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

论文研究：企业社会责任？

• 批准号: 0450923
• 负责人: Lawrence Busch
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-03-01 至 2006-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0450923&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Corporate; Social; Responsibility

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.

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。欧洲食品零售商协会（EUREP）于2001年制定了一套以科学为基础的标准，就是一个例子。EUREP要求供应商不仅要达到促进食品安全和质量的标准，还要达到促进劳工和环境健康和福祉的标准。这种转向私人的、非政府的、据称更“客观”的系统来确保质量和安全的转变，是过去二十年来新自由主义全球政治经济导致的最重要的变化之一，也是最少被研究的变化。效率和盈利的价值被认为是商业世界的关键，如何与公众对食品安全、工人福利和环境保护的兴趣协调一致，这在很大程度上仍未得到探索。私人农业食品标准如何协调全球超市的经济目标与公民对社会、经济和环境的不同关注？在制定这些标准的过程中，与这些质量要求有关的利益冲突和价值观是如何协商和解决的？科学是如何使它们合法化的？对发展中国家农业食品部门的利益相关者来说，私人标准的社会和伦理影响是什么？这项工程、科学和技术论文改进的社会维度资助旨在帮助解决这些问题的研究项目，该项目将研究新的私人零售商主导的食品安全和质量标准，以及环境和劳动力，如何重组和改变智利的出口食用葡萄商品分部门。私营部门监管机制的兴起和企业社会责任问题正在成为标准、全球农业食品部门转型、国际发展、全球化和企业社会责任等一系列领域的关键问题。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业食品体系中从公共到私人监管机构和体系的转变的概念性理解。这个项目将有助于关于私人监管的影响的理论辩论。标准)表面上的社会产品，如食品安全、环境保护和工人福利。特别是，该项目旨在提高我们的能力，以了解如何将潜在冲突的利益和价值观协商成一套标准，以及如何利用科学价值观和实践来解决谈判。在企业社会责任的许多努力越来越被视为企业公关活动的背景下，本研究将为利益相关者（即消费者、非政府组织、零售商）做出重要的实证贡献，这些利益相关者有兴趣评估所谓的科学标准对确保企业对利益相关者负责的价值。由于劳工和环境标准本质上反映了道德和社会问题，这项研究将对工人、工会、非政府组织和社区活动家有价值，他们关心如何利用科学来定义和执行社会标准，并使其与食品安全和质量标准相协调。在分析EUREPGAP标准对各利益攸关方的影响时，这项研究可以为有关如何在农业食品部门最好地保护和扩大工人的健康和福祉以及环境的辩论提供信息。此外，随着EUREPGAP日益成为进入英国和欧洲农产品市场的标准，这项研究将帮助生产商了解这些标准如何限制或扩大他们在全球市场上的生存能力。最后，通过确定私营企业社会责任标准对智利葡萄网络参与者的社会和伦理影响，本研究可以为公共政策辩论提供有关政府对农业食品标准和法规的适当责任的信息。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)参与者观察。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。这些信息对于关注创建一个对所有利益相关者都被广泛视为公平和公正的全球农业食品体系的一系列团体将是有价值的。这些团体将包括农产品生产商、出口商、国家政府、工会、非政府组织、消费者团体和发展机构等。