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Empowering Women Through Corporate Social Responsibility: A Feminist Foucauldian Critique

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  • McCarthy, Lauren

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been hailed as a new means to address gender inequality, particularly by facilitating women’s empowerment. Women are frequently and forcefully positioned as saviours of economies or communities and proponents of sustainability. Using vignettes drawn from a CSR women’s empowerment programme in Ghana, this conceptual article explores unexpected programme outcomes enacted by women managers and farmers. It is argued that a feminist Foucauldian reading of power as relational and productive can help explain this since those involved are engaged in ongoing processes of resistance and self-making. This raises questions about the assumptions made about women and what is it that such CSR programmes aim to empower them ‘from’ or ‘to.’ Empowerment, when viewed as an ethic of care for the self, is better understood as a self-directed process, rather than a corporate-led strategy. This has implications for how we can imagine the achievement of gender equality through CSR.

Suggested Citation

  • McCarthy, Lauren, 2017. "Empowering Women Through Corporate Social Responsibility: A Feminist Foucauldian Critique," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 603-631, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:27:y:2017:i:04:p:603-631_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Silvia Gherardi & Oliver Laasch, 2022. "Responsible Management-as-Practice: Mobilizing a Posthumanist Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(2), pages 269-281, November.
    2. Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, 2019. "CSR as Gendered Neocoloniality in the Global South," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 851-864, December.
    3. Hugo Letiche & Ivo de Loo & Jean-Luc Moriceau, 2023. "T(w)alking responsibility: a case of CSR performativity during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Post-Print halshs-03759518, HAL.
    4. Dorota Korenkiewicz & Wolfgang Maennig, 2024. "Impact of women on corporate boards of directors on product quality," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 28(3), pages 841-874, September.
    5. Heidi Reed, 2023. "“When money is more valuable than people…”: The pandemic as a call for business to care," Post-Print hal-04461114, HAL.
    6. Lucas Amaral Lauriano & Juliane Reinecke & Michael Etter, 2022. "When Aspirational Talk Backfires: The Role of Moral Judgements in Employees’ Hypocrisy Interpretation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(4), pages 827-845, December.
    7. Maria Victoria Uribe Bohorquez & Isabel María García Sánchez, 2023. "Sustainability in times of crisis: Female employment during COVID‐19," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(6), pages 3124-3139, November.
    8. Layla Branicki & Senia Kalfa & Alison Pullen & Stephen Brammer, 2023. "Corporate Responses to Intimate Partner Violence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(4), pages 657-677, November.
    9. Tracy Wilcox & Michelle Greenwood & Alison Pullen & Anne O’Leary Kelly & Deborah Jones, 2021. "Interfaces of domestic violence and organization: Gendered violence and inequality," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 701-721, March.
    10. Glover, Jane & Touboulic, Anne, 2020. "Tales from the countryside: Unpacking “passing the environmental buck” as hypocritical practice in the food supply chain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 33-46.
    11. Robert C. Bird & Vivek Soundararajan, 2020. "The Role of Precontractual Signals in Creating Sustainable Global Supply Chains," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 81-94, June.
    12. Heidi Reed, 2024. "“When money is more valuable than people…”: The pandemic as a call for business to care," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 435-455, March.
    13. Thelma N Bidi & Annah Matsika & Admire Mukorera, 2023. "The Impact of Poultry Production on the Empowerment of Rural Women: Lessons from the Indigenous Poultry Value Chain Project," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 7(8), pages 369-378, August.
    14. Anne Touboulic & Lucy McCarthy & Lee Matthews, 2020. "Re‐imagining supply chain challenges through critical engaged research," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 56(2), pages 36-51, April.
    15. Pablo Rodrigo & Ignacio J. Duran, 2021. "Why Does Context Really Matter? Understanding Companies’ Dialogue with Fringe Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-26, January.

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