Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication and small and medium sized enterprises: The governmentality dilemma of explicit and implicit CSR communication

Businesses that promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) through their supply chain by requiring their suppliers to report on and otherwise communicate their CSR are doing a great thing, aren’t they? In this article we challenge this assumption by focusing on the impact on small and medium sized enterprise (SME) suppliers when their large customers pressurise them to make their implicit CSR communication more explicit. We expose a ‘dark side’ to assumed improvements in CSR reporting within a supply chain. We present a conceptual framework that draws on previous research on communication constitutes organization theory, implicit and explicit CSR, and Foucault’s governmentality. We identify and discuss the implications of three resulting dilemmas faced by SMEs: authenticity commercialization, values control, and identity disruption. The overarching contribution of our paper is to extend theorizing on CSR communication and conceptual research on CSR in SME suppliers (small business social responsibility). From a practice and policy perspective, it is not ultimately clear that promoting CSR reporting among SMEs will necessarily improve socially responsible practice.