. We propose a posthumanist practice approach for studying RM-as-practice. Managerial practices are conceived as the agencement of heterogeneous elements (humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans, materials, and discourses) that achieve agency in their being interconnected. Thus, RM is understood as processual, relational, emergent, and sociomaterial. We (...) contribute a framework for the empirical study of RM-as-practice on the basis of three sensitizing concepts: situatedness, sociomateriality, and textures_._ We further discuss the implications of understanding responsibility as response-ability, an engaged practice for relating to the other and the RM researcher’s role as internal to the practice agencement under study, thus, opening the debate on our own response-ability. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility focuses organizational inquiry on the role of business in society and corporate social performance provides a framework comprised of principles, processes and outcomes describing CSR performance. Virtuous social responsiveness describes CSP from a humanistic management perspective, providing an alternative principle of social responsibility as the basis from which processes and outcomes flow. Incorporating humanistic management assumptions into the role of business in society leads to social performance predicated on well-being creation and dignity promotion. VSR requires a principle (...) of social responsibility grounded in eudaemonia, positioning well-being creation as the common good, as opposed to wealth creation. Dignity promotion within stakeholder relationships is a second requirement for VSR, indicated by altruist stakeholder culture and a collectivistic organizational identity orientation. Theoretical propositions are developed to describe a humanistic management perspective on CSP. A current example of an organization engaging in VSR is provided, illustrating potential CSP outcomes. A discussion of the importance of VSR is presented, along with implications and future research. (shrink)