Corporate Social Responsibility and Governmentality: An analysis of power effects of CSR discourse and practices

International audienceThis paper aims to scrutinize the contribution of the Foucaldian perspective for studying the power effects of CSR discourse and practices. This paper contributes to advancing our understanding of CSR in several ways. First, this paper demonstrates the main limitations of the functionalist approach to CSR by presenting a critical analysis grid for the study of CSR integrating the Marxist-institutionalist, Habermasian, and post-colonial approaches. Second, this paper draws on the Foucaldian framework of governmentality which enables a new understanding of CSR viewed as a process of power-knowledge. Third, by applying the Foucaldian perspective to the case study of a subsidiary of a large petrochemical industrial corporation, based in a developing country, this paper shows how power goals impact the framing and the construction of CSR practices and discourse