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The paper seeks to explore how globalization processes have shaped the nature, scope, and time frame of considerations of social responsibility and the development of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) regime. The paper identifies three generations of human rights' values embedded within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and aims to argue that they inspire and influence contemporary discussions about, and practices of CSR.

Employing the emergence of the human rights regime as a paradigmatic case comparison, the interrelationships of states, non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), and corporations in the development of new conceptions and expectations of, and organizations for CSR were explored.

The paper finds strong parallels between the growth of the global human rights regime and the burgeoning international attention paid to issues of CSR and sustainability. Four critical stages are identified: the formal articulation of norms, the increasing role of NGOs, changing power dynamics between state, NGOs, and multinational corporations, and the reconfiguration of network density and diversity.

The paper suggests that attention to the communicative processes associated with the development of the international human rights regime provides important insights for the future development of a global CSR regime.

Through the introduction of the three generations of human rights discourse, communicative actions and pathways from which a global corporate social responsibility regime may emerge were articulated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how paradox emerges during a planned change initiative to improve and dramatically transform inter‐agency information sharing. Based on interviews with key decision makers, the authors interrogate the relationships among institutional contradictions, emergent dualities, the communicative management of related organizational stakeholder paradoxes, and the consequences of enacted solutions.

Interviews with government leaders serve as the data source. These decision makers are from justice agencies participating in planning an information‐sharing program to better protect citizens and their agencies' workforce.

The data suggests that Seo and Creed's institutional contradiction “isomorphism conflicting with divergent interests” gave rise to three interdependent dualities: stakeholder self‐interest/collective good, stakeholder inclusion/exclusion, and emergent stakeholder consensus/leader driven decision making. These dualities were implicated in the enactment of paradox and its management. No matter what strategy the managers used, the consequences themselves were paradoxical, rooted in the same dualities that were originally present.

The authors sought to trace the outcomes of how leaders managed the poles of dualities, and found evidence of unintended consequences that were intriguing in their own right and were linked to stakeholder considerations. The paper underscores the importance of communication in the representation of paradoxes and how they were managed, and the unintended consequences of the solutions.

Leaders' articulations of paradox can be tapped for improving change efforts.

Whereas, institutional contradictions have been examined in reference to emerging paradox, and while paradoxical solutions have been studied widely, little research has investigated how institutional contradictions become simultaneously embedded in the process and the outcomes of organizational change.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special themed section which explores the relationship between contradiction and organizational change.

This paper analyzes the four papers included in this special themed section, drawing links between the different texts.

A review of the papers shows that they contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of organizational change by focusing on how contradictions manifest themselves and how they are managed in various change contexts.

This introduction provides readers of the themed section with an overview of the four papers.

This editorial is an introduction to the special issue on CSR Communication attached to the second CSR Communication Conference held in Aarhus (Denmark) in September 2013. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the role of CSR communication and the development of theory and practice of CSR Communication in recent years.

The editorial sets up a research agenda for the future, the premises outlined about the role of CSR communication being based on Habermas’ (1984) idea of instrumental/strategic and communicative action.

The theoretically based research shows that there are different framings of CSR. In the first framing, the business discourse is trying to institutionalize CSR and sustainability by pursuing CSR purely as a business case. In the second framing, alternative CSR discourses are challenging the business discourse, communication being oriented towards shared understanding.

The above findings are original insofar as they have implications for CSR communication scholars and practitioners. It is, for example, important that they acknowledge that two kinds of framings exist, and that they are interdependent. Hence, they should not fall into the trap of a critical discourse of suspicion where CSR communication is constantly criticized as a tool to serve business interests. In the context of strategic and/or communicative action, CSR communication occurs in different forms and for different purposes – either as informative, persuasive, aspirational and participatory type of CSR communication.

Twenty-first century concerns are explored given today's high levels of accountability, transparency, and social media. Ideas from Crow and Dabars (2015), Rhodes (2001), and Saul (2011, 2012) are expounded. This chapter discusses the pros and cons with the higher education engagement with the business and corporate world. Best practices, benefits, and perils are elaborated as tools for practitioners in both types of organizations. This chapter includes an open discussion of the pros, cons, heroes, villains, and various challenges with these complicated interorganizational relationships including preparation for ethical behavior.

This paper aims to examine the contribution that discourse analysis can make to understanding organizational change.

It identifies five key contributions. Discourse analytic approaches: reveal the important role of discourse in the social construction of organizational change; demonstrate how the meaning attached to organizational change initiatives comes about as a result of a discursive process of negotiation among key actors; show that the discourses of change should be regarded as intertextual; provide a valuable multi‐disciplinary perspective on change; and exhibit a capacity, to generate fresh insights into a wide variety of organizational change related issues.

To illustrate these contributions the paper examines the five empirical studies included in this special issue. It discusses the potential for future discursive studies of organizational change phenomena and the implications of this for the field of organizational change more generally.

Provides an introduction to the special issue on discourse and organizational change.