CSR as Value Attunement within Governance Processes: Stakeholder Dialogue, Corporate Principles and Regulation

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12091
• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Author: Frank Jan de Graaf
• Date: 01 September 2016

CSR as Value Attunement

within Governance Processes:

Stakeholder Dialogue,

Corporate Principles and

Regulation

FRANK JAN DE GRAAF

ABSTRACT

I argue that a governance perspective on corporate social

responsibility (CSR) makes it possible to explain why the

concept will always be under-defined, is normative and

thus political by nature, and is and should be difficult to

measure. The perspective also makes it possible to under-

stand the interaction between corporate values and stake-

holders values.

In processes of dialogue within governance systems

and governance structures, changing insights into the

principles of CSR can lead to regulation or its adjustment.

Power is important in these dialogues. Principles are at

least partly shaped within governance systems and gover-

nance structures, and they influence the outcomes of cor-

porate policies. Changes within the regulatory framework

could also lead to changes in the principles of CSR.

Frank Jan de Graaf is a professor corporate governance & leadership, Amsterdam University of

Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, and lecturing at the Amsterdam Business School, University of

Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. E-mail: F.J.de.Graaf@hva.nl.

V

C2016 W. Michael Hoffman 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.

Business and Society Review 121:3 365–390

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Value attunement processes could lead to regulation,

which again influences the governance structures and

thus the power of stakeholders within the dialogue. The

theoretical model provided helps to analyze why CSR is

different in companies, cultures and academic traditions.

INTRODUCTION

Alan Greenspan, at a hearing of the House Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform:

‘I made the mistake in presuming that the self-interests of

organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that

they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders

and their equity of the firm...’

Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman:

‘In other words, you found that your view of the world, your

ideology, was not right, it was not working.’

Greenspan: “Absolutely, precisely.” (23 October 2008)

The relationship between business and society, often coined cor-

porate social responsibility (CSR), is now a central issue in academia

and the public debate (e.g., Aguilera et al. 2007; Jacobson et al.

2014; Windsor 2006). Also within the financial system, the norma-

tive, ideological perspective on society and economics is questioned

by leading politicians and civil servants. Already before Greenspan’s

mea culpa, a broad research arena had been developed on the rela-

tionship between business and society in which ethics, strategy,

communications, politics, social topics, financial performance, eco-

logical issues, and governance systems received attention.

The academic debate on CSR demonstrates that it is not easy to

question assumptions about the relationship between business

and society. Within the academic debate, normative and political

notions seem to be entangled with business objectives and empiri-

cal questions.

Given the character of CSR, methodological and theoretical

issues arise in at least three related areas. First, researchers strug-

gle with this under-defined and contested nature of CSR, which

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