Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse

Author(s): Tomi J. Kallio

Source: Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Aug., 2007), pp. 165-175
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25075454
Accessed: 13-06-2019 22:45 UTC

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 Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 74:165-175 ? Springer 2006
DOI 10.1007/sl0551-006-9227-x
Taboos in Corporate Social Responsib?ity
ABSTPJVCT. Corporations today have been engineered
by CEOs and other business advocates to look increas
ingly green and responsible. However, alarming cases
such as Enron, Parmalat and Worldcom bear witness that
a belief in corporate goodness is still nothing other than
na?ve. Although many scholars seemingly recognize this,
they still avoid touching on the most sensitive and
problematic issues, the taboos. As a consequence, dis
cussion of important though problematic topics is often
stifled. The article identifies three 'grand' taboos of CSR
discourse and explicitly raises them for discussion. They
are the taboos of amoral business, continuous economic
growth, and the political nature of CSR. It is suggested
that CSR can only be as advanced as its taboos. The
critical potential of the field remains underdeveloped as a
consequence of the taboos, and in many cases the CSR
discourse merely produces alluring but empty rhetoric
about sustainability and responsible business.
KEY WORDS: taboo, CSR, corporate greening,
growth, politics, amoral
Why discuss taboos?
Introduction
While corporate greening and business ethics liter
ature have from time to time been accused of being
rather na?ve (cf., Crane, 1999; Welford, 1997), in
the post Enron era (see, for example, Deakin and
Konzelmann, 2003; Gini, 2004), there appears to be
a trend towards a more critical discourse. Most
scholars in the field now seem to recognize the
disparity between what is said and what is done, and
understand the challenges that disparity creates in
business ethics research. Nevertheless, there seem to
be some forbidden themes - taboos - that are not
easily raised, even though many scholars and prac
titioners are well aware of their existence. The paper
aims to cast light on the 'forbidden side' of the CSR
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Discourse TomiJ. Kallio
discourse and thus in its very nature takes a some
what provocative view.
Whilst it is only understandable that e.g. CEOs
are in a sense constrained to remain silent on some
issues, it is highly problematic, due to the very
nature of science, if scholars also silence such issues.
The fact that scholars prefer to silence taboos that
they recognize is, on the one hand, only human but
on the other 'inteUectual dishonesty'. This fact is also
the reason why the academic side of the CSR dis
course receives special attention here. The paper
concludes that CSR can only be as advanced as its
taboos; and that taboos are potential windows for
social change and so should receive much more
attention from scholars. Accordingly, as the theme of
the taboo has been widely overlooked in social sci
ences in general, and in management and organiza
tion studies in particular, this paper is merely an
introduction to this important topic.
From the social constructionist perspective, social
reality is built around and becomes understood
through discourse. However, some discourses have a
higher 'truth value' than others. As a consequence
they easily become generaUy accepted, sometimes
even considered as absolute truths that are not
readily questioned. (Berger and Luckmann, 1966.)
Importantly, this concerns scientific discourses and
paradigms as well. As a consequence, in order to
succeed in one's own profession and career, one
must usuaUy foUow the ideology and themes of the
prevailing discourse/paradigm.
The 'pro-CSR' discourse has recently 'won the
battle of ideas', as Crook (2005) has put it, so it is
hardly wise e.g. for a CEO to publicly question the
firm's social responsibility, rather to underline the
 166 TomiJ. Kallio
ethically high principles that steer corporate actions.
This fact has led to the paradox that culminated in
the Enron case. One can only wonder how a firm
that was previously glorified as such a shining
example of a corporation with high CSR standards
can suddenly turn out to be rotten inside (Sims and
Brinkmann, 2003). Enron is just the tip of the ice
berg in a depressing litany of formerly highly re
garded firms - such as Parmalat, Arthur Andersen
and Worldcom ? that have recently been proven
corrupt (see, Anand et al., 2004; Mellema, 2003).
The term rhetoric has several different meanings in
social scientific discourse. In this paper the term is
used to represent issues and values that one feels
should be espoused in order to be considered a
legitimate politician, scholar or practitioner and a
success in one's career. A favorite rhetoric of poli
ticians at this time is the 'war on terror'. Rhetoric
does not challenge the way things are, rather has an
important role to play in maintaining the status quo
(Carter and Jackson, 2004). While rhetoric in its
different meanings has been widely discussed and
debated, in both social scientific discourse in general
and management and organizational studies in par
ticular, the topic of taboo has received surprisingly
little attention (Michelson, 2002). When talking of
sensitive issues, scholars prefer to use the much more
flimsy concept of myth (see, for example, DeGeorge,
1999; Stead and Stead, 1994). However, while it
may sound like splitting hairs, there is an important
difference between the meanings of the two.
