Development Southern Africa

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How should civil society (and the government)

respond to 'corporate social responsibility'? A
critique of business motivations and the potential
for partnerships

Ralph Hamann & Nicola Acutt

To cite this article: Ralph Hamann & Nicola Acutt (2003) How should civil society (and the
government) respond to 'corporate social responsibility'? A critique of business motivations
and the potential for partnerships, Development Southern Africa, 20:2, 255-270, DOI:
10.1080/03768350302956

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Development Southern Africa Vol. 20, No. 2, June 2003

How should civil society (and the

government) respond to ‘corporate
social responsibility’? A critique of
business motivations and the
potential for partnerships
Ralph Hamann & Nicola Acutt1
In theory, corporate social responsibility (CSR) considers private companies as potentially
important development agents, particularly in partnership with the government and civil society
groups. Following on the first article by Hamann in this issue, which considered the business
perspective, this article considers how civil society should respond to the CSR and partnership
concepts, with reference to the South African context. Firstly, a critical view of CSR emphasises
the need to consider underlying motivations for business to embrace and perpetuate the CSR
concept. These may relate to accommodation – the implementation of cosmetic changes to
business practice in order to preclude bigger changes – and legitimisation – the influence by
business over popular and policy-related discourse in order to define what questions may be
asked and what answers are feasible. The second part of the article describes important benefits
of the CSR concept for civil society groups, in terms of increased power and rights and hence
better negotiating positions. This, however, requires that non-governmental organisations and
others proactively engage in shaping the CSR debates, by insisting, inter alia, that CSR be
underpinned by corporate accountability. Finally, the article argues that partnerships with
business can indeed be beneficial to civil society groups, but that a critical position needs to be
maintained within this cooperative approach, namely ‘critical cooperation’. Such partnerships
will require the strategic use of power-, rights- and interest-based negotiation. Following a brief
overview of some recent South African experiences in the mining and chemicals sectors, the
article concludes by pointing out the important role of the government in facilitating fair and
effective partnerships.

1. THE CSR AGENDA: FROM CONFRONTATION TO PARTNERSHIP?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or ‘corporate citizenship’ is meant to link the
market economy to sustainable development. As was described in the first in this pair

1
Graduate students, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, School
of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. An earlier
version of this article was presented at the Rural and Urban Development Conference of the National
Institute for Economic Policy, Johannesburg, 18–19 April 2002. We are grateful to David Fig,
Andries Bezuidenhout and Rachmat Omar for allowing us to partake in their research project on
corporate social and environmental responsibility, sponsored by the United Nations Research
Institute on Social Development. Eddie Webster was the first to point out to us the difference between
accommodation and legitimisation. Further thanks go to Tim O’Riordan, our supervisor, and Sandra
Fowkes, who provided valuable advice on the application of negotiation theory. We are also grateful
to interviewees who gave their time and perspectives. This article is based largely on the first author’s
PhD research on corporate social responsibility in mining in South Africa, funded by the Ernest
Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and the Harry Crossley Foundation, as well as the second author’s
PhD research on environmental strategy in the petrochemical sector, funded by the British Council
Commonwealth Scholarship.

ISSN 0376-835X print/ISSN 1470-3637 online/03/020255-16  2003 Development Bank of Southern Africa
DOI: 10.1080/0376835032000085929
256 R Hamann & N Acutt

