Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 74:165175 DOI 10.

1007/s10551-006-9227-x

Springer 2006

Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse

Tomi J. Kallio

ABSTRACT. Corporations today have been engineered by CEOs and other business advocates to look increasingly 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 nave. Although many scholars seemingly recognize this, they still avoid touching on the most sensitive and problematic issues, the taboos. As a consequence, discussion 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

discourse and thus in its very nature takes a somewhat provocative view.1 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 intellectual dishonesty. This fact is also the reason why the academic side of the CSR discourse 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 sciences in general, and in management and organization studies in particular, this paper is merely an introduction to this important topic. Why discuss taboos?

Introduction While corporate greening and business ethics literature have from time to time been accused of being rather nave (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 eld 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 practitioners are well aware of their existence. The paper aims to cast light on the forbidden side of the CSR

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 generally accepted, sometimes even considered as absolute truths that are not readily questioned. (Berger and Luckmann, 1966.) Importantly, this concerns scientic discourses and paradigms as well. As a consequence, in order to succeed in ones own profession and career, one must usually follow 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 rms social responsibility, rather to underline the

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Tomi J. Kallio 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 selling 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.)

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 rm that was previously gloried 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 iceberg in a depressing litany of formerly highly regarded rms 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 scientic 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 ones career. A favorite rhetoric of politicians 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 scientic discourse in general and management and organizational studies in particular, the topic of taboo has received surprisingly little attention (Michelson, 2002). When talking of sensitive issues, scholars prefer to use the much more imsy 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; Trevino 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. 57) 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

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 willfully 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, especially among those in power, dare to discuss openly. Taboo is thus a phenomenon quite opposite to rhetoric; taboos represent things and issues 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 Collins cobuild dictionary says that taboo is 1 a religious custom that forbids people to touch, say, or do something, because they believe that they will be punished by God or the gods. In this meaning, the Polynesian word tabu entered the English language due to Captain Cooks voyages (see, Webster, 1942). While the basic idea of the concept has remained more or less intact, the concept also has a modern 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 still something that it is appropriate to avoid. Taboos are social constructions all around us, while they do vary heavily according to time, place and culture. For example, to take

Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse 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 decelerate 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 difcult 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 Brownes interpretation, it is logical to say that CSR can only be as advanced as its taboos. Because taboos are xations 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.

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Revealing the taboos One should recognize that it might be very difcult 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 eld 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 eld recognize the existence of certain things that should better be left unsaid. This becomes obvious most especially from private conversations with colleagues. Sometimes, particularly when the people know and trust each other, the taboos might be discussed explicitly using the forbidden concepts

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 elds 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 eld of business studies. However, not all the issues are easily discussed 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 identied, 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 prots so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud. Friedman moreover wonders how a businessman could even know what his social responsibility other than to maximize prots to shareholders would be:

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Tomi J. Kallio Nigeria or Enron arranged its bookkeeping. Thus, while we may not be able to dene 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 lipservice 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 proCSR 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: depersonalization the avoidance of personal moral responsibility for the environment; morality boundaries 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 consequence, environmental issues were more or less willfully constructed as amoral, due to which the environmental managers of the corporations could concentrate on real scientic 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 supercial level (ibid.). Edens (1999) ndings sup port those presented by Crane (2000) and Catasus 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.

Can self-selected private individuals decide what the social interest is? Nowadays, scholars who were publicly to state that they share Friedmans (1962) amoral conception of business ethics would most likely marginalize themselves in the CSR discourse. A scholars 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 Friedmans 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 Friedmans argument has been misinterpreted in the rst 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 eld of social sciences it is, of course, impossible to prove that things are categorically one way or another. Moreover, as we know only too well, it is far from clear what it actually 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 all the other aspects of the CSR phenomena as well 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 illusions 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 Shell operated in

Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse 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 discussed quite widely, however, often in tandem with other concepts and in rather an implicit and rhetorical 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.

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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 beginning of the 1970s, a long and intense debate in favor of and against growth was provoked. For the followers of the Club of Rome, and other skeptics, continuous growth was considered to be impossible in a nite 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 continuous 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).