The themes of myth have been widely discussed
among scholars in recent years. While for example
Geghmann (2003) states that people believe in their
myths, for the majority of scholars, myth stands for
something that is instinctively untrue (see, for
example, Heiland et al., 1984; Khera, 2001; Trevi?o
and Brown, 2004). To put it simply, myth is a tale of
something that is often believed even though it is, in
fact, not true ? "an untrue idea or explanation; often
used showing disapproval", as the Collins cobuild
dictionary states. For example, when talking about
the myth of amoral business, DeGeorge (1999,
pp. 5-7) gives an impression that the amoral concept
of business is, more or less, incorrect.
While myth is - in most cases, more or less -
untrue, taboo represents something that is explicitly
real, at least for many people. Nevertheless, we still
do not dare to talk openly about taboos. As
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Michelson has put it, taboo is far too important a
topic to be left without wider and more serious
attention:
Given that taboos help create and maintain social order
- thereby providing a utility function - management
and organisational theory may be seUing itself short if
it fails to examine how taboo, both consciously
and unconsciously, impacts on the production and
dissemination of social knowledge. In other words,
taboo can encourage conservatism and suppress
both creativity and independence in theoretical
development, concepts and methodologies, among
other factors. (Michelson, 2002, p. 140.)
Taboos are things that are publicly silenced, often
veiled under rhetoric. For example, in the case of the
rhetoric of the war on terror, forbidden aspects such
as American neo-colonialism over the Islamic
countries are wiUfuUy silenced by those who posses
power (see, Banerjee and Linstead, 2001). In this
case, neo-colonialism is obviously a taboo that only a
few people, especiaUy among those in power, dare to
discuss openly. Taboo is thus a phenomenon quite
opposite to rhetoric; taboos represent things and is
sues that are better left unsaid, and are avoided for
the very same reasons that other things are said and
praised. In other words, by openly discussing taboos,
a person could become embroiled in a problematic
situation, and their openness could jeopardize
their position as a legitimate politician, scholar or
practitioner.
The CoUins cobuild dictionary says that taboo is
"la religious custom that forbids people to touch,
say, or do something, because they believe that they
wiU be punished by God or the gods." In this
meaning, the Polynesian word 'tabu' entered the
EngHsh language due to Captain Cook's voyages
(see, Webster, 1942). While the basic idea of the
concept has remained more or less intact, the con
cept also has a modem explanation in dictionaries:
"2 a social custom that certain words, subjects, or
actions must be avoided because people think they
are embarrassing or offensive." A taboo is thus a
thing/issue whose existence is known by most of the
people related to it, but stiU something that it is
appropriate to avoid. Taboos are social constructions
aU around us, while they do vary heavily according
to time, place and culture. For example, to take
 Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse 167
some plain examples, kissing in a public place is still
considered in many cultures highly inappropriate,
while especially in Western culture sexuality and
birth control are no longer as strict taboos as they
once were. (Browne, 1984a.)
From the perspective of societal development,
taboos can be seen as 'cultural anchors' that decel
erate change (Browne, 1984b). Conversely, as
taboos break, social reality changes. Open discussion
about taboos could thus challenge the status quo,
and once a taboo has been broken, it might be
extremely difficult to reinstate it (Michelson, 2002).
According to Browne (1984b, p. 4) "a people or a
nation can be no more advanced than its taboos."
Consequently, if we accept Browne's interpretation,
it is logical to say that CSR can only be as advanced
as its taboos. Because taboos are fixations of social
reality, they are also potential windows for social
change. Taboo is thus clearly far too an important
topic to be overlooked by CSR scholars.
Revealing the taboos
One should recognize that it might be very difficult
to empirically prove the existence of taboos, except
by explicitly violating them ? which might not be
wise, as suggested above. As we are talking about a
silenced phenomenon, it is literally a taboo to talk
about taboos (Buchanan, 2005; Michelson, 2005).
