Communities, Labor, and the Law: The Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility in the United States

Abstract

How do corporations define their communities? Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one issue that may help us to answer this question. We argue that CSR represents actively adopted strategies in response to the pressures corporations face in the local institutional environments in which they are embedded, where corporations define geographically situated institutional variations as community. We show corporations (especially publicly traded corporations) have been aggressive in adopting CSR practice when they are located in (1) areas high in union density or (2) federal appellate jurisdictions that have been aggressive in protecting workers' rights, while being far less philanthropic if located in Right-to-Work jurisdictions. Drawing on research in neoinstitutional analysis, we interpret these findings to indicate corporations respond to localized union strength by adopting strategies that allow them to appear responsive to their social contract, and hence legitimate. Interestingly, corporations appear more concerned with their community's union strength than with regard to their own particular union exposure, at least as related to CSR practices.

Citation

Miller, J.I. and Guthrie, D. (2011), "Communities, Labor, and the Law: The Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility in the United States", Marquis, C., Lounsbury, M. and Greenwood, R. (Ed.) Communities and Organizations (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 33), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 143-173. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2011)0000033008