of articles on CSR (Hamann, this edition), the CSR agenda sees the private sector,
including large transnational companies, as potentially important rural and urban
development agents, particularly in partnership with the government, community
groups and non-government organisations (NGOs). Large companies and business
associations are arguing for CSR on the basis of the so-called ‘business case’: a more
responsible, strategic approach to environmental management, labour relations and
community development should lead to better relationships and improved reputation,
and hence greater profits (see, for instance, http://www.wbcsd.com; Hamann, this
edition; Marsden, 2000).
Of course, the notion of CSR has a long history and comes up in some form or other
wherever tensions exist between the interests of private capital and the public good.
(Carroll, 1999, provides an overview of the CSR term; for a South African perspective,
see Bezuidenhout et al, forthcoming). However, the current debate surrounding CSR
has gained significance for a number of reasons, many of which were discussed in
Hamann (this edition; see also Hamann et al, 2003). From the point of view of civil
society, and in the South African context, these added factors deserve special mention.
• The growth of the transnational economy has led to immense corporations. For
instance, the turnover of the top five corporations is more than double the gross
domestic product of the world’s poorest 100 nations (Utting, 2000: 1; Marsden,
2000: 11; Korten, 2001: 231). In South Africa, this dynamic is paralleled by the
historical dominance of a handful of corporations, especially those in the mining and
energy industries (Fine & Rustomjee, 1996; Bezuidenhout et al, forthcoming).
Hence, the activities of such companies have far-reaching effects on regions,
countries and communities.
• Governments (including those in southern Africa) have increasingly diminished – not
always willingly – the degree of control they exert over the private sector, often in
the wake of international free trade agreements. By some, CSR is seen to fill this
void.
• CSR is becoming a focal point in wider debates surrounding free trade, economic
policy and sustainable development. Embodied in discussions of so-called ‘type II
outcomes’, CSR and its corollary, ‘partnerships’, were key issues at the World
Summit on Sustainable Development (Hamann et al, 2002, 2003).
• Finally, CSR is seen to express a new relationship between private capital and the
public interest. The notion of partnerships is based on the belief in common interests
and ‘win–win solutions’. One prominent example is the United Nation’s ‘Global
Compact’ between the international agency, large companies, labour and NGOs (see
http://www.unglobalcompact.org). As noted by Utting (2000: 6):
The confrontational politics of earlier decades, which had pitted a
pro-regulation and redistributive lobby against TNCs [transnational cor-
porations], lost momentum as governments, business and multilateral
organisations alike, as well as an increasing number of NGOs, embraced
ideas of ‘partnership’ and ‘co-regulation’ in which different actors or
stakeholders would work together to find ways of minimising the
environmental and social costs of economic growth and modernisation.
Considering the above, how should the government and civil society groups, such as
NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs) – ‘civil society’ excludes business
in this definition – respond to CSR and the offers of partnerships? With particular
reference to the South African context, this article provides a two-pronged response to
 How should civil society respond to ‘corporate social responsibility’? 257

this question. Firstly, the CSR agenda contains implicit dangers that public interest
groups need to recognise and guard against. Secondly, the CSR agenda also entails
important opportunities for civil society and the government to further their develop-
mental objectives. These opportunities include an increase in bargaining power and
rights, and the possibility of constructive partnerships with business.

2. MOTHERHOOD AND APPLE PIE? A CRITICAL VIEW OF CSR

Corporate social responsibility is like motherhood and apple pie. Every-
body is for it; who wants to make the case for companies becoming more
unjust, unfair and irresponsible? (Hutton, 2000: v).

This view is not quite accurate. Indeed, there are two vital sources of critique of CSR.
The first is market oriented: Milton Friedman famously exclaimed the ‘business of
business is business’ (quoted in Marsden, 2000: 10), arguing that businesses taking on
social responsibilities lead to distortions of the market and interfere with the govern-
ment fulfilling its responsibilities. This critique was considered in detail in the first
article in this pair (Hamann, this edition; see also Hamann & Kapelus, 2001).

From the point of view of civil society, and considering the current popularity of the
CSR concept amongst business, international multilateral organisations, governments
and (some) NGOs, a more pertinent critique pertains perhaps to the underlying motives
of the CSR agenda. So whereas some NGOs see business as potentially ‘the greatest
allies in […] sustainable development’ (Worldwide Fund for Nature, quoted in
Marsden, 2000: 9), others are much more circumspect. These critiques emphasise what
Marsden (2000) calls the ‘corporate citizenship paradox’: large corporations are
responsible for much of the social and environmental disruption in the modern world,
but at the same time considered key allies in the fight against these negative impacts
(by advocates of corporate citizenship).

This sceptical view of corporate claims of being ‘good citizens’ was especially relevant
in the run-up to the Johannesburg Summit (TWN et al, 2002):
A major weakness of UNCED [United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development] was the dismantling of the notion of regulating the
private business and financial sector, especially TNCs [transnational corpo-
rations]. In its place was the notion of business as a partner in sustainable
development, on par with all other ‘stakeholders’. Today, in a world that is
more unequal with a small number of TNCs dominating each sector and
exerting tremendous influence on governments, this concept of ‘partnership
and stakeholders’ perpetuates the myth that there is a collective endeavour,
and that all players are equal and conflicts of interest can be resolved by
roundtables seeking consensus.
Such concerns see ‘corporate responsibility’ and related business-sponsored efforts
such as partnerships or voluntary initiatives as an attempt to pre-empt and preclude
‘corporate accountability’, or compliance with state-sponsored regulations and stan-
dards. Two related concepts may be of use here, namely accommodation and legitimi-
sation, and they will be considered briefly with respect to the CSR debate in South
Africa. (Fabig & Kapelus, 1999, provide a similar characterisation in terms of the
concepts of control and survival.)
258 R Hamann & N Acutt

