Corporate Social Responsibility through Cross‐sector Partnerships: Implications for Civil Society, the State, and the Corporate Sector in India

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12055
• Author: Helena Hede Skagerlind,Moa Westman,Henrik Berglund
• Published date: 01 June 2015
• Date: 01 June 2015

Corporate Social

Responsibility through

Cross-sector Partnerships:

Implications for Civil Society,

the State, and the Corporate

Sector in India

HELENA HEDE SKAGERLIND, MOA WESTMAN, AND

HENRIK BERGLUND

ABSTRACT

Corporations are increasingly forced to widen their

agendas to include social and environmental concerns,

or corporate social responsibility (CSR). This develop-

ment has been recorded in the current academic debate,

and the views regarding its implications for business, the

state, and civil society diverge. However, there is agree-

ment within the CSR and corporate governance litera-

tures that there is a lack of thorough empirical studies of

these effects. Based on a case study of the multinational

wind energy company Suzlon Energy’s CSR projects in

rural India, this article contends that CSR projects

implemented through cross-sector partnerships can help

to build the capacities of civil society organizations

Helena Hede Skagerlind is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Political Science at Stock-

holm University, Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: helena.skagerlind@statsvet.su.se. Moa Westman

has an MA from the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, Stockholm,

Sweden. E-mail: moa_westman@yahoo.com. Henrik Berglund is an Associate Professor of

Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail:

henrik.berglund@statsvet.su.se.

bs_bs_banner

Business and Society Review 120:2 245–275

© 2015 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.,

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

(CSOs). Although the risk of corporate steering of the

civil society agenda is reduced when CSR prioritizes com-

munity needs over business imperatives, CSOs tend to

bear the highest costs in partnerships, through credibil-

ity losses and insecurity concerning project terms and

funding, reinforcing the importance of critical coopera-

tion and complementary core competencies in cross-

sector partnerships. The results have implications for the

strategies of corporations, CSOs, and governments as

well as for the planning of national and international

development aid.

INTRODUCTION

During the last decade, corporations have been increas-

ingly prone to widen their agendas to include responsible

practice in terms of labor conditions and environmental

concerns, commonly referred to as corporate social responsibility

(CSR). Further, many have expanded their CSR agendas so that

these no longer are limited to issues related to labor conditions

and the immediate effects of their production, but also include

broader concerns that incorporate civil society and the commu-

nities within which they operate, and thus issues that lay beyond

the corporations’ immediate interests (O’Brien 2001, p. 3). This

has resulted in so-called proactive CSR (Torugsa et al. 2012) and

cross-sector partnerships with civil society organizations (CSOs)

and the state, which aim to address common concerns and devel-

opment issues. These are bound to affect the relationship between

and the respective responsibilities of these actors, particularly in

countries where state institutions lack resources and capacity. In

this context, CSR may result in the private sector turning into a

development agent that bridges conventional business agendas,

civil society concerns, and poverty alleviation while the state

partly withdraws from the development sector (Blowfield 2010,

p. 124; Manning and Roessler 2014). This raises questions con-

cerning the prospects of business taking on the role of a devel-

opment agent and of cross-sector partnerships for development in

rural developing contexts.

The aim of this article is to explore the effects of these actors’

converging roles and collaborative development efforts, both in

246 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW