“We are Neither Commies nor Volunteers”: How National Culture Influences Professional Identity Construction of CSR Professionals in South Korea

Abstract

This paper draws on an institutional logics perspective to illuminate a hitherto underexplored context for CSR professional identity construction. It draws on an empirical study of 65 CSR professionals in South Korea and aims to deepen our understanding of CSR professional identity construction by investigating the contested nature of the CSR professional field between, on the one hand, societal-normative expectations of the profession, and, in the absence of stable professional logics, CSR professionals’ desired professional identity, on the other. Our study reveals how CSR professionals engage with, and respond to, this complexity through constructing one of three distinctive professional identities based on different logic constellations. This process reveals a snapshot of professional logics ‘in-the-making’.