2.1 CSR as accommodation

‘To accommodate’ means to adapt to, or reconcile with, changed circumstances.
Indeed, business itself states that CSR needs to be seen as a response to changed social
expectations and global circumstances (e.g. http://www.wbcsd.com). A more critical
use of the term implies that business may be making only partial, superficial or
image-related changes to give the impression that it is accommodating social interests.
Hence, Utting’s (2000: v) conclusion in an overview of current, global trends:
What amounts to a fairly minimalist and uneven agenda is not simply a
reflection of the fact that the process of change is of recent origin; it also
derives from the way companies choose to respond to the economic,
political and structural drivers of change – responses that often involve
imagery, public relations and relatively minor adjustments in management
systems and practices, as opposed to significant changes in the social and
environmental impact of a company’s activities.
An example from South African history is illustrative in this regard. As a response to
increasing pressure on especially American multinationals to disinvest from apartheid
South Africa in the 1970s, a voluntary code of conduct, the Sullivan Principles, was set
up (Bezuidenhout et al, forthcoming). It required signatories to maintain non-segre-
gated workplace facilities, train black staff into higher positions and contribute to better
housing and services for their staff. While some commentators point out that the code
did bring about a change in corporate behaviour, primarily due to active anti-apartheid
pressure groups, the labour movement, for instance, was more sceptical. Bezuidenhout
et al (forthcoming) quote Webster to describe how these initiatives ‘were seen as a
smokescreen for unsolved deeper-lying problems’.
The motivation for CSR is obviously seen as important. Critics of CSR argue that it
should not be accorded such respect and cooperation as is currently the case, because
it is not based on a sincere attempt to genuinely improve social and environmental
impacts of industry. One may ask, what does it matter why business is trying to be
responsible, just as long as it is making promises against which it can be assessed? The
suggested answer is that it does matter! The reasoning is two-fold.
1. If companies are trying to ‘clean up their act’ solely for the purpose of accommo-
dating social pressures, but with the main objective of maintaining or increasing
profits, then wherever serious trade-offs arise between CSR and the financial
bottom-line, the likely strategy will be to emphasise the public relations component
of CSR, i.e. to give the impression that they are being responsible. An infamous
example of this is the American company, Enron, which gained numerous accolades
and high rankings for its corporate citizenship reports, management structures and
philanthropic initiatives! (Waddock, 2002). (For a related argument made in ethical
terms, see Cragg et al, 1995, and Fabig & Kapelus, 1999.)
2. If companies’ CSR efforts are a response to societal pressures – primarily mediated
through labour, NGOs and pressure groups – then a fully committed buy-in by such
groups into partnerships with business is likely to lead to a decrease in these same
pressures. Considering, therefore, that government regulation and NGO pressure and
criticism remain among the most important ‘drivers’ of CSR, these factors should
not be diluted or ‘captured’ by partnerships or co-regulation approaches (Utting,
2000: 34).
The essence of accommodation as an underlying motive for CSR is hence to make
 How should civil society respond to ‘corporate social responsibility’? 259

small, feasible changes to how things work (including cosmetic changes), so that
demands for more significant changes can be precluded. A crucial, related strategy
(albeit implicitly) is legitimisation.

2.2 CSR as legitimisation

‘To legitimise’ means to justify or rationalise, and – significantly – a colloquial
synonym is ‘to launder’. In this context, legitimisation is closely related to accommo-
dation, but there is a subtle, yet important difference. Whereas accommodation occurs
primarily in explicit interactions between interests, in the give and take of arguments
about what companies should or should not do, legitimisation works at the level of
influencing discourse. It seeks to influence, in the first place, what legitimate questions
regarding corporate behaviour are, and what answers are feasible and hence open to
discussion. In this sense, it may be argued that the CSR discourse fulfils the crucial
function of legitimising the capitalist system and, more specifically, the activities of
large-scale corporations.
This more subtle influence of power can be considered in terms of an ‘actor network’,
in which private companies, government actors and other civil society groups make up
the ‘nodes’ (e.g. Parkin, 1994). This network changes shape as problems are identified
and potential solutions considered at the individual, organisational and network levels.
Even at the individual level, legitimisation seeks to influence discourse by shaping
people’s ‘perceptual lens’, which determines how information is selected and inter-
preted to construct cognitive models (e.g. Blaikie, 1995).
At the network level, legitimisation functions to define the problem at hand and to
identify which actors are part of finding solutions, which is, of course, crucial in terms
of determining potential outcomes. Hence, the CSR discourse is characterised by
considering private companies as given and immutable economic agents, on whose
enlightened self-interest the well-being of, say, the mine’s neighbouring communities
depends. The possibility of alternative economic structures, such as cooperatives, is
seldom considered, much less significant structural elements of the economy, such as
free trade. So the CSR rhetoric needs to be counterpoised to business demands for less
regulation and diminished social spending in the name of ‘investor confidence’. Parkin
(1994) calls such overall conceptions of what is possible or desirable ‘normative
systemic structures’. CSR thus serves to maintain and perpetuate normative systemic
structures in a way that serves the interests of the status quo. The fact that much of
CSR remains within the ‘voluntary’, non-regulatory realm may be seen as legitimising
and entrenching the existing system. (For a theoretical framework for this argument,
see Lukes, 1974.)

