Article
“We Can’t Compete on Human Rights”: Creating Market-Protected Spaces to Institutionalize the Emerging Logic of Responsible Management
Elke S. Schuessler, Nora Lohmeyer and Sarah Ashwin
2023
#Social and working conditions
#Corporate responsibility and lead firms
To what extent are multinational corporations able to address societal challenges through voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Based on an in-depth qualitative study of how apparel multinational corporations have addressed labor standards violations since the deadly 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse, we show how CSR managers navigate the tension between the emerging responsible management logic and the highly institutionalized market logic, revealing how some go beyond accommodating responsible management within the market by prioritizing responsible management in market-protected spaces. We theorize the construction of market-protected spaces as a multilevel mechanism for institutionalizing an emerging logic in the context of a field dominated by the market logic via three forms of institutional work: restraining the jurisdiction of the market logic, infusing the responsible management logic with nonmarket elements, and maintaining market-protected spaces against resistance. A “market-protected space” is an institutionally bound space that suspends the dominance of the market logic on selected issues based on a binding institutional infrastructure that allows prioritizing responsible management—unlike voluntary CSR, which still prioritizes the market logic. The concept of a market-protected space maps a path for policy-makers, managers, and other actors interested in institutionalizing responsible management in the global economy.
