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Gendering CSR in the Arab Middle East: An Institutional Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Charlotte M. Karam  and
Dima Jamali
Charlotte M. Karam
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut
Dima Jamali
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut
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Abstract:

This paper explores how corporations, through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, can help to effect positive developmental change. We use research on institutional change, deinstitutionalization, and institutional work to develop our central theoretical framework. This framework allows us to suggest more explicitly how CSR can potentially be mobilized as a purposive form of institutional work aimed at disrupting existing institutions in favor of positive change. We take the gender institution in the Arab Middle East as a case in point. Our suggestion is that the current context of the Arab Spring, which combined with increasingly obvious endogenous institutional contradictions, has created a fertile ground for shaping change processes within the gender institution. Finally, we provide concrete examples of CSR initiatives that regional corporate actors can engage in for positive developmental change supporting women.

Keywords

institutional changedeinstitutionalizationinstitutional workgender institutioncorporate social responsibility (CSR)Arab springArab Middle East
Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 31 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2013

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References

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