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 nave one might say environmentalism associated with the concept of sustainable development. Sustainable development was popularized by what became known as the Brundtland Commission, which operated under the mandate of the World Commission on Environment and Development. The commissions famous report Our Common Future (WCED, 1987) was commanded by politicians, not scientists, and was thus lled with beautiful thoughts and political compromises. Contrary to the zerogrowth scenario, one of the key ideas of sustainable development was the mutual consistency of economic growth and environmental protection. Accordingly, the idea was that in order to make people interested in protecting the environment, they must rst have a sufcient livelihood themselves, 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 all 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 population at the standard of living of an average American (WWF, 2004). It is in essence an undisputable fact that population 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 nite system (ibid.). Knowing this, it is astonishing how fully 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 challenge the taboo of continuous growth put it so strikingly: Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a nite world, is either a madman or an economist. While the literature of corporate greening and business ethics have grown almost exponentially during the last decade, there are only a few scholars (see, Hamilton, 2004; Shrivastava, 1994; Stead and Stead, 1994) who have

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Tomi J. Kallio this debate would be important not least for the CSR scholars.

dared to take up this question explicitly; a question that paradoxically is perhaps paramount from the perspective of the ecological sustainability of mankind. In his recently published book, titled provocatively 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 environment, weakens social cohesion and corrodes character. Yet we are told, ad nauseam, that there is no alternative. (Hamilton, 2004, p. x.)

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 survived a permanent conict 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 articially tried to construct their image to be as green and responsible. This alludes to what Levy (1997) calls political sustainability, 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 nd it easier and cheaper to construct themselves and their products as green rather than undertake expensive and risky investments in equipment and processes to reduce environmental 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,

In the name of growth, people must work harder and be increasingly exible 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 promote 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 humanmade 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 rst place. Especially as growth, explicitly or implicitly, seems to destroy not only our habitat and thus our ecological wellbeing, but also many things that constitute 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

Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse it is no coincidence that today nearly all the major corporations have their own social and environmental managers, and reports in which high corporate standards and values are proclaimed. This is a consequence of the fact that the movement for corporate social responsibility has won the battle of ideas, as Clive Crook (2005, p. 3), the former deputy editor of the Economist, a periodical, has cried out. It seems paradoxical that while at the level of actions the business world is increasingly turning to the hard end, such as thinking in terms of shareholder value, at the level of image construction the situation is the exact opposite. For Crook (2005, p. 4) this is nothing other than mere pragmatism. He sees that at the intellectual level the corporate world has surrendered and started to praise CSR, while at the level of action when commercial interests and broader social welfare collide, prot comes rst, and thus for most companies, CSR does not go very deep. This echoes what Tamminen (1992), modifying the famous concepts of Argyris, has labeled espoused ethics and ethics in use. As stated earlier, today the tension between what is said, i.e. the espoused ethics, and what is done, i.e. the ethics in use, seems to be widely recognized among the CSR scholars. While still inherently a very sensitive topic, some scholars have even gone as far as to explicitly theorize the phenomenon (see, for example, Roberts, 2003). In the case of espoused ethics and ethics in use, one might end up claiming that something that used to be taboo is now under debate. However, what still remains an unchallenged taboo is a related, though, more profound question. Namely, it seems that CSR scholars have not dared to discuss seriously either the politics of the capitalist market economy, or, from this perspective, address the very premises and basis of the CSR discourse itself. Parker (2003, 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 of most business ethicists; as a consequence, the CSR discourse also avoids troubling the pro-managerial hegemony of the wider discipline.
Efciency and/or prot constitute the bottom line for individual action, and this is a line that denes what lies inside business ethics and what is assumed to be

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outside it. Asking questions about the line would threaten the integrity of the discipline, so it becomes easy enough to see how a defense of a kind of intellectual coherence smuggles in a series of ideologically loaded limitations. So, if ideology is concerned with what is made visible, what do (and dont) we see within business ethics? (Parker, 2003, p. 189.)

