No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Editorial: From CSR and CSV to Business and Peace
Abstract
over forty years have passed since Milton Friedman (1970) declared that the only social responsibility of a business is to maximize profit, but the business world is seemingly shifting away from this point of view. More and more players in the business sector proactively or reactively
(in reaction to consumers and other stakeholders growing demand) now realize that, in addition to maximizing profit, they have legal, ethical and social responsibilities (Carroll, 1979) and an obligation to manage the needs of various stakeholders, not just their shareholders (Freeman, 1984).
A useful definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) was presented by Aaronson (2003): Business decision making linked to ethical values, compliance with legal requirements, and respect for people, communities, and the environment around the world (p. 310).
... This will help to systematically assess how economic liberalization, development assistance and conflict inter-relate. The field of business ethics has perhaps taken the strongest steps forward, exploring how companies can move from CSR to either Creating Shared Value (Haski-Leventhal 2014 ) or 'gentle commerce' in conflictsensitive zones (Fort 2014) as armed actors challenge existing solutions (Miller et al. 2014). However, we still need stronger empirics across the board. ...
The new 'Business For Peace' (B4P) paradigm urges multinational corporations (MNCs) to enter conflict zones and fragile post-conflict environments as an alternative to traditional development aid. While B4P's positive impact through economic opening and Corporate Social Responsibility is assumed, corporate presence can instead exacerbate conflict dynamics in certain settings. As B4P is becoming a standardized component throughout all multilateral development aid activities per the United Nations Global Compact B4P platform and the UN's 'Delivering As One' mandate, we argue that bringing B4P into the forefront of research on business, development, and conflict is essential. In this article, we unpack the relationships between business, conflict and liberal peace politics that led to the B4P framework. We then show how five major debates influence B4P today: if MNCs should be peacebuilders; if so, what should they do; how do we define and model 'peace' activities; how businesses navigate conflict economies; and how businesses engage with informal economies. We then show how these discussions guide the international community's multi-billion dollar development agenda and influence how businesses see their new role as peacebuilders and peacemakers. We conclude with suggestions for forward research on this rapidly emerging topic.
Con la firma del Acuerdo de Paz entre el Gobierno nacional de Colombia y las entonces Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) en el 2016, inicia en Colombia un escenario de postconflicto, caracterizado por una serie de desafíos y la necesidad del aporte de diversos actores, entre ellos el del sector empresarial. El objetivo del presente artículo es explorar y analizar las prácticas y acciones que pueden realizar las empresas para contribuir a la construcción de paz. Para ello se realizó una investigación exploratoria con un diseño documental dividido en dos fases, por una parte, una revisión de la literatura sobre prácticas empresariales de construcción de paz y, por otra parte, un análisis documental sobre guías y propuestas de construcción de paz de organismos nacionales e internacionales. Los resultados sugieren que las empresas apoyan la construcción de paz principalmente desde prácticas de RSE y valor compartido orientadas al desarrollo económico. Ello corresponde con las guías de organismos nacionales e internacionales que se orientan a la generación de empleos y proyectos de emprendimiento.
The fields of business and human rights (BHR) and business for peace (B4P) have overlaps in how they view business in society and in their multidisciplinary nature. This paper seeks to build on the work of BHR scholars in connecting with the B4P scholarly community, to bridge the divide by explaining the elements of the B4P literature that might be of interest for BHR scholars, and to describe a joint research agenda for scholars in both fields. The paper begins with a literature review of the major assertions and findings of B4P on the role that business can and should play in enhancing peace. Similarities and differences in approach and theories between BHR and B4P are then noted. A common research agenda is proposed that BHR and B4P scholars may use as a starting point for broader collaboration.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important means to address conflicts, support local development and build trust between businesses and civil society. Yet CSR often fails to live up to its ambitions and can even exacerbate conflicts between companies and communities. In this article we consider how changing CSR strategies over the past four decades between Brazilian company Vale to Norwegian company Hydro have fomented or mitigated company–community conflicts in Northern Brazil. We find that paternalistic and philanthropic approaches of Vale over time led to deep resentment and mistrust due to underdevelopment and environmental damages. Moreover, while Hydro’s more modern CSR strategies sought to deepen community engagement and build legitimacy, the company has struggled in addressing the legacies inherited from Vale and past and current civil society grievances. The case suggests that even forward-thinking CSR approaches are vulnerable to failure where they prioritise business risk over community engagement, neglect to account for past legacies in areas of operation, and fail to create a shared vision of future development. It suggests that EI companies should both understand and engage with their social and environmental impacts in the past, present, and future and create shared economic benefits in the short and long term in order to address social conflicts.