2.3 Implications for civil society and government

Why is it important to bear in mind these critical views of CSR? The accommodation
and legitimisation attempts by business – however implicit – may need to be countered
by NGOs and other civil society groups, by means of the following strategies.
• Ensuring that CSR efforts go beyond glossy company reports and public relations.
The emphasis should be on social and environmental performance measurement.
This will include an insistence on tangible standards and targets, combined with joint
industry, civil society and government monitoring arrangements.
• Seizing the initiative – the CSR agenda is being increasingly driven by the business
260 R Hamann & N Acutt

sector, with the result that the concepts of CSR and sustainable development are
linked to business interests such as decreased regulation; hence, NGOs and labour
will need to devise and push their own agenda for CSR, with greater emphasis on
their interests and perspectives.
• Assessing the bigger picture – companies will garner great public relations value
from ‘best practice’ examples. The World Summit on Sustainable Development was
a prominent showcase opportunity (see Hamann et al, 2003); civil society and the
government will need to place these cases into the broader framework of how
industry is contributing to, or detracting from, sustainable development; this also
includes an appraisal of how South African companies are doing in other parts of
Africa (Kapelus, 2002).

Perhaps the main lesson is that civil society and the government need to engage directly
with the CSR agenda, and this includes an engagement with business that goes beyond
opposition and confrontational politics. Without compromising the right to disagree,
campaign or litigate, civil society needs to engage in order to ensure that CSR
initiatives complement – rather than pre-empt or replace – regulation and do not
diminish civil society rights.

3. POWER AND RIGHTS: GAINING LEVERAGE THROUGH THE CSR

AGENDA
The previous section cautioned against businesses’ power to influence the CSR
discourse and its outcomes. By the same token, it is important to note that the CSR
agenda can, and should, be used by civil society groups to increase their own
bargaining power. This has been done internationally (e.g. Covey & Brown, 2001;
Bendell & Shah, 2002), but less so in southern Africa. The primary mechanism for this
is the close link between CSR and company reputation – a vital concern for businesses.
Both negative (‘name and shame’) and positive (‘name and praise’) experiences that
civil society groups have with businesses can be brought to the attention of large, even
global audiences. This is because of the high publicity surrounding CSR, in part due
to companies themselves marketing their CSR policies, but crucially it is also because
of the global network of civil society organisations – linked by the Internet – that have
made it their objective to monitor corporate behaviour. ‘Everything a company now
does it does in the public gaze’ (Humphreys, 2000: 129). The recent controversy
surrounding Tiomin’s proposed titanium mine in Kenya, which was elevated by a
number of international NGOs and eventually led to the (preliminary) abandonment of
the project, is a case in point. Shell Nigeria is another, more problematic example. In
South Africa, a high-profile example is the recent campaign against 39 pharmaceutical
companies that took the government to court over the HIV/Aids drug patents.

The notion of power also implies rights. Rights denote independent standards that enjoy
general legitimacy and acceptance, and hence play a vital role in the interactions
between business and civil society. They are codified in legislation, but also rely on
socially accepted norms and standards. Crucially, they are socially constructed and
evolve with time, particularly in times such as these, characterised by active (‘anti-
globalisation’) social movements (Boele et al, 2001: 126):
The construction and use of rights discourses by social movements play an
important and positive role in challenging relations and structures of power
– seeking to legitimate alternative values, norms and lifestyles and validate
 How should civil society respond to ‘corporate social responsibility’? 261

the perspectives and identities of those oppressed by existing relations and

structures of power.
In as far as these social movements take an active role in defining the CSR agenda,
increased rights for local communities (‘localisation’) should result, in contrast to the
decreased rights that are sometimes implicit in businesses’ CSR scheme (‘globalised’
intellectual property rights, for instance). In an extensive study of the Shell Nigeria/
Ogoni case, Boele et al (2001) argue that Shell’s CSR strategy, based as it was on
stakeholder management (i.e. managerial attempts at improving relationships), did not
adequately respect the Ogoni’s rights. As a result, what was generally seen as a
progressive CSR policy nevertheless ended in tragedy for the Ogoni and huge damage
to Shell’s reputation. One outcome was Shell International’s explicit support of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of its new policies, which is a
significant event in the evolving CSR definition. This will confront Shell and other
companies with major challenges, while giving civil society groups extra leverage in
their engagement with such companies. South African companies, the mining and
petrochemical companies in particular, should be encouraged to follow suit.

