Including the ‘Other’: Power and Postcolonialism as Underrepresented Perspectives in the Discourse on Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

The concept of corporate social responsibility has been widely discussed in academia in the past decades. Most often, however, this debate has taken place in the traditional hierarchical and structural boundaries of global economy, limiting it to certain contradictory perspectives, swaying between a business-management and a critical-normative approach. This article argues that there is an urgent need of studying the concept from a different angle. Using a power perspective and basing it on authors such as Michel Foucault, David Harvey and others, it discusses the hypothesis that the current theoretical framework of the concept ‘corporate social responsibility’ is subject to a strong imbalance and a structural misalignment and is – despite its allegedly benevolent intentions – perfectly blending into the hegemonic construction of our global economy with its dominant axis between the ‘West and the Rest’. The article concludes with propositions for further research on the topic.