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Please join us on Monday, Aug 13 2018 11:30AM - 1:00PM at Marriott Chicago Downtown - Magnificent Mile in the Addison Marriott Ballroom for a lively research-practice dialogue on professionalization and CSR.

NEW WAYS TOWARDS PROFESSIONALIZATION: THE CASE OF CSR PRACTITIONERS

Discussant

Daniel Muzio, Newcastle University Business School

Panelists

Jean-Pascal Gond, Cass Business School

Christopher Wickert, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Rahul Mitra, Wayne State University

Andreas Werr, Stockholm School of Economics

Organizers

Szilvia Mosonyi, Cass Business School

Luc Brès, Laval University

Division Sponsors:          Management Consulting (MC)

Organization and Management Theory (OMT)

Social Issues in Management (SIM)

This panel symposium focuses attention on the professionalization of emerging occupations through the case of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) professionals. In recent years, a growing number of scientific publications have been focusing on the emerging corporate social responsibility (CSR) profession (Brès & Gond, 2014; Mitra & Buzzanell, 2016, 2017; Risi & Wickert, 2016; Strand, 2013; Tams & Marshall, 2011; Wickert & De Bakker, 2016; Wright & Nyberg, 2012). The symposium aims to facilitate a global conversation on CSR professionals bridging scholarly communities interested in professions and CSR.

In recent decades, the main focus of the professions literature has moved from investigating the characteristics of professionals to studying the dynamics in and around existing professions (Ackroyd, 2016; Anteby, Chan, & DiBenigno, 2016), notably through the 'professionalization project' and its links to institutional change and institutionalization (Suddaby & Muzio, 2015). Yet, in the past thirty years the landscape of professions has changed drastically. First, speed of occupational change has accelerated. New occupational fields are emerging and old ones are being integrated or redefined (Fayard, Stigliani, & Bechky, 2016). Second, models developed in the sociology of professions were largely based on traditional professions (e.g. medicine and law), which often were examined in isolation. Although Abbott emphasized the interactive nature of professions, his call for multilevel analysis of the system of relations (Abbott, 1988, 1993) remains largely unmet (Anteby et al., 2016). Third, the rise of corporations and retreat of the nation state means that occupations do not operate in isolation as private practices, but professionals are increasingly employed by large bureaucratic organizations, on which they have become dependent (Muzio & Kirkpatrick, 2011; Noordegraaf, 2011). Overall, contemporary professions are very different now than they were thirty years ago. Thus, a more contemporary analysis is vital if we are to understand professionalization nowadays, and recent research points towards CSR as a fruitful setting to observe these changes.

The market for CSR has been growing rapidly since the 1990s (Nuttavuthisit & Thøgersen, 2017; Vogel, 2005), and the content of the field is continuously evolving (MacCarthy & Moon, 2009). Although it is becoming more institutionalized within society (Bondy, Moon, & Matten, 2012; Wang, Tong, Takeuchi, & George, 2016), CSR is not an established profession with a clear and legitimized jurisdiction, but it is in the process of constructing a mandate for its activities. Besides analyzing broader phenomenon of CSR institutionalization, a growing body of literature is becoming more and more interested in the role of individuals in CSR (Wang et al., 2016) and particularly of CSR professionals (Sonenshein, DeCelles, & Dutton, 2014).

Within corporations, we have witnessed the rise of CSR professionals, who sometimes rely on the services of external CSR consultants to deliver their organizational mandate (Gond, Cabantous, & Krikorian, 2017; Risi & Wickert, 2016). Usually labeled CSR or sustainability managers, these individuals are in charge of implementing CSR policies, programs and activities at their organization (Maon, Lindgreen, & Swaen, 2010), and focus on issues such as climate change (Wright & Nyberg, 2015), and the external reporting of CSR information. Prior studies suggest that CSR managers within organizations usually struggle to establish their internal legitimacy and delineate the boundaries of their mandate. This is because they are in competition with established functions, such as human resource management (Gond, Igalens, Swaen, & El Akremi, 2011) and finance (Gond et al., 2017). Outside these organizations, there are also an increasing number of studies about CSR consultants as key actors in the diffusion of CSR (Furusten et al., 2013; Windell, 2007), and in the construction of the market for CSR (Brès & Gond, 2014). Their active involvement in the latter and their role in assigning meaning to CSR have ideological and political implications at a macro-level (Shamir, 2005). Consultants are a key facet of the emerging CSR profession.

Therefore, the purpose of this panel symposium is to enrich a broader scientific conversation inside and across the different scientific communities interested in this topic by engaging a diverse group of panelists in a moderated, interactive discussion of (1-2) the definitional boundaries and conceptualizations; (3) the professionalization of CSR practitioners; (4) our responsibility as academics in developing these professionals; and (5) the future of the CSR profession.