Reputation: Ethics, Trust, and Relationships at Oxford
Dear All,
Please join us online on Thursday 13 November for the second R:ETRO seminar of this term, hosted by the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation.
Cedric Dawkins (School of Administrative Studies at York University) will be presenting 'Walking out to weigh in: recasting the role of exit in multi-stakeholder initiatives.'
Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) are widely seen as promising platforms for democratizing global business governance. Yet civil and public actors-NGOs, unions, advocacy networks- often find themselves constrained by the very structures meant to empower them. This talk revisits Albert Hirschman's classic framework of exit, voice, and loyalty to make the claim that exit, not voice, is the most underappreciated but fundamental tool for civil society actors seeking justice and accountability. Rather than treating exit as failure or abandonment, it is framed as a morally grounded, strategic act-one that maintains space for moral suasion when institutional voice falls short. Drawing on the Kimberley Process as a key example and recent critiques of deliberative governance, the argument develops ethical criteria for activist exit and proposes a reframed EVL model that speaks to current tensions in transnational governance. The talk invites reflection on how resistance, reform, and legitimacy are negotiated when institutions disappoint-and what it means to walk away without giving up.
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