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Corporate Social Initiatives: Signification Work for Value Creation

Sharma, Garima
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1370521564

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Organizational Behavior.
Understanding the doing of CSR as separate from the outcome of CSRdirects research toward content-based relationships between actions and benefit in acting responsibly, reflected in phrases such as `business case for social responsibility’. Useful in its own right, it has led us down a diffused path with little consensus on the benefits, the level at which they manifest, and conditions in which they are realized. I problematize the current framing by saying that CSR as the vehicle for more or less value creation cannot be understood without understanding the process of value creation. In comparing five Corporate Social Initiatives in India, I observed that in their everyday activities the actors interpreted the practices of the projects based on their espoused institutional logic. Such interpretations were not only multiple but also conflicting. I develop a model of signification work in CSR that delineates how actors manage the differences in their interpretations. I find that actors provide meaning to practices by creating situated identities that answer `who we are in the context of the project?’ Such identities can be complementary; contradictory, or supplementary, co-evolving with shifts in practices. Actors create interpretive accounts of the evolution of practices and situated identities. Accounts that draw primarily on supplementary identities are complex such that they maintain the demands of social and profit logics. Accounts that draw on complementary and contradictory identities are singular such that they are skewed toward either demand. Projects with complex accounts of practices are associated with creation of both business and social value as perceived by the actors.
Ronald Fry (Committee Chair)
207 p.
Business Administration; Management
Corporate social responsibility; paradox; institutional logics; value creation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sharma, G. (2013). Corporate Social Initiatives: Signification Work for Value Creation [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1370521564

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sharma, Garima. Corporate Social Initiatives: Signification Work for Value Creation. 2013. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1370521564.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sharma, Garima. "Corporate Social Initiatives: Signification Work for Value Creation." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1370521564

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1370521564
1,086
© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.