On the basis of the analysis of this paper, the logical answer to Parkers question would be: It is the taboos that we dont see, while the very reasons for the existence of the taboos becomes evident from Parkers own analysis. The taboos do exist, because open debate on them would threaten the integrity of the discipline, and because many scholars have just never seriously questioned the pro-business ideological stance of the eld. Based on our above analysis, it is easy to see that all the three grand taboos are interconnected and that they are thus somewhat different aspects of the same, silenced phenomenon. The mantra of continuous growth has not been questioned because growth is sacred to corporations and liberal capitalism. The amoral nature of business has not been seriously debated, because for legitimation it is essential for liberal capitalism and corporations to look responsible in the eyes of the society. And the political nature of CSR has not been debated because it would jeopardize the integrity of the discipline. While there are, without doubt, many scholars who do recognize the existence of forbidden topics in CSR discourse, there are only a few who are ready to admit openly the intellectual dishonesty and limitations that the taboos create and maintain. As we have analyzed the nature and existence of taboos above, the remaining question goes, what happens to those who do challenge the taboos? In other words, what is the fate of the scholars who bite the forbidden fruits?

Taboo-breakers the carriers of heretical reality Whilst due to the very nature of CSR some criticism towards business practices is permitted, in most cases scholars quite obviously want to circumvent the questions that would jeopardize the very cornerstones of either liberal capitalism or the CSR

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Tomi J. Kallio 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 eld of social action. Nihilation for its part is used to suppress everything that is on the outside of the very same universe; to deny all the phenomena and interpretations that do not t 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, nd it impossible to publish in the elds mainstream journals, to get an academic chair, and to maintain his/her position as a legitimate scholar in the eyes of mainstream colleagues. There are several examples of this kind of use of therapeutic measures in the eld of economics, where the paradigm of neo-classical economics is extremely strong (see, for example, McCloskey, 1983). For example, Milton Friedman, one of the gureheads 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 elds of social sciences, such as sociology and management, where there is no longer a hegemonic paradigm, therapeutic measures are usually less straightforward. They do still exist and are in use, however. There is, for example, some well-documented evidence showing how pro-business advocates try to keep NGOs, the lay public, community groups and renegade scientists outside legitimacy by presenting them as non-rational and non-scientic, thus further branding them as inferior and not to be taken seriously (see, Eden, 1999). In the end, even within the modern scientic community, an attempt to discoursively suppress certain individuals can take extreme forms.2 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

discourse itself. Accordingly, the legitimation of business schools and CSR studies in many ways arises from the serving of the interests of free business. To follow Parkers (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 environmental chemicalization. However, in the case of CSR, most of the well-known scholars such as Korten (1995) or Welford (1997) and practitioners such as Soros (1998) have been insiders due to their profession. While Korten, 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 deviants, anti-social or non-conformists. These carriers 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

Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse scholars choose not to openly talk and write about the most sensitive topics, taboos.

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Conclusions and implications In this article, three grand taboos of CSR discourse have been discussed and analyzed. Of the three taboos, 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 silenced; while the third might not even be recognized, at least by everyone. Nonetheless, at the same time, all the three taboos are mutually interconnected and in some sense different 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 corporations 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 ourishing profession and nowadays an industry in its own right, with its physical manifestations such as education programs, business school chairs, conferences, journals, professional organizations, websites, newsletters and so forth. Moreover, as we have witnessed e.g. in the recent intensive debate on Lomborgs (2001) book The skeptical environmentalist, environmentalism as well as the rest of the CSR discourse is, in fact, itself turning into hegemonic

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 sustainability and responsible business. While one does not have to share, for example, Lomborgs (2001) arguments concerning the real state of the world, it is, however, important to understand the vital role that criticism, and selfreective criticism in particular, have on rejuvenating discourse. Hegemonization together with a lack of self-reective 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 todays business world, it would be a clear exaggeration to say that the current boom of CSR had seriously changed anything. From this perspective, Brownes (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 difcult 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 rst 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 difference compared to other taboos. Accordingly,

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if CSR scholars want to enhance the critical potential of the eld, they should pick up the gauntlet, and make the silenced issues visible by talking about them. Moreover, in the future we need academic research and elaborate understanding of what might be referred to as the process of taboo; i.e. how taboos come to exist, how they inuence the surrounding reality, and how they are broken. This paper functions as an introduction to this important topic, which undoubtedly needs much more attention from academics in the future, not least from CSR scholars.

Notes
In the paper the concepts business ethics, responsible business and CSR are used as synonyms to refer to the discourse under scrutiny. 2 For example, Lester Brown, the founder of the Worldwatch Institute, refused to participate at the OtaEco 2002 conference (on social and environmental responsibility) once he leaned that Bjrn Lomborg was also invited.
1

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Johan Sandstrom and Andrew Crane for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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