Institutionalization of socioenvironmental initiatives of organizations: interfaces between Habermas’ social development theory and the isomorphism of the institutional theory

Abstract

This article establishes a discussion from the premise that institutionalization involves processes by which social values (practices, beliefs, and obligations) take the status of rules of thought and social action. Thus, it aims to point out how a society enables the embodiment of new rationality standards, so that they start interfering with the reality conceptions of their subjects. The study introduces a model for systemic analysis of corporate social responsibility, integrating concepts of the social development rationale, as proposed by Jürgen Habermas, and the processes of isomorphism observed in organizations and derived from the institutional theory. In order to provide a model for theoretical and empirical analysis of the subject, socioenvironmental initiatives are initially justified by their role as a differentiation factor or as establisher of the reputation of the organization and its products and services. Next, a normalization process is observed, when a new minimum performance standard is set for organizations, as well as, why not say it, social maturity, restarting at this point a new search for competitive differentials and social advances. This focus of investigation of companies’ work in the socioenvironmental arena breaks with the naive and proactive perspective that the emergence of these initiatives occurs according to different levels of corporate environment awareness.