Corporate Social Responsibility?

Human Rights in the New Global Economy

Walker-Said Charlotte, Kelly John D.

With this book, Charlotte Walker-Said and John D. Kelly have assembled an essential toolkit to better understand how the notoriously ambiguous concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) functions in practice within different disciplines and settings. Bringing together cutting-edge scholarship from leading figures in human rights programs around the United States, they vigorously engage some of the major political questions of our age: what is CSR, and how might it render positive political change in the real world? The book examines the diverse approaches to CSR, with a particular focus on how those approaches are siloed within discrete disciplines such as business, law, the social sciences, and human rights. Bridging these disciplines and addressing and critiquing all the conceptual domains of CSR, the book also explores how CSR silos develop as a function of the competition between different interests. Ultimately, the contributors show that CSR actions across all arenas of power are interdependent, continually in dialogue, and mutually constituted. Organizing a diverse range of viewpoints, this book offers a much-needed synthesis of a crucial element of today's globalized world and asks how businesses can, through their actions, make it better for everyone.

About the Author

Charlotte Walker-Said is a historian of modern Africa and assistant professor of Africana studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.

John D. Kelly is professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, where he serves on the faculty board of the Human Rights Program. He is the author or co-author of several books and, most recently, co-editor of "Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency", also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

"This edited collection presents a much-needed interdisciplinary perspective on the accomplishments and weaknesses of corporate social responsibility, offering sound theoretical contributions and in-depth case studies. The CSR trend in business is so well established that it is time for trenchant, informed criticism such as is found here" – Cynthia Williams, co-editor of "The Embedded Firm"

"The editors do a great job in assembling interdisciplinary expertise to give a nuanced examination of the development of codes of conduct for corporate social responsibility; this is a volume that could not be timelier considering the growing role of corporations at the heart of governance innovations both at home and abroad" – David Chandler, author of "Resilience: The Governance of Complexity"

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