IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v198y2025i2d10.1007_s10551-024-05813-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Productive Tensions of Corporate Pride Partnerships: Towards a Relational Ethics of Constitutive Impurity

Author

Listed:
  • Jannick Friis Christensen

    (Copenhagen Business School)

  • Sine N. Just

    (Roskilde University)

  • Stefan Schwarzkopf

    (Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

Based on a qualitative study of Copenhagen 2021 WorldPride, this article explores collaboration between the local organiser and its corporate partners, focusing on the tensions involved in this collaboration, which emerge from and uphold relations between the extremes of unethical pinkwashing, on the one hand, and ethical purity, on the other. Here, pinkwashing is understood as a looming risk, and purity as an unrealizable ideal. As such, corporate sponsorships of Pride are conceptualized as inherently impure—and productive because of their very impurity rather than despite it. Analytically, we identify and explore three productive tensions where the first involves emergent normativities for what constitutes good, right, or proper corporate engagement in Pride, the second revolves around queer(ed) practices and products that open normativities, and the third centres on the role of internal LGBTI+ employee-driven networks whose activism pushes organisations to become further involved in Pride, developing aspirational solidarity. Reading across literatures on corporate activism and queer organisation, we introduce Alexis Shotwell’s notion of constitutive impurity to suggest that the potential for ethical corporate Pride partnerships arises when accepting the risk of pinkwashing rather than seeking to overcome it.

Suggested Citation

  • Jannick Friis Christensen & Sine N. Just & Stefan Schwarzkopf, 2025. "Productive Tensions of Corporate Pride Partnerships: Towards a Relational Ethics of Constitutive Impurity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 198(2), pages 345-363, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:198:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-024-05813-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-024-05813-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-024-05813-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-024-05813-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:198:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-024-05813-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.