Thus, there is seldom any real empirical evidence on
taboos, and their existence is just 'known'. As the
topic has been clearly overlooked in social sciences,
it is not surprising that, for the time being, there is
no real empirical evidence on taboos in the field
of CSR. Moreover, it is obviously beyond the scope
of this paper to empirically illustrate the existence of
taboos. The paper is thus no more than a theoretical
introduction to the theme. While there is no
empirical evidence for the time being, it is time to
ask are there things in the CSR discourse that might
be labeled as taboos, and, if so, what are they?
It seems that most of the scholars in the field
recognize the existence of certain things that should
better be left unsaid. This becomes obvious most
especially from private conversations with col
leagues. Sometimes, particularly when the people
know and trust each other, the taboos might be
discussed explicitly using the 'forbidden concepts'
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themselves. In most cases, however, taboos are
rather discussed 'between the lines', i.e. by leaving
the problematic terms 'under erasure' (cf. Parker,
2003). Parker (2003) has demonstrated this in his
article by discussing ethics and politics. Accordingly,
as in all fields of social action (see, Browne, 1984a),
there are of course a number of larger and smaller
taboos in the CSR discourse as well.
CSR issues fall by their very nature into the more
sensitive category of topics in the field of business
studies. However, not all the issues are easily dis
cussed by CSR scholars either. These silenced
themes often relate, in one way or the other, to
the CSR discourse itself. In this article three 'grant'
taboos of CSR discourse are identified, and
explicitly raised for discussion. These are: the taboo of
amoral business, taboo of continuous economic growth, and
taboo of the political nature of CSR. This is not to say
that these three taboos are inevitably the most
important and/or problematic themes that are, in
most cases, erased from the CSR discourse. They do,
however, represent some of the most fundamental
questions that are either publicly silenced or
discussed in a highly abstract and implicit level
within the CSR discourse.
Taboo of amoral business
When something is referred to as amoral, it
means it is considered neither moral nor immoral,
but 'outside' moral conceptions as such. The
notion of amoral business is usually associated
with the Nobel Prize winner economist Milton
Friedman. According to Friedman (1962, p. 133),
the widely spread conception that there would be
corporate social responsibility, other than that to
stockholders and members, "shows a fundamental
misconception of the character and nature of free
economy". Friedman continues by stating that
"there is one and only one social responsibility of
business - to use its resources and engage in
activities designed to increase its profits so long as
it stays within the rules of the game, which is to
say, engages in open and free competition, with
out deception or fraud." Friedman moreover
wonders how a businessman could even know
what his social responsibility - other than to
maximize profits to shareholders - would be:
 168 TomiJ. Kallio
"Can self-selected private individuals decide what
the social interest is?"
Nowadays, scholars who were publicly to state
that they share Friedman's (1962) amoral conception
of business ethics would most likely marginalize
themselves in the CSR discourse. A scholar's
Friedmanite orientation would most likely be
labeled as heretic by the advocates of the prevailing
'pro-CSR' discourse (cf., Berger and Luckmann,
1966; see, Crook, 2005). Therefore it is no wonder
that CSR scholars have adopted a kind of habit to
'nudge' Friedman's argumentation every once in
awhile - in many cases, it seems, just to prove that
they are legitimate scholars. 'Nudging' takes place in
two particular forms; by implicit innuendo referring
to the validity of such a heretic perception, or, by
stating that Friedman's argument has been misin
terpreted in the first place. The logical outcome of
both the former and the latter is exactly the same: an
amoral perception of business is incorrect. But what
if Friedman was indeed right and business is by its
very nature amoral? This would obviously mean that
much of the present CSR discourse would be no
more than nonsense.
In the field of social sciences it is, of course,
impossible to prove that things are categoricaUy one
way or another. Moreover, as we know only too
weU, it is far from clear what it actuaUy means to be
responsible in business. As Levy (1997) has pointed
out in the case of corporate greening, in many cases
greenness is nothing more that social construction:
"A green corporation is one that markets green
products to green consumers; green consumers
are constituted through their consumption of
green products and images, and the products are
green because they are sold by green companies
to green consumers." (Levy, 1997, p. 136.) As a
consequence - and this obviously applies not only to
corporate greening but to aU the other aspects of the
CSR phenomena as weU ? the outcome "is a
simulation created in a self-referential circle of
symbols" (ibid.).
While from a certain perspective CSR is indeed
'no more' than social construction, it is, however,
also clear that its concepts are not just abstract
iUusions without any reference in the 'real world'.
