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 ma

This authoritative book explores the nexus between organization theory, globalization and imperialism and examines the effects of a global order organized around development and markets. The authors explore how interconnections between organization theory and the global political economy have led to the perpetuation of inequality and active reconfigurations of life, labour and the economy. They contend that cultural ethnocentrism and Western ideologies of development continue to inform the field of organizational studies and offer an alternate mode of theorizing. Through theoretical and empirical reflections, the authors produce a patchwork quilt of innovatively critical approaches to globalization. Graduate students, academics and scholars in the fields of management and organizational sciences, as well as postcolonial, development and globalization studies will find this book of particular interest. It is also an invaluable read for international management and strategy scholars, including those focused on multinational operations in the Third World.

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 ma