Overcoming the Dark Side of CSR Communication and Employee Relations

Adopting a behavioral, micro, employee-centered perspective to corporate social responsibility (CSR), this chapter problematizes the excessive focus on establishing positive associations between CSR communication and employee relations within the predominant stream of functionalist research. Instead, it highlights the dark side of CSR communication and employee relations, including the use of CSR practices by organizations as a tool of aspirational employee identity control; the blurred boundaries among CSR-based employee identification, work meaningfulness, and work addiction; organizational abdication of employees’ technological well-being; and the polyphony of competing, diverse employee interests that are not aligned with monophonic, unified organizational CSR narratives. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research and research-based principles for CSR communication theory and practice.