Unpacking the Narrative Decontestation of CSR: Aspiration for Change or Defense of the Status Quo?
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has repeatedly been described as an ‘essentially contested concept’, which means that its signification is subject to continuous struggle. We argue that the ‘institution of CSR’, i.e. the set of standards and rules regulating corporate conduct under the banner of CSR, needs to be legitimated through narratives which ‘decontest’ the underlying concept of CSR. Examining several of such institutional CSR narratives from a structuralist perspective, we find them to be permeated with six recurrent ambiguities which we show to be reflective, inter alia, of an evasive dealing with the question of CSR’s efficacy. We discuss the implications of this narrative decontestation work from two opposite perspectives. A benevolent view assumes that it serves an enabling function, in that it convinces of the necessity of CSR, while concurrently evading the potentially discouraging reality of CSR’s moderate results. By contrast, a critical reading suggests that the narrative decontestation of CSR contributes to inhibiting substantial change in the way of doing business: While presenting CSR as the only conceivable way to address contemporary world problems, it paradoxically lowers our expectations regarding its actual effectiveness in doing so.