Accordingly, from the perspective of the great
majority of people, responsible business does not
equate, say, to the ways that SheU operated in
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Nigeria or Enron arranged its bookkeeping. Thus,
while we may not be able to define exactly what
CSR is, we do know what it is not, and so do the
CEOs and other business advocates. Accordingly,
when business managers construct an ethical image
for their corporation at the same time as they break
laws, they must know that they are paying lip
service to CSR, and destroying not just the social
legitimation of their own business, but also gnawing
away at the foundations of the free market economy
in general (Handy, 2002).
What is symptomatic of the prevailing pro
CSR discourse, and thus speaks on behalf of the
Friedmanite amoral perception, is that studies that
have critically pursued the penetration of the surface
layer of CSR rhetoric, indicate that amoralization is
alarmingly common in everyday business. For
example, in the case of corporate greening, Crane
(2000, p. 680) found that four different strategies
were used to accomplish moral neutrality: "deper
sonalization ? the avoidance of personal moral
responsibility for the environment; morality bound
aries ? the construction of barriers limiting the moral
status of the environment; appropriation of discourse ?
the use of, and value attached to, certain discourses
in communicating corporate greening; mobilization of
narratives ? the application of different narratives to
make sense of corporate greening." As a conse
quence, environmental issues were more or less
willfully constructed as amoral, due to which the
environmental managers of the corporations could
concentrate on 'real' scientific facts, and thus make
rational decisions based on reason rather than
emotions (see, Crane, 2000).
In a similar way, Catasus et al. (1997, p. 204)
found that as individuals, environmental managers
regard environmental goals to have intrinsic value,
but that "due to the constraint of their roles as
environmental managers in an organization, nature
remains voiceless". Thus, what was done was done
for the corporations, and CSR remained at a rather
superficial level (ibid.). Eden's (1999) findings sup
port those presented by Crane (2000) and Catas?s
et al. (1997). Eden (1999) found that business
advocates pursued slimming down the 'ethical fat'
(cf., Fineman, 2001) from business activities, and
thus wanted their operations to be founded rather on
'solid' rationality and science than 'fussy' morality
and emotivity.
 Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse 169
To sum up, even though it is impossible to state
logically that business would be instinctively amoral
- and, of course, there are good reasons to believe
that at least for some corporations CSR is more that
just lip-service - amoralization theses do have much
more relevance than the mainstream CSR scholars
and other advocates of the prevailing pro-CSR
discourse are ready to admit. For now, in most cases,
the taboo of amoral business is primarily dealt with at
a rather abstract level, often trivializing its relevance.
In fact, the taboo of amoral business has been dis
cussed quite widely, however, often in tandem with
other concepts and in rather an implicit and rhe
torical spirit (see, for example, Barlett and Preston,
2000; Lee and McKenzie, 1994; Piker, 2002; Sudhir
and Murthy, 2001; Werhane and Freeman, 1999).
Thus, even though there are some signs indicating
that in the post-Enron era the CSR discourse has
been reoriented to be more critical, the taboo of
amoral business still awaits more serious debate.
Taboo of continuous economic growth
The capitalist economic system is in many ways
founded on the ideology of continuous growth.
Many politicians and business advocates today seem
to think that economic growth is a panacea, a cure
for all problems. The most fundamental debate to
date concerning the possibility and expedience of
continuous growth took place back in the 1970s.
The debate was in many ways ignited by two
important incidents, namely the publishing of the
famous report of the Club of Rome (Meadows
et al., 1972), and the great oil crisis. At the begin
ning of the 1970s, a long and intense debate in favor
of and against growth was provoked. For the fol
lowers of the Club of Rome, and other skeptics,
continuous growth was considered to be impossible
in a finite world, and hence a zero-growth scenario
was suggested. Others, and most especially the
business world, strongly opposed the zero-growth
scenario, as well as any attempt to slow economic
growth down. Questioning the rationality of con
tinuous growth was just too much for the business
advocates, and the business world remained hostile,
e.g. to environmental legislation and any other
attempt to 'chain up' economic growth (see, for
example, Hoffman, 2001; Schot and Fischer, 1993).