4. A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO PARTNERSHIP: CRITICAL COOPER-

ATION
Tri-sector partnerships that engage the strengths of corporations alongside
those of civil society and government can, in certain circumstances, yield
better results for communities and for business than alternative approaches
(BPD, 2002: 3).
Indeed, there is an increasing range of evidence (from a variety of sources) to suggest
that partnerships between business, the government and civil society can benefit the
interests of all parties (Acutt et al, 2001; Bendell, 2000; Covey & Brown, 2001; BPD,
2002; Gourley, 1998; Hamann et al, 2001; Tull et al, 2001; Hamann, 2002). From a
civil society perspective, partnerships can be beneficial because business has important
resources and capabilities that can, and should, be harnessed for development purposes.
Infrastructure required by a new mine in a remote area, for instance, could also
contribute significantly to provision of services such as electricity and water to local
settlements. However, the implementation of these resources and capabilities needs to
be channelled and focussed by NGOs and the government – hence the need for
partnership. In partnership-speak this is called ‘complementary core competencies’. A
mining company’s logistical and engineering capacities and financial and human
resources can thus be complemented by the local knowledge and social capital of CBOs
or NGOs, as well as the broader development framework provided by the government
(two examples of such partnerships in the mining sector are presented in Hamann, this
edition).
As indicated in the above quotation, however, partnerships require ‘certain circum-
stances’ in order to be mutually beneficial, and these will need to be considered
carefully by all parties. Obviously, there are a large variety of partnerships in terms of
both organisational form and objectives, and there will be different sets of opportunities
and challenges. Common, practical challenges to the partnering process are an inad-
equate understanding of what parties could offer each other, an unwillingness to modify
or compromise, ineffective attempts to institutionalise the partnership within the
participating organisations, and insufficient orientation of newcomers to the partnership
(BPD, 2002: 16).
262 R Hamann & N Acutt

More fundamentally, the critical view of CSR discussed above points to the fear that
partnerships may provide certain limited benefits to some civil society groups, but at
the cost of preventing more far-reaching, structural changes. Given these competing
incentives, how should civil society engage with business? Should it oppose business,
or agree to partnerships? The answer suggested here is: both.
Covey & Brown (2001: 18) propose the term ‘critical cooperation’ to argue that ‘the
possibilities of productive engagement between civil society and business are greatly
expanded as we learn more about how to manage not just cooperation or conflict, but
cooperation and conflict in the same relationship’ (original emphasis). Such relation-
ships can occur when both parties have significant converging and conflicting interests,
and when both parties manage to go beyond settling their disputes by means of power
or rights (considered in the previous section), and design ways of negotiating on the
basis of interests.

The concept of interest-based (or principled) negotiation was introduced by Fisher &
Ury (1981) in their ground-breaking book, Getting to yes. They argue that positional
bargaining – whereby opponents declare and defend positions such as, say, the
minimum amount of compensation demanded – does not produce optimal outcomes
because more attention is paid to positions than underlying interests. It is also
inefficient because opponents tend to start with extreme positions, and it strains the
ongoing relationship between the parties. Their alternative – principled negotiation –
requires negotiators to, inter alia, ‘focus on interests, not positions’, ‘invent options for
mutual gain’ and ‘insist on objective criteria’ for the process and outcome of decision
making (Fisher & Ury, 1981: 11–2). Their model provides a basis for Covey &
Brown’s (2001) identification of four requisite conditions for partnerships between
business and civil society:

1. Balancing power asymmetries: This is probably one of the most significant concerns
regarding civil society–business interaction, whereby many commentators point to
the imbalance of power in favour of business (see also Hamann, this edition). Yet
Covey & Brown (2001: 8) argue that ‘the parties do not have to be equal in power
– but they do have to recognise each other as capable of imposing significant costs
or providing valuable benefits’. This relates to what Fisher & Ury (1981) call the
‘Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement’ (BATNA) and is considered below.
2. Acknowledging critical rights: Critical rights – as considered in the previous section
– need to be explicitly acknowledged by all parties in order for the negotiation to
find solutions that go beyond statutory requirements. In some instances, the threat
of litigation is an important negotiation tactic for civil society groups, as illustrated
in one of the examples presented below. These rights are part of the ‘objective
criteria’ that facilitate the choice of options independent of the will of either of the
negotiating parties (Fisher & Ury, 1981: 84–98). These criteria should be based on
a shared or agreed set of norms and standards regarding process (procedural rights)
and outcomes (substantive rights). It is hence important for all parties to be clear
about, and agree on, the objectives and process of their interaction, as is illustrated
in the examples presented in Hamann (this edition; see also BPD, 2002; Hamann,
2002; Tull et al, 2001).
3. Negotiating both converging and conflicting interests: Interest-based negotiation is
premised on the goal of finding creative solutions that respond to underlying
interests, and these need to be identified and made explicit by the negotiating
parties. An awareness of each party’s interests allows for the identification of
 How should civil society respond to ‘corporate social responsibility’? 263

