In The Rise of Global Corporate Social Responsibility, Hevina Dashwood analyzes an important empirical puzzle: How and why did the mining industry come to adopt global norms of corporate social responsibility? By the very nature of their businesses, which consist of the exploitation of natural resources, mining firms seem like the practical antithesis to these abstract global norms. Yet, today most globally operating mining firms commit “to improve their environmental and social performance” (p. 1). How so?

Hevina Dashwood seeks to answer this question by looking at three Canadian-originating mining firms in depth: Noranda, Placer Dome and Barrick. Her study first analyzes their decision-making in relation to corporate social responsibility, before locating them in the context of mining sector-wide social responsibility initiatives. The focus of her analysis is on the policies of these firms. Accordingly, her empirical material consists of interviews with executives of the firms and of mining associations, policy documents, and social responsibility and sustainability reports.

In the literature, the spread of transnational business standards is usually discussed in the context of so-called country of origin-effects. Econometric studies have shown that business norms, such as ISO 14001 environmental management systems, spread with foreign direct investment, if the investment originates from a country where support for these norms is strong (Aseem Prakash and Matthew Potoski, “Investing Up: FDI and the Cross-Country Diffusion of ISO 14001 Management Systems,” International Studies Quarterly 51 [2007]: 723–744). A weakness of these studies is that, in their context, the causal mechanisms underlying the asserted norm diffusion remain empirically obscure. External pressure exerted by concerned consumers and NGOs on firms seems to be a relevant factor, as can be inferred from anecdotal evidence. But to what extent this factor really matters, how, and in the context of which other factors, is left unexplored.

Dashwood’s book contributes to a closing of this gap. Holding the country of origin constant over her case study firms (as mentioned, all three originate from Canada)—and thereby, also their exposure to NGO and other external pressure factors—its analysis focuses from the outset on what remains obscure in the mentioned literature: the micro-level mechanisms and dynamics underlying global norm diffusion.

The book develops the following narrative: In the context of a strategic environment consisting of regulators, NGOs, and investors—which increasingly expect mining firms to behave responsibly regarding social and environmental issues—a small number of firms (in her study: Noranda and Placer Dome) move ahead of the crowd by adopting corporate social responsibility standards. This comes with competitive advantages, which put pressure on other firms (in the book represented by Barrick) in the sector to follow suit. First movers are thus crucial for the spread of global norms. External pressure is in their context a necessary—but, alone, insufficient—condition. Dashwood shows this by adopting a quasi-counterfactual approach, though she unfortunately makes this nowhere explicit. Nothing was inevitable about mining firms’ uptake of corporate social responsibility, so she argues (e.g., p. 267). In the absence of first movers, the industry might have remained defensive and averse towards the global corporate social responsibility norm.

These findings have important implications for our understanding of firms in global governance processes. As profit-oriented actors interested in materialistic rather than normative ends, firms have so far been considered mainly as addressees of global governance norms, that is, as norm takers. The advocacy for and making of such norms was not associated with them, but instead with NGOs—who, after all, strive for non-materialistic goals. Dashwood’s analysis forces us to re-consider some of these assumptions. It does so by showing how the first mover firms Noranda and Placer Dome, after taking on a pro-active approach, began to actively promote their own understanding of corporate social responsibility, thereby acting as true norm entrepreneurs.

These are important findings, which re-solve the corporate social responsibility-mining puzzle in an intelligent and insightful way. They stand irrespective of a number of problematic aspects of the book, of which I will mention two.

First, The Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility is theoretically undecided. Its theoretical framework is laid out in Chapter 2 in a catch-all fashion, and the book thus lacks a clear focus and argument. It combines three institutionalisms (rationalist, new and historical, pp. 38–48) and two logics of action (logic of appropriateness and logic of consequences) on a meta-theoretical level. Dashwood then adds to this framework numerous factors as potentially driving corporate social responsibility, ranging from NGO pressure, socially responsible investors, the “shadow of hierarchy,” country of operation and country of origin effects (even though her case selection is meant to control for these factors) to corporate culture and managerial leadership. Then, in the following empirical chapters, the analysis shows that all of these factors indeed matter in each and every case. This, however, is the same as saying that none of them matter in any decisive way. The theoretical inference that can be drawn from the analysis is therefore limited.

Clearly, this procedure also has advantages. The rich theoretical framework guides Dashwood’s complex analysis of the three firm cases. At the same time, however, the explanation of the main variation featured in the book—the difference between, on the one hand, the corporate social responsibility frontrunners Noranda and Placer Dome and, on the other, the corporate social responsibility laggard Barrick—remains ad-hoc and a-theoretical. In the 1990s, Barrick was simply not yet big enough, nor was it globally operating to the extent that it could be affected by the upcoming external pressure in the same way as Noranda and Placer Dome. In addition, whereas the latter had managers who were personally committed to corporate social responsibility and drove the issue internally, for a long time Barrick did not have such a corporate social responsibility-friendly management.

These empirical findings could have been discussed in a theoretically interesting way, in particular regarding managerial decision-making as a driver of corporate social responsibility. There seem to be two opposing approaches in the literature. Some authors assume that managers’ decision-making regarding corporate social responsibility is driven by what these managers think is right normatively—almost as if their decision-making lacked any consideration of economic parameters and rationale. This is the approach Dashwood applies (e.g., pp. 49-52). Other authors have seen managerial decision-making as the outcome of economic imperatives, and decision dilemmas (Gary J. Miller, Managerial Dilemmas. The Political Economy of Hierarchy, 1993; Christian R. Thauer, The Managerial Sources of Corporate Social Responsibility: The Spread of Global Standards, 2014)—thereby, however, minimizing the role of personal normative beliefs held by managers. The three case studies—and in particular the development of Barrick from a laggard to a corporate social responsibility-norm adopter—would have been ideal cases for some theoretical reflection on these opposing approaches to managerial decision-making. Unfortunately, these aspects, as well as the question of whether the growth in size and international exposure of Barrick are somehow related to the development of the firm’s management’s preference for corporate social responsibility, are not discussed in the book.

Second, some of the book’s conclusions reveal a lack of critical distance to its empirical material and the subject matter. This pertains in particular to the book’s assertion that global corporate social responsibility norms have not only left their mark on the firms’ policies, but also effectively influenced their practices (e.g., p. 253). The problem is that, while the former claim is well backed up by the book’s analysis, the latter is not. The empirical basis of the book—interviews with executives and company reports—does not allow for the assessment of the firms’ practices. For that, the research would have had to include interviews with relevant actors (managers, workers, NGOs, local community representatives, policy makers) in the actual mining sites of the firms. Hence, the book’s assertion that the firms’ practices changed seems unfounded. Maybe the mining industry adopted global corporate social responsibility norms only for strategic reasons, as a means to demonstrate the legitimacy of its operations to the general public—while not much changing actual business practices? The book would have benefited from a discussion of this question, and some more awareness of its limitations concerning its evaluation of the success and effectiveness of corporate social responsibility.

The Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility nonetheless makes a significant contribution to our understanding of firms in global governance by specifying the mechanisms by which corporate social responsibility norms diffuse globally, and by conceptually introducing firms as norm entrepreneurs. It is an important book with much insight for anyone interested in corporate social responsibility, the mining industry, and transnational norm dynamics.