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With only a few exceptions, the business world
retained its hostile attitude towards environmental
issues until the societal atmosphere and political
arenas adopted a different kind of more optimistic -
na?ve one might say - environmentalism associated
with the concept of sustainable development. Sustain
able development was popularized by what became
known as the Brundtland Commission, which
operated under the mandate of the World Com
mission on Environment and Development. The
commission's famous report Our Common Future
(WCED, 1987) was commanded by politicians, not
scientists, and was thus fiUed with beautiful thoughts
and political compromises. Contrary to the zero
growth scenario, one of the key ideas of sustainable
development was the mutual consistency of eco
nomic growth and environmental protection.
Accordingly, the idea was that in order to make
people interested in protecting the environment,
they must first have a sufficient livelihood them
selves, which for its part is achievable only through
economic growth. While this was a reasonable
conclusion to reach, the report largely silenced the
fact that it is impossible for aU the people in the
world to have the standard of living enjoyed by
the industrialized countries. It has been estimated
that it would take not the maximum output of one,
but six planets to sustain the current world popula
tion at the standard of living of an average American
(WWF, 2004).
It is in essence an undisputable fact that popula
tion growth together with growth in consumption
creates a formula that is not only the seed of most
environmental problems, but also an absolutely
impossible long-term trend in a finite system (ibid.).
Knowing this, it is astonishing how fuUy the
impossibility of continuous growth has been
silenced, and not only by the pro-business grouping,
but also by academic business-oriented people,
including CSR scholars. As Boulding (1966) - an
exceptional economist who dared explicitly to
chaUenge the taboo of continuous growth - put it so
strikingly: "Anyone who believes exponential
growth can go on forever in a finite world, is either
a madman or an economist." While the literature
of corporate greening and business ethics have
grown almost exponentiaUy during the last decade,
there are only a few scholars (see, Hamilton, 2004;
Shrivastava, 1994; Stead and Stead, 1994) who have
 170 TomiJ. Kallio
dared to take up this question explicitly; a question
that paradoxically is perhaps paramount from the
perspective of the ecological sustainability of man
kind.
In his recently published book, titled provoca
tively Growth Fetish, Hamilton (2004) has made an
important impact by explicitly questioning the very
ideology of growth:
Growth not only fails to make people contented; it
destroys many of the things that do. Growth fosters
empty consumerism, degrades the natural environ
ment, weakens social cohesion and corrodes character.
Yet we are told, ad nauseam, that there is no alter
native. (Hamilton, 2004, p. x.)
In the name of growth, people must work harder
and be increasingly flexible at work. At the same
time, in the form of increasing haste, the pursuit
of growth implicitly destroys many things that
people value, such as time for hobbies, recreation
and family. Increased workload also creates other
negative implications, such as stress related health
problems. While economic growth might pro
mote environmentally sound behavior to some
extent, it creates, to an even greater extent,
consumption and thus more ecological burden. In
addition, whereas economic growth without a
doubt creates some sort of wealth, albeit rather
unevenly distributed in favor of the rich, the
existence of man is not constituted by economy
but ecology - natural capital instead of human
made capital. Once the natural capital has been
turned into human-made capital, it cannot, at least
not explicitly, be returned to natural capital. You
simply cannot buy back the lost rainforests or
extinct species. (Ayres et al., 2001.)
To sum up, if it is indeed so, as Hamilton (2004)
has pointed out, that growth does not make people
any happier, it is only fair to ask why and for what
reasons we need all the growth in the first place.
Especially as growth, explicitly or implicitly, seems
to destroy not only our habitat and thus our eco
logical wellbeing, but also many things that consti
tute our social wellbeing. This is not to say that all
growth would inevitably be bad, or that there should
be only zero-growth. It is to say, however, that it is
time to question the taboo of continuous growth,
and open it up for debate. It might be thought that
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this debate would be important not least for the
CSR scholars.
Taboo of the political nature of CSR
The term political nature of CSR does not refer to
the traditional left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative
distinction or, as a matter of fact, to parliamentary
politics in general. Instead of the promotion of
common interests, which is the traditional notion of
politics, in this context the term political refers to the
promotion of actors' own interests, and the pursuit
of social legitimacy for business in particular. All
commerce and every single corporation need a
legitimation from the surrounding society. As
Aarnout Loudon, the former president of Akzo, has
stated: "History shows us that no industry has sur
vived a permanent conflict with society. Dialogue,
adjustment, and cooperation are therefore not a
luxury but a necessity." (Schot and Fischer, 1993,
p. 8.) Thus, in the long run no corporation or
industry can survive if it openly opposes the values
of the greater public and therefore mislays its
legitimacy.
