Civil Society and Business Ethics

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 Civil Society as the ‘third sector’

State sector Market sector

Government Business

Civil society sector

Including NGOs,
pressure groups,
charities, unions, etc

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 Civil society organisations
Civil society organisations include a
plethora of pressure groups, non-
governmental organisations, charities,
religious groups, and other actors that are
neither business nor government
organisations, but which are involved in the
promotion of certain interests, causes,
and/or goals

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 Diversity in CSO characteristics
Scope Type
Individual Community Group
Grass-roots Campaign group
Local Research organization
Regional Business association
National Religious group
Transnational Trade union
Global
CSOs Technical body

Activities
Policy research
Structure
Market research
Informal
Academic research
Formal
Information Provision
Co-operative
Boycott co-ordination Focus
Professional
Protests and demos Natural environment
Entrepreneurial
Campaigning Social issues
Network
Development
Poverty alleviation
Human rights
Animal welfare

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 Civil society organisations as
stakeholders

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 Civil society organisations as
stakeholders

The stake hold by CSOs is largely one of:

• Representing the interests of individual
stakeholders
• Representing the interests of non-human
stakeholders

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 Different types of CSOs

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 Ethical issues and CSOs

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 Recognising CSO stakes
• Many of these groups tend to ‘self-declare’
themselves as stakeholders in a particular issue
(Wheeler et al. 2002)
– Issuing statements
– Launching campaigns
– Initiating some kind of action towards the corporation
• Self-declaring does not necessarily lead to
recognition

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 CSO tactics

• Indirect action
– Provision of data, research reports, and policy briefings
(Smith 1990)
– Provision of misleading information (Whawell 1998)
• Violent direct action
– Illegal
– Often generates the most publicity (Smith 1990)
– Huntingdon Life Sciences
– Is this action ‘civil’ at all?

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 Non-violent direct action
• Far more common approach for CSOs to use
(Smith 1990):
– Demonstrations and marches
– Protests
– Boycotts
– Occupations
– Non-violent sabotage and disruption
– Stunts
– Picketing

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 Boycotts
A boycott is an attempt by one or more parties to
achieve certain objectives by urging individual
consumers to refrain from making selected
purchases in the marketplace

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 CSO accountability
• CSO stakeholders might be said to include:
– Beneficiaries
– Donors
– Members
– Employees
– Governmental organisations
– Other CSOs
– General public (especially those who support their ideals)

The accountability of CSOs to their supposed beneficiaries

that tends to raise the most debate

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 Globalisation and civil society
organisations

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 Globalisation and civil society
organisations

• Engagement with overseas CSOs

• Global issues and causes
• Globalisation of CSOs

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 Global issues and causes
• Problems that transcend national boundaries
– Global warming
– Tropical deforestation
– Marine conservation
– Labour conditions
– International marketing practices
• Much of the critique of globalisation itself been
initiated, sustained and popularised by civil
society actors

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 Corporate citizenship and civil
society
Charity, collaboration, or regulation?

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 Charity and community giving
• Starting point for a consideration of business involvement
in civil society involves charitable giving and other forms
of corporate philanthropy

• One-way support – benefits communities and civil action

but does not usually allow them much voice in shaping
corporate action

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 Business-CSO collaboration
• Closer and more interactive relations between civil society
and corporations
• Sometimes called social partnerships
• Limitations of business-CSO collaboration
– Difficulties of managing relations between such culturally
diverse organisations (Crane 1998a)
– Difficulties of ensuring consistency and commitment
(Elkington and Fennell 2000)
– Partnership appear to mask continuing hostility and/or power
imbalances between the ‘partners’
• The question of power imbalance
• The distribution of the benefits of partnerships
• CSO independence

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 Drivers towards business-CSO
partnerships

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 Civil Regulation
• CSOs might even go beyond simply collaborating
with business to actually forming some kind of
‘civil regulation’ of corporate action (e.g. Bendell
2000; Zadek 2001)
• Key point to take away from this section is that
civil society can act as a conduit through which
individuals citizens can exert some kind of
leverage on, or gain a form of participation in,
corporate decision-making and action

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 Civil society, business, and
sustainability

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 Towards participation and
empowerment
“Organizations…that affect you and your
community, especially when they affect the
material foundations of your self-determination,
must be able to be influenced by you and your
community…What are required are new forms of
democratic governance so that people can
determine their own futures in a sustainable
environment”
(Bendell, 2000:249)

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