‘options for mutual gain’ (Fisher & Ury, 1981: 58–83). This requires negotiators to
go beyond adversarial position taking, to allow ‘space’ for brainstorming, and to
search for shared interests. However, negotiations should not only emphasise the
search for shared interests. Making conflicting interests explicit allows for a better
understanding of the partnership in the context of the parties’ ongoing relationship,
and this includes a continuing appraisal of whether the partnership is benefiting civil
society’s interests. In accordance with the prerequisites concerning power and
rights, an awareness of both converging and conflicting interests also allows for the
separation of different elements of civil society’s engagement with business:
partnerships may be formed in order to further certain interests, while campaigning
or litigation may be a preferred option for the pursuit of other interests. How to
integrate these varying forms of engagement will be considered briefly below.
4. Managing relations with stakeholder constituencies: The negotiators need to bear in
mind and be responsive to the interests and perspectives of their stakeholder
constituencies. This is especially important where there has been a history of
conflict between civil society and business (such as in parts of the South African
mining sector), or where stakeholder groups are characterised by much diversity,
which is often the case with civil society structures. Managing conflict within
stakeholder groups is hence a crucial component of managing conflict between
groups.

4.1 Dealing with the power imbalance: develop your BATNA!

Some consider any collaboration between civil society and business as inherently
flawed due to the power imbalance in favour of business, based on wealth and access
to resources, such as knowledge. However, as far as negotiations are concerned, it is
worthwhile considering Fisher & Ury’s (1981: 106) interpretation of power: ‘the
relative negotiating power of two parties depends primarily upon how attractive to each
is the option of not reaching agreement’. Identifying and developing the Best Alterna-
tive to a Negotiated Agreement, or BATNA, will help civil society organisations decide
when collaboration with business is advantageous. That is, a partnership, or any other
form of collaboration, should only be pursued if it would provide benefits greater than
would be gained by alternative strategies. Identifying these strategies, such as litigation,
and developing them further (e.g. seeking legal counsel), will also strengthen civil
society’s hand in the negotiations themselves. Fischer & Ury (1981: 109) state:

The better your BATNA, the greater your ability to improve the terms of
any negotiated agreement. Knowing what you are going to do if the
negotiation does not lead to agreement will give you additional confidence
in the negotiating process. It is easier to break off negotiations if you know
where you’re going. The greater your willingness to break off negotiations,
the more forcefully you can present your interests and the basis on which
you believe an agreement should be reached.

Identifying and developing one’s BATNA points to the need to incorporate rights-
based and power-based approaches in your negotiations, as is implicit in Covey and
Brown’s conditions mentioned above. In other words, in order to adequately address
the interests of civil society organisations in negotiations about a potential partnership,
these negotiations should probably not be based on interests alone, but should
incorporate credible, detailed warnings – based on power or rights – of what may occur
264 R Hamann & N Acutt

Figure 1: A strategic approach to partnerships requires integrating power-, rights-

and interest-based negotiations, whereby interests are bound by power and rights
Source: Adapted from Lytle et al (1999: 33).

if a fair partnership arrangement is not reached (see Figure 1). As Lytle et al (1999:
49) put it:
In difficult negotiations that have the potential to evolve into conflict
spirals, trying to focus exclusively on interests is not always an effective
strategy. We propose that it is necessary to be well-versed in interests,
rights, and power approaches to dispute resolution negotiations and to
know how to move effectively among these three strategies during the
course of a negotiation.
The manner in which the CSR discourse may itself be used by civil society groups to
improve their bargaining position in terms of power and rights was considered in the
previous section. Hence, they may develop strategies based, for instance, on taking
legal action, organising local-level protest or solidarity strikes (the role of unions is
crucial in these issues), or targeting company reputation amongst a range of other
stakeholders, including shareholders, the media and the government. However, for the
purpose of reaching an interest-based agreement, these strategies should not be pushed
too far: ‘Usually, the point of making a threat is actually not to follow through with
it’ (Lytle et al, 1999: 48, added emphasis). Indeed, Ury (1991: 117–8) emphasises that
one’s BATNA should be communicated in the form of ‘a warning, rather than a threat’,
whereby a warning is ‘an advance notice of danger’ in terms of ‘what will happen if
agreement is not reached’.
When communicating the possibility of using a power-based or rights-based approach,
a more collaborative, interest-based approach should ideally be provided as an
alternative. An NGO targeting river pollution from a factory, for instance, may hence
argue as follows: ‘We consider our demands to be defendable in court, based on legal
counsel, but we suggest that our interests – as well as yours – would be better served
if you would agree to our proposed joint monitoring programme’.

