http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/ Research Commons at the University of Waikato Copyright Statement: The digital copy of this thesis is protected by the Copyright Act 1994 (New Zealand). The thesis may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use: Any use you make of these documents or images must be for research or private study purposes only, and you may not make them available to any other person. Authors control the copyright of their thesis. You will recognise the author’s right to be identified as the author of the thesis, and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate. You will obtain the author’s permission before publishing any material from the thesis. The Caring Face of Business? The Discursive Construction of the New Zealand Businesses for Social Responsibility (NZ BSR) Organisation. A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Waikato By Clifford Allen University of Waikato 2008 Abstract In 2008 the use of the term Business Social Responsibility (BSR) is now seen, in New Zealand at least, as being old fashioned. The field of BSR has been overwhelmed by the terminology of sustainability. In 1998, however, BSR in NZ was a new, exciting, and controversial development. The progression from BSR to sustainability is often presented as natural and inevitable but this thesis argues that BSR and sustainability in New Zealand arose from different roots and most of the key people who became involved in the NZ BSR organisation did so for reasons that were substantially different from the driving rationale of sustainability. Further, not all of those NZ BSR pioneers consider the current focus on sustainability to be a natural outgrowth of what they were trying to achieve through BSR. This thesis applies critical discourse analysis to interview transcripts and archived documents to examine the competing discourses surrounding the formation of the NZ BSR organisation in New Zealand up until the time of its merger to form the Sustainable Business Network. The NZ BSR organisation was seen by some as primarily a reaction to the prevailing hegemony of the ideas of the neo-liberal New Zealand Business Round Table (NZBRT). The NZ BSR philosophy did not necessarily challenge the neo-liberal inspired reforms of the previous fourteen years but did offer an alternative way for businesses to react to the new environment they found themselves in. ii Acknowledgements I have been fortunate to have Juliet Roper and George Cheney as my supervisors for this project. They have provided guidance and support throughout with patience and good humour. Their enthusiasm demonstrated through many delightful discussions about concerns academic and otherwise, has often restored my sagging confidence. It would be hard to find better supervisors, or better people. Thank you, thank you, and again, thank you. I would also like to thank all my colleagues in the department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato, especially my good friend Fabrice Desmarais who has been so encouraging over innumerable coffee breaks and lunches over many years. The Management School at the University of Waikato has had a big role in this thesis by providing support staff in many ways. I have particularly benefited from the policy that enables staff to travel to international conferences to learn from the best researchers. I am extreme grateful that this policy exists. Long may it continue. I was also lucky enough to be the recipient of a University of Waikato PhD scholarship which made life markedly easier for an adult student with a family. I would like to thank all the people involved in the NZ BSR who generously gave me their valuable time for interviews. You made the research process very easy and very interesting. I was also granted full access to the NZ BSR archives which proved to be a treasure trove of information. My family; how can I thank you enough? My boys, Robert and Peter, got used to their father not being around very much during the years of the development and writing of this thesis. They possibly have not missed me too much but I have certainly missed them. And finally, thank you to my beautiful and patient wife, Susie. You have put up with a lot to enable me to pursue my academic goals and you have had too many nights and weekends on your own holding the family together. I hope I make you proud. iii Table of Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................... iii List of Figures...................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ....................................................................................................... vii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ............................................................... viii Chapter One: The Caring Face of Business? The Discursive Construction of the New Zealand Businesses for Social Responsibility (NZ BSR) Organisation .......................................................................................................... 1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 1 Overview......................................................................................................... 1 A. Purpose: Why I am attracted to this topic and why it is important............ 3 I. A fair go? Locating myself in relation to the research .......................... 9 II. What is my guiding RQ?.................................................................... 10 Chapter Two: Background and Research Context.......................................... 13 Introduction..................................................................................................... 13 A. History of BSR/Sustainability movement:............................................... 13 I. Frames for BSR ................................................................................... 18 B. The New Zealand political/economic context: Key developments since 1984.................................................................. 20 C. Organisations concerned with BSR.......................................................... 24 I. Explicit versus implicit concern for BSR............................................ 24 D. Overview of the NZ BSR/SBN, and NZBCSD organisations: The development of New Zealand's Business Social Responsibility and Sustainability organisations.. ........................................................................ 27 Summary.......................................................................................................... 33 Chapter Three: Literature Review and Relevant Theoretical Perspectives Outline of Chapter .............................................................................................. 34 Overview .......................................................................................................... 34 A. Interrelationships of business and society: Theories and practical perspectives on “social economics”. ........................ 37 I. Neo –Liberalism. ................................................................................. 37 II. Social Accounting and triple bottom line........................................... 42 III. Sustainability and ecological modernisation .................................... 43 IV. “Third Way” politics and stakeholder theories................................. 47 B. Relationships between internal and external organisational communication ...................................................................... 51 I. Corporate image function of BSR ....................................................... 51 iv C. Interorganisational communication in the context of business-business networks. .................................................................. 57 I. Overview of network analysis ............................................................. 58 II. Interorganisational relationships ........................................................ 59 D. Primary and secondary research questions .............................................. 62 Conclusion........................................................................................................ 63 Chapter Four: Methodology and Method ........................................................ 65 Introduction..................................................................................................... 65 A. Critical interpretive perspective............................................................... 65 I. Interpretive .......................................................................................... 66 B. Relationships between discourse and society: As relevant to both theory and method ......................................................... 68 I. Critical theory...................................................................................... 68 II. Legitimation ....................................................................................... 69 III. Hegemony......................................................................................... 70 C. Critical Discourse Analysis.....................................................................