The fact that corporations pursue a responsible
image has led, among others, to a phenomenon
widely known as 'greenwashing'. Accordingly, it
seems that many corporations have chosen the easy,
though risky, path and artificially tried to construct
their image to be as green and responsible. This
alludes to what Levy (1997) calls 'political sustain
ability', i.e. that one ? perhaps the most essential
rationale of corporate greening and other CSR
related topics - is to produce social legitimacy for
corporations. In the case of greening, reaching
political sustainability might be far more effective
through social construction - the production of
images and symbols - than by investing in new
technology, for instance. Levy (1997, p. 136) states
that: "Companies might find it easier and cheaper to
construct themselves and their products as green
rather than undertake expensive and risky invest
ments in equipment and processes to reduce envi
ronmental impacts," and continues that "an analysis
of corporate environmentalism reveals the presence
of economic and political forces prepared to devote
considerable resources to shape the 'meaning of
greening' to suit their own interests." Accordingly,
 Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse 171

it is no coincidence that today nearly aU the major outside it. Asking questions about the line would
corporations have their own social and environ threaten the integrity of the discipline, so it becomes
mental managers, and reports in which high cor easy enough to see how a defense of a kind of intel
porate standards and values are proclaimed. This is a lectual coherence smuggles in a series of ideologically
consequence of the fact that "the movement for loaded limitations. So, if ideology is concerned with
corporate social responsibility has won the battle of what is made visible, what do (and don't) we see
ideas," as Clive Crook (2005, p. 3), the former within business ethics? (Parker, 2003, p. 189.)
deputy editor of the Economist, a periodical, has cried
out. On the basis of the analysis of this paper, the logical
It seems paradoxical that while at the level ofanswer to Parker's question would be: "It is the
actions the business world is increasingly turning to taboos that we don't see", while the very reasons for
the existence of the taboos becomes evident from
the 'hard' end, such as thinking in terms of share
holder value, at the level of image construction the Parker's own analysis. The taboos do exist, because
situation is the exact opposite. For Crook (2005,open debate on them would threaten the integrity of
p. 4) this is nothing other than mere pragmatism. Hethe discipline, and because many scholars have just
sees that at the inteUectual level "the corporatenever seriously questioned the pro-business ideo
world has surrendered" and started to praise CSR, logical stance of the field.
while at the level of action "when commercial Based on our above analysis, it is easy to see that
interests and broader social welfare collide, profit all the three 'grand' taboos are interconnected and
comes first," and thus "for most companies, CSRthat they are thus somewhat different aspects of the
does not go very deep." This echoes what same, silenced phenomenon. The mantra of con
Tarnminen (1992), modifying the famous concepts tinuous growth has not been questioned because
of Argyris, has labeled espoused ethics' and 'ethics ingrowth is sacred to corporations and liberal capital
use'. As stated earlier, today the tension betweenism. The amoral nature of business has not been
what is said, i.e. the espoused ethics, and what is seriously debated, because for legitimation it is
done, i.e. the ethics in use, seems to be widelyessential for liberal capitalism and corporations to
recognized among the CSR scholars. While stiU look responsible in the eyes of the society. And the
inherently a very sensitive topic, some scholars havepolitical nature of CSR has not been debated be
even gone as far as to explicitly theorize the phecause it would jeopardize the integrity of the disci
nomenon (see, for example, Roberts, 2003). pline. While there are, without doubt, many scholars
In the case of espoused ethics and ethics in use, who do recognize the existence of forbidden topics
one might end up claiming that something that used in CSR discourse, there are only a few who are
to be taboo is now under debate. However, what ready to admit openly the intellectual dishonesty and
stiU remains an unchaUenged taboo is a related, limitations that the taboos create and maintain. As
though, more profound question. Namely, it seemswe have analyzed the nature and existence of taboos
that CSR scholars have not dared to discuss seriouslyabove, the remaining question goes, what happens to
either the politics of the capitalist market economy, those who do challenge the taboos? In other words,
or, from this perspective, address the very premiseswhat is the fate of the scholars who bite the
and basis of the CSR discourse itself. Parker (2003, forbidden fruits?