This article explores the implications of ‘business for peace’ (B4P), a new global governance paradigm that aims to put international businesses at the frontline of peace, stability and development efforts in fragile and conflictaffected states. This article argues that B4P entails a shift in the balance between public and private authority across what we coin the ‘business–peace nexus’ and which comprises corporate peacebuilding activities across different spatial scales and institutional settings. We explore B4P’s agency across two distinct nodes in this nexus—in global peacebuilding and development architectures, and in local peacebuilding settings in the Democratic Republic of Congo—to articulate the B4P paradigm’s multiple and contradictory effects on the balance between public and private authority in contemporary peacebuilding. On the one hand, B4P tips institutional scales towards the public by embedding corporations within public accountability structures. On the other hand, by legitimising businesses as peace actors, the B4P framework risks institutionalising asymmetrical encounters between firms and people affected by their operations. We deploy the term ‘asymmetrical governance’ to explain how the amalgamation of global and national, public and private into the operational presence of corporations skews the balance of power in their encounters with local populations.
The new 'Business For Peace' (B4P) paradigm urges multinational corporations (MNCs) to enter conflict zones and fragile post-conflict environments as an alternative to traditional development aid. While B4P's positive impact through economic opening and Corporate Social Responsibility is assumed, corporate presence can instead exacerbate conflict dynamics in certain settings. As B4P is becoming a standardized component throughout all multilateral development aid activities per the United Nations Global Compact B4P platform and the UN's 'Delivering As One' mandate, we argue that bringing B4P into the forefront of research on business, development, and conflict is essential. In this article, we unpack the relationships between business, conflict and liberal peace politics that led to the B4P framework. We then show how five major debates influence B4P today: if MNCs should be peacebuilders; if so, what should they do; how do we define and model 'peace' activities; how businesses navigate conflict economies; and how businesses engage with informal economies. We then show how these discussions guide the international community's multi-billion dollar development agenda and influence how businesses see their new role as peacebuilders and peacemakers. We conclude with suggestions for forward research on this rapidly emerging topic.
The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon, but conducted and researched over a vast array of fields and contextual settings. This article provides theoretical order for this disparate material, illustrating cutting-edge research and highlighting the most urgent knowledge gaps to fill. Extracting findings from the business community, international organizations, and the academic community, this article maps these findings into five assertions about how businesses impact upon peace: economic engagement facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. These assertions provide a framework for categorizing and testing prominent business-peace arguments. They also support preliminary arguments that businesses cannot expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding activities, that economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow, and that truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. This framework can encourage more coherent scholarly findings and more effective business engagements within the complex and challenging realm of peacebuilding.
Private sector activities have often been linked to the fuelling of conflict and violence. At the same time, there has been growing interest in the contributions that the business sector can potentially make to peace, both from within academia (for example the ‘peace through commerce’ literature) and in the global institutional realm (for example the Business for Peace agenda). Proponents of such approaches claim that businesses have roles to play not only in contributing to growth and socio-economic development, but also in resolving or preventing conflict.
But what is meant by peace? The chapter engages the insights of post-conflict scholarship in order to employ a more holistic concept of peace, arguing that sustainable peace relies on the success both of a political and a social peace process. Social peace processes involves social transformation that goes beyond the ending of violence. The chapter asks how companies’ CSR activities can actively support such social peace processes and address the specific challenges of post-conflict societies, while critically engaging with some of the discourses that are central to the recent business for peace agenda. In reviewing current examples for CSR programming in post-conflict areas, it is demonstrated that social issues around reconciliation and reconstruction are frequently neglected.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.