Imagined Communities Incorporated: Corporate Social Responsibility and Value Creation in a Globalised World

Abstract

Building on an anthropological, phenomenological understanding of the social world I develop an analysis of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) as large groups existing mostly in the ‘imagined realm’ (Schutz, The Phenomenology of the Social World, Heineman, 1972). I argue that TNCs can be likened to the nation states of Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ (Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, 2006), working to develop a sense of purpose and identity beyond mere business activity through various forms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I demonstrate how companies’ use of media engenders a sense of belonging to an imagined community and the specific role that CSR communications have in this process from corporate reports to volunteering schemes. I go on to argue that various mechanisms used to develop CSR programmes are totalising processes similar to those of ‘census, map and museum’ referred to by Anderson and seen now in M&E processes, value chain analysis, stakeholder engagement strategies, etc. Taking two companies as illustrative case studies (BP and the Wood Group) the main part of the paper is a text and narrative analysis drawing out the communicative processes used to establish a sense of belonging and loyalty to organisations which bear substantial similarities to the nation states described by Anderson. Conclusions hint at the potential of this analysis to develop alternative understandings of CSR in organisations which are major players on the world economic and political stage and which raise questions about the moral and ethical expectations that rest upon multinational corporations in an increasingly globalised world.