p. 189) for one states that he does not believe that
the 'pro-business' ideological stance, hidden in the
CSR discourse, is a deliberate one on the part ofTaboo-breakers ? the carriers of heretical
most business ethicists; as a consequence, the CSR reality
discourse also "avoids troubling the pro-managerial
hegemony of the wider discipline." Whilst due to the very nature of CSR some criticism
towards business practices is permitted, in most cases
Efficiency and/or profit constitute the 'bottom line' scholars quite obviously want to circumvent the
for individual action, and this is a line that defines what questions that would jeopardize the very corner
lies inside business ethics and what is assumed to be stones of either liberal capitalism or the CSR

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 172 TomiJ. Kallio
discourse itself. Accordingly, the legitimation of
business schools and CSR studies in many ways
arises from the serving of the interests of free busi
ness. To follow Parker's (2003) ideas, CRS scholars'
ventures in explicitly questioning, e.g., the need
for economic growth, would therefore represent a
threat to the legitimacy of CSR discourse. As a
consequence, it is more likely that the taboos will be
questioned from outside rather than inside the CSR
discourse. What is problematic though, and this
obviously concerns not just the CSR discourse, is
that it is much more effective to try to break taboos
from inside than out. As we have seen, an argument
e.g. from a famous business school professor, like
the one that was presented by Porter (1991) in
the case of corporate greening, might be much
more effective than a legion of pleas from NGO
representatives.
There are always a few people who refuse to
follow the mainstream and praise its rhetoric. Often
it takes an insider to awaken the public interest. This
is not always the case, however. Researcher Carlson
(1962), for one, was an outsider when she managed
to turn the eye of the greater public on environ
mental chemicalization. However, in the case of
CSR, most of the well-known scholars such as
K?rten (1995) or Welford (1997) and practitioners
such as Soros (1998) have been 'insiders' due to their
profession. While K?rten, Welford and Soros have,
without a doubt, made important openings by
questioning taboos of liberal capitalism, one should
not forget that the game works vice versa as well.
Thus, there are also people who have challenged the
rhetoric and hegemony of environmentalism and the
CSR movement (see, for example, Crook, 2005;
Friedman, 1962; Huber, 1999; Lomborg, 2001).
According to Michelson (2002, p. 140), people
who violate taboos are often characterized as 'devi
ants', 'anti-social' or 'non-conformists'. These car
riers of heretical reality do not merely represent a
theoretic threat to taboos, but they may, when
attracting followers, effectively threaten the whole
institutional order - take Martin Luther and the
Reformation as an example. This is why there have
always been means of suppression, from being placed
in the stocks to burning at the stake, which have
been used against heretics by the advocates of the
prevailing reality. In modern times, the means of
suppression have become increasingly 'sophisticated'
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and rather 'invisible'. According to Berger and
Luckmann (1966), the main options of discoursive
suppression are therapy and nihilation. Of these,
therapy is used to secure that the potential deviants
remain on the inside of the symbolic universe of a
certain field of social action. Nihilation for its part is
used to suppress everything that is on the outside of
the very same universe; to deny aU the phenomena
and interpretations that do not fit in this universe.
Would these suppressive measures be used
against a scholar who would vigorously question
taboos? Most certainly, yes. However, it is likely
that the sanctions vary heavily due to disciplines.
In the worst case a taboo-breaker might, for
instance, find it impossible to publish in the field's
mainstream journals, to get an academic chair, and
to maintain his/her position as a legitimate scholar
in the eyes of mainstream coUeagues. There are
several examples of this kind of use of therapeutic
measures in the field of economics, where the
paradigm of neo-classical economics is extremely
strong (see, for example, McCloskey, 1983). For
example, Milton Friedman, one of the figureheads
of the neo-classic school, has commented that
"there is no Austrian economics - only good
economics, and bad economics", thus in the spirit
of therapy indicating the unity of the orthodox
paradigm (Dolan, 1976, p. 4).
In many other fields of social sciences, such as
sociology and management, where there is no longer
a hegemonic paradigm, therapeutic measures are
usuaUy less straightforward. They do still exist and
are in use, however. There is, for example, some
weU-documented evidence showing how pro-busi
ness advocates try to keep NGOs, the lay public,
community groups and 'renegade' scientists outside
legitimacy by presenting them as non-rational and
non-scientific, thus further branding them as inferior
and 'not to be taken seriously' (see, Eden, 1999). In
the end, even within the modern scientific com
munity, an attempt to discoursively suppress certain
individuals can take extreme forms. Because of the
fear of discoursive suppression, even critical scholars
seemingly often prefer to restrain themselves from
attacking the 'grand' taboos, rather veiling their
criticism in the mainstream rhetoric. Accordingly,
while often instinctively critical, CSR scholars are
not immune to the fear of discoursive suppression
either. It is therefore only human that most CSR
 Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse 173
scholars choose not to openly talk and write about
the most sensitive topics, taboos.