5. SOUTH AFRICAN PROSPECTS

South Africa has both positive and negative conditions for collaboration between civil
society and business. On the one hand, it has a strong tradition of interest-based
 How should civil society respond to ‘corporate social responsibility’? 265

negotiation, even in the tensest of circumstances (Gourley, 1998). There are also some
established structures for cross-sectoral cooperation, such as the health and safety
committees in mining; NEDLAC is another, more problematic example. On the other
hand, however, there is a pervasive sense of mistrust, in large part due to the apartheid
legacy (in which, after all, industry is implicated). Both labour and NGOs frequently
refer to the overriding significance of prior negative experiences in their dealings with
industry and how these impede the possibility of partnerships (e.g. Pressend &
Mthethwa, 2001; Mpufane & Gcili-Tshana, 2001; GEM, 2000; Madihlaba, 2002; Peek,
2002). Industry representatives also acknowledge the existence of such mistrust and its
effects on the interaction between civil society and business (Kilani, 2001). Perhaps, as
a result of such experiences, there is also a fair amount of ideological resistance to
cooperating with business. Such resistance is not particular to South Africa, of course
(Covey & Brown, 2001), but it has been argued that certain parts of the labour and
NGO sectors in South Africa are lagging behind their international counterparts in
engaging (albeit critically) with business (De Cleene, 2001; Hanks, 2001).

Two brief South African examples from the mining and chemicals sectors may help
illustrate these conflicting conditions. Both examples are at a strategic, policy level,
rather than a local, project level, for which Hamann (this edition) provides examples.
Note that the scale of such processes has important implications (Hamann, 1999;
Pressend et al, 2001), also with respect to the benefits and challenges of cross-sectoral
collaboration.

Relations between NGOs or community groups and mining companies have frequently
been characterised by tension. In recent years, however, some progress has been made
by a structured effort to improve communication between the mining industry,
represented by the Chamber of Mines, and a range of NGOs. These efforts have given
rise to the Chamber of Mines–NGO Dialogue Forum, which intends to provide a
platform for the development of public participation guidelines, conflict resolution
mechanisms, and a common vision for sustainable development amongst key stake-
holders in the mining industry (Pressend et al, 2001). Amongst other things, it has
facilitated a participatory process for developing a cyanide code for the gold industry,
which in itself is a compromise outcome that apparently satisfies all parties (Kilani,
2001). Indeed, the participatory input into this South African code has made it a model
for current efforts to devise a global code. Similar efforts are under way on a provincial
level in Gauteng to deal with dust pollution from mine dumps, and at a national level
between industry, labour and the government with respect to an industry response to
HIV/Aids.

Yet, the impression should not be given that all is well in the mining sector. NGOs and
CBOs are still complaining that companies pay little heed to the environmental and
social rights of local communities, particularly if they are poor, black, and out of the
public’s attention (Pressend & Mthethwa, 2001). In particular, NGOs insist on the
crucial importance of the ability to threaten legal recourse; government legislation and
its willingness to regulate thus remain crucial elements in the CSR debate. The most
prominent illustration of the challenges faced by the South African mining industry, of
course, has been the controversy surrounding the Minerals and Petroleum Resources
Development Act (No. 28 of 2002) and its implementation through the ‘Broad-Based
Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter’ (see http://www.dme.gov.za). Yet, this pro-
cess also demonstrates the benefits of interest-based negotiation: the current outcome
may be assessed optimistically, because the two main sides to the dispute, the
266 R Hamann & N Acutt

government and the established mining industry, both made significant compromises.
More importantly, the negotiations provided for a convergence and broadening of the
main parties’ interests, and this can be interpreted as a convergence between compa-
nies’ CSR incentives and the government’s black economic empowerment (BEE)
imperative, leading to an outcome that more explicitly considers the interests –
potentially at least – of the most marginalised, i.e. the rural poor. Furthermore, the
process leading up to the charter demonstrated the importance of rights and power as
crucial bargaining tools. The new licensing requirements of the Minerals and Petroleum
Resources Development Act represented the state’s key strength in the negotiations:
companies would be forced to apply for new licences even for existing operations, and
some agreement had to be reached on the criteria for this licensing and transformation
process.

The second example is the attempt to establish an Environmental Management

Cooperation Agreement (EMCA) in the chemicals sector. In somewhat of a compro-
mise between NGO and business lobbies during the process of post-apartheid environ-
mental law reform, EMCAs were incorporated into section 35 of the National
Environmental Management Act (NEMA). EMCAs provide for administrative agree-
ments to be negotiated between the authorities and ‘any person or community’ – in this
case the chemicals industry – for environmental management purposes (see Hamann et
al, 2000: 17). Cooperative agreements are seen as a proactive approach to CSR and
enjoy support amongst chemical companies organised in the Chemical and Allied
Industries Association. However, efforts have, as yet, failed to reach a negotiated
outcome. While there are a number of factors involved, it is primarily due to resistance
from civil society groups and a breakdown of trust between parties. One reason for this
resistance has been the apparent slowness with which the government has agreed, or
been able, to play a facilitative, regulatory role in the process, notwithstanding
NEMA’s mandate and the completion of the regulatory reform process. Again, this
shows the crucial mediating role of the government in establishing and maintaining
cross-sectoral partnerships.

