Key challenges to the corporate biosphere stewardship research program: inequity, reification, and stakeholder commensurability

• Non-Technical Summary Research on corporate biosphere stewardship and the related concept of keystone actor has proliferated in recent years. We scrutinize the program focusing on issues and assumptions associated with inequality, naturalizing social processes, or reification, and characterizing corporations as equivalent stakeholders in sustainable development with other actors and organizations. As a result, we argue the program does not promote the stated claim of transformative change for sustainability. We suggest that the research program should develop a deeper analysis of social dynamics, forces, and structures, based in social theory, particularly sociological work, which can help reveal common taken for granted assumptions. Technical Summary We highlight important assumptions associated with the research program in sustainability science developed around corporate biosphere stewardship and the promise of science-business initiatives. In doing so, we interrogate a central concept in this research, keystone actors. We analyze the program based on associated research outputs and communications, focusing on three key challenges 1) inequities related to the concentration of political-economic power 2) concerns with naturalizing social processes, or reification, and 3) the limitations of characterizing corporations as commensurable stakeholders in sustainable development. This research program has revealed some important conditions and dynamics in relation to consolidation and concentration in global industries. However, it has been limited by insufficient integration of knowledge from social science, particularly sociology. Thus, the approach tends to undertheorize social dynamics, processes, and structures. Despite being framed as an effort at improving the prospects for transformative change, the implications, outcomes, and recommendations that emerge from this research program may inadvertently promote increased control and power of elite actors by presenting an ostensible inevitability of corporate dominance for bringing about social welfare and sustainability. We suggest greater attention to social structural dynamics, and particularly social struggles and social movements, when considering the potential for transformational change for sustainability.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

corporate social responsibility

knowledge coproduction

social change

sustainability transformations

transnational corporations

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)