Conclusions and implications
In this article, three 'grand' taboos of CSR discourse
have been discussed and analyzed. Of the three ta
boos, amoral business has been most widely debated
among CSR scholars; although, however, often in
the spirit of 'myth', i.e. as a tale that is untrue. The
impossibility of continuous economic growth, for its
part, has been almost silenced to death by politicians
and business advocates, as well as by scholars close to
corporate interests. The third taboo, the political
nature of CSR, and the pro-business ideological
stance attached to it, might not even be recognized
by all scholars. Thus, the three taboos discussed in
this paper have somewhat unique appearances: one is
widely, though often constrictedly, debated; the
second is, in certain circles, almost completely si
lenced; while the third might not even be recog
nized, at least by everyone.
Nonetheless, at the same time, all the three taboos
are mutually interconnected and in some sense dif
ferent aspects of the same silenced phenomenon.
Namely, it seems that the CSR discourse has,
explicitly or implicitly, silenced the most sensitive
topics that could threaten either its own legitimacy
or that of liberal capitalism. Continuous growth has
not been questioned because it is sacred to corpo
rations and liberal capitalism. The amoral nature of
business has often been discussed in the spirit of
'myth', since it is essential for liberal capitalism and
corporations to look responsible in the eyes of the
rest of society. The political nature of CSR is not
willingly discussed because it might lead to rejection
of the CSR rhetoric and thus threaten the integrity
of the discourse.
As Crook (2005) has pointed out, CSR is a
flourishing profession and nowadays an industry in
its own right, with its physical manifestations such as
education programs, business school chairs, confer
ences, journals, professional organizations, websites,
newsletters and so forth. Moreover, as we have
witnessed e.g. in the recent intensive debate on
Lomborg's (2001) book The skeptical environmentalist,
environmentalism - as well as the rest of the CSR
discourse - is, in fact, itself turning into hegemonic
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discourse with its own institutions and ideological
control over symbols, imagery and modes of thought
(cf., Levy, 1997). Due to this, the critical potential of
the discourse is challenged. It thus seems that in
many cases the CSR discourse produces no more
than alluring, though empty, rhetoric about sus
tainability and responsible business.
While one does not have to share, for example,
Lomborg's (2001) arguments concerning 'the real
state of the world', it is, however, important to
understand the vital role that criticism, and self
reflective criticism in particular, have on rejuvenat
ing discourse. Hegemonization together with a lack
of self-reflective criticism most certainly leads a
discourse to reiterate the same basic ideas and
themes, thus cutting itself off from alternative and
more innovative ways in which to develop.
Unfortunately, when looking at today's business
world, it would be a clear exaggeration to say that
the current boom of CSR had seriously changed
anything. From this perspective, Browne's (1984b)
idea that a people or a nation - or a business or an
ideology such as capitalism - can only be as advanced
as the taboos it keeps, is not all that far-fetched.
Indeed, it is difficult to see how a particular thing,
would that be equity, CSR or any other issue, could
truly develop if there are aspects connected to it that
must be silenced.
How to proceed then? There are, of course, no
easy ways to change the status quo and break taboos;
as Buchanan (2005, p. 42) has put it: "The worst
thing about elephants in the room is that if you
ignore them long enough, they become invisible".
Accordingly, in the process of challenging the status
quo, the first step is to openly recognize that there
are some silenced issues, while the second step is
to make them visible. Taboos implicitly work as
potential windows for social change; therefore, it
should no longer be a taboo to discuss taboos (cf.,
Buchanan, 2005; Michelson, 2005). Challenging the
status quo has also been the implicit purpose of this
paper, as it has violated the taboo of talking about
taboos.
It is the visibility that most likely will eventually
lead to the breaking of taboos, and thus social
change. Take, e.g., the cases of homosexuality and
equality between men and women. There should be
no reason why CSR taboos would make any dif
ference compared to other taboos. Accordingly,
 174 TomiJ. Kallio

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Pori Unit,
Turku School of Economics,
Pohjoisranta 11 A,
Pon, 28101,
Finland
E-mail: tomi.kallio@tse.fi