Dissertation Research: Corporate Social Responsibility? Reconciling Competing Values for Quality in the Chilean Grape Commodity Subsector

非政府组织（NGO）越来越多地要求跨国公司实施企业社会责任（CSR）实践，以提高其社会和环境绩效。这方面的一个例子是欧洲主要食品零售商协会EUREP于2001年制定的一套基于科学的标准。EUREP要求供应商不仅要达到促进食品安全和质量的标准，还要达到促进劳动力和环境健康和福祉的标准。这种转向私人、非政府和据称更“客观”的质量和安全保障体系的转变是过去20年新自由主义全球政治经济所带来的最重要、也是研究最少的变化之一。被认为对商业世界至关重要的效率和盈利能力的价值如何与公众对食品安全、工人福利和环境保护的兴趣相协调，在很大程度上仍未得到探索。私营农业食品标准如何协调全球超市的经济目标与公民的各种社会、经济和环境问题？在制定这些标准时，如何就这些质量要求的利益和价值观冲突进行谈判和解决？科学是如何被用来合法化它们的？私营标准对发展中国家农业食品部门的利益攸关方有哪些社会和道德影响？工程，科学和技术学位论文改进补助金的社会层面支持旨在帮助解决这些问题的研究项目，该项目将研究新的私营零售商主导的食品安全和质量标准，以及环境和劳动力，正在重组和改造智利的出口鲜食葡萄商品子部门。私营部门监管机制的兴起和公司社会责任问题正在成为与标准、全球农粮部门的转型、国际发展、全球化和公司社会责任有关的一系列领域内的关键问题。这项研究将进一步加深我们对“质量经济”的兴起如何促进和合法化全球农产品体系中从公共监管机构和体系向私人监管机构和体系的转变的概念性理解。该项目将有助于有关私人监管（即标准）对表面上的社会商品，如食品安全，环境保护和工人福利的影响的理论辩论。特别是，该项目旨在提高我们的能力，以了解潜在的利益和价值观冲突的世界是如何谈判成一套标准，以及如何呼吁科学价值观和实践被用来解决谈判。在企业社会责任的许多努力越来越多地被视为只不过是公司的公共关系活动的背景下，这项研究将为利益相关者（即消费者，非政府组织，零售商）感兴趣的评估价值，所谓的科学标准，以确保公司对利益相关者的问责制作出重要的实证贡献。由于劳动和环境标准本质上反映了伦理和社会问题，因此这项研究对工人、工会、非政府组织和社区活动家都有价值，他们关心如何利用科学来定义和执行社会标准，并将其与食品安全和质量标准相协调。在分析EUREPGAP标准对各利益相关者的影响时，这项研究可以为关于如何在农业食品部门最好地保护和扩大工人和环境的健康和福祉的辩论提供信息。此外，随着EUREPGAP越来越成为进入英国和欧洲农产品市场的标准，这项研究将有助于生产者了解这些标准如何限制或扩大他们留在全球市场的能力。最后，通过确定智利葡萄网络中的行为者的私人企业社会责任标准的社会和道德影响，这项研究可以告知公共政策辩论适当的政府责任对农产品标准和法规。为了实现我们的项目目标，将使用三种互补的方法，包括：1）与葡萄行业标准相关的历史研究和技术文献的内容分析，2）半结构化访谈和3）参与式观察。所有的经验数据都将根据它们所呼吁的伦理理想进行分析，例如基于权利的主张，基于美德的主张，或成本和收益的功利主义概念。这一信息对于致力于建立一个被广泛视为对所有利益攸关方公平和公正的全球农业食品体系的一系列团体来说都是有价值的。例如，这些团体将包括农业食品生产者、出口商、国家政府、工会、非政府组织、消费者团体和发展机构。

Non-government organizations (NGOs) are increasingly demanding that multi-national corporations implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices to improve their social and environmental performance. An example of this is a set of science-based standards developed in 2001 by EUREP, an association of major European food retailers. EUREP requires suppliers to meet standards that promote not only food safety and quality but also the health and well being of labor and the environment. This shift to private, nongovernmental, and purportedly more 'objective' systems for assuring quality and safety is one of the most important -and least studied- changes resulting from the neoliberal global political economy of the past two decades. How values of efficiency and profitability, which are considered critical to the business world, are harmonized with the public's interest in food safety, worker welfare, and environmental protection remains largely unexplored. How do private agrifood standards reconcile the economic goals of global supermarkets with the diverse social, economic, and environmental concerns of citizens? How are conflicting interests and values concerning these quality demands negotiated and settled in the creation of such standards? How is science used to legitimate them? What are the social and ethical implications of private standards for stakeholders in the agrifood sector of developing countries? This Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and Technology dissertation improvement grant supports research intending to help address these questions in a project which will examine how new private retailer-led standards for food safety and quality, as well as the environment and labor, are reorganizing and transforming Chile's export table grape commodity subsector. The rise of private-sector regulatory mechanisms and problems of corporate social responsibility are emerging as key issues within a range of fields concerned with standards, the transformation of the global agrifood sector, international development, globalization, and corporate social responsibility. This research will further our conceptual understanding of how the rise of an 'economy of qualities' facilitates and legitimates a shift from public to private regulatory institutions and systems in the global agrifood system. This project will contribute to theoretical debates concerning the implications of private regulation(i.e. standards) for ostensibly social goods, such as food safety, environmental protection, and worker welfare. In particular, this project seeks to improve our ability to understand how potentially conflicting worlds of interests and values are negotiated into a set of standards and how appeals to scientific values and practices are used to settle the negotiations. In a context where many efforts at CSR are increasingly dismissed as little more than corporate public relations exercises, this research will make an important empirical contribution for stakeholders (i.e. consumers, NGOs, retailers) interested in assessing the value that purportedly scientific standards have for ensuring corporate accountability towards stakeholders. Since standards for labor and the environment inherently reflect ethical and social concerns this research will be of value to workers, unions, NGOs, and community activists, concerned with understanding how science is used to define and enforce social standards and reconcile them with standards for food safety and quality. In analyzing the implications of EUREPGAP standards on various stakeholders, this research can inform debates about how the health and well-being of workers and the environment can best be protected and expanded in the agrifood sector. Furthermore, as EUREPGAP increasingly becomes the standard for access into the UK and European produce markets, this research will assist producers to understand how these standards might constrain or expand their ability to remain in the global marketplace. Finally, through identifying the social and ethical implications of private CSR standards for actors in the Chilean grape network, this research can inform public policy debates about appropriate government responsibilities towards agrifood standards and regulations. To achieve our project objectives, three complementary methods will be used including: 1) content analysis of historical studies and technical literature related to grape industry standards, 2) semi-structured interviews and, 3) participant observation. All empirical data will be analyzed in light of the ethical ideals to which they appeal, such as rights-based claims, virtue-based claims, or utilitarian notions of costs and benefits. This information would be valuable for a range of groups concerned with creating a global agrifood system that is broadly seen as fair and just for all stakeholders. These groups would include, for example, agrifood producers, exporters, national governments, unions, NGOs, consumer groups, and development agencies.