Another factor has been NGO (and government) uneasiness with the pace of the
process, which has been driven largely by industry, and the limited levels of public
participation. The initial efforts to engage civil society and lower spheres of the
government were ad hoc, at best, and as a result have fuelled suspicions of ‘regulatory
capture’. Furthermore, NGOs have questioned the effectiveness of such an agreement
in preventing free-riders from being held accountable. Finally, an underlying concern
has been that industry will use the EMCA to preclude the definition and implemen-
tation of more stringent environmental standards, primarily related to air pollution
(Acutt, 2001; Bezuidenhout et al, forthcoming).

The above experiences suggest mixed results for partnering efforts and highlight the
challenges inherent in implementing CSR initiatives (see Table 1 for a comparison of
the partnering conditions in the two examples). The key to any partnership between
business and civil society is clearly the issue of process and the building of trust. Any
keenness by civil society groups to engage with business on the basis of potential
converging interests thus has to be reciprocated by a commitment from business to a
transparent and participatory process in which the government must play an active
facilitative role.
 How should civil society respond to ‘corporate social responsibility’? 267

Table 1: Factors of success or failure in two policy-level, cross-sectoral collaborations

The Chamber of Mines/NGO dialogue The EMCA in the chemicals sector

Balance of To some extent there is balance of power,
power because big companies were worried about
litigation (consider the important role of the
Legal Resources Centre acting on behalf of
affected communities). At one stage, when
the process was perceived as being biased
towards industry, other stakeholders,
such as labour, were included.
Critical rights There was an acknowledgement of
communities’ environmental rights, and
part of the dialogue’s aim was to
actively support communities in defending
their rights (through a mine contact
register). Terms of reference and a
code of conduct made procedural
rights in the dialogue explicit.
Negotiating There was an explicit stance taken that
interests working towards agreement in terms of
common interests would be beneficial to
all parties. Efforts were made to
understand each other’s interests.
Stakeholder Both the Chamber and the participating
relations NGO representatives were encouraged to
report back to their constituencies. The
improvement of communication processes
between stakeholders was an explicit goal
of the process.
The role of the The government did not play an active role Due to institutional capacity constraints the
government (except for some parts of the dialogue), but government did not play a strong facilitative
the credible threat of litigation by
community representatives was an
important factor in maintaining industry
buy-in.
The process was largely driven by industry;
the government lacked capacity and
technical knowledge regarding negotiated
agreements, and NGOs and labour were not
considered key negotiating partners at the
outset.
Neither procedural nor substantive
community rights were an explicit part
of the initial dialogue. NGOs were
considered ‘third parties’ external to
the negotiation process, although a role
for NGOs in implementation of the
agreement at the site level was
acknowledged.
The agreement was developed and proposed
by industry (not based on an interest-based
negotiation model). As such, no mechanisms
were put in place for conflict resolution
between official parties to the agreement and
‘third parties’.
There was a lack of clarity regarding
representation, accountability and the role of
stakeholders in different stages of the
negotiation and the implementation of its
outcomes.
role.

Source: Adapted from Covey & Brown (2001).

6. CONCLUSION
This article has provided a critical view of the evolving CSR agenda, pointing out some
possible implicit motivations from a business perspective – accommodation and
legitimisation – in order to argue that civil society groups need to maintain their critical
vigilance of industry. Such a view also suggests that civil society groups must play a
more active role in shaping the CSR discourse. In South Africa, this requires that
NGOs become more aware of the international CSR agenda (including the rhetoric, but
also more tangible elements, such as changes to legislation) and how it may affect
268 R Hamann & N Acutt

South Africa. It was argued that such a proactive approach could significantly improve
civil society’s bargaining position in terms of increased power and rights. This
proactive approach also includes active lobbying of the government on CSR-related
issues such as the facilitation of EMCA-type processes or socially responsible invest-
ment (see AICC, 2002). The article also suggests that the government should take a
more active role in shaping the CSR agenda by ensuring that partnerships and voluntary
initiatives are relevant and complementary to regulatory goals. This implies a strategy
of both incentives (‘carrots’) and regulations (‘sticks’), i.e. CSR needs to be under-
pinned by corporate accountability! Based on these possibilities of an improved
bargaining position for civil society and a supervisory role played by the government,
the article has also argued that a strategic approach to partnership with business can
have important, tangible benefits for civil society organisations. Such a strategic
approach – ‘critical cooperation’ – would recognise the need to go beyond positions or
arguments based on rights or power, and towards the joint identification of solutions
based on mutual interests. However, civil society organisations will still need to
develop power-based and rights-based strategies, such as litigation or protest, in order
to ensure fair and efficient negotiations that lead to fair and effective partnerships.

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