This challenging and somewhat controversial book provides a critical perspective on contemporary discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee questions the win-win assumptions of CSR and identifies the limits of the good that corporations can do, illustrating that the ability of firms to enhance social welfare is constrained by their current form and purpose; that of a shareholder value maximizing entity.
The book shows how supranational institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization are complicit in an 'economic capture' of social issues through a combination of material, institutional and discursive power that results in undermining economic democracy. Taking a political economy perspective, the author analyzes recent conflicts between transnational corporations and local communities in developing countries and exposes the limits of stakeholder theory in addressing the needs of marginalized communities. He concludes by discussing alternatives to the current system that could result in meaningful social outcomes, and provides a critical research agenda for CSR.
Linking theory to practice, this critical look at corporate social responsibility will provide much material to fuel the debate amongst academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of management, international business and management.