Over the past several decades, there have been numerous frameworks to specify the nature and content of business responsibility as well as various social movements seeking to place greater demands on businesses. businesses generally do not simply accept efforts to effect social control upon them. While they might seek to actively and publicly resist such efforts, a more subtle – and we argue, more effective – approach is to engage in what we call domestication. Domestication of efforts at social control occurs when businesses and industries are able to blunt more-radical demands for changes in their practices without affecting perceptions of their legitimacy. In this discussion proposal, we seek to develop the concept of domestication as relevant to business and society research. We will take a historical perspective, looking at different efforts to effect social control on businesses and how businesses have successfully domesticated them and blunted their more-radical demands. In so doing, we seek to contribute to understanding how businesses shape the external environment and in turn how activists might be more effective in advancing their goals.

One of the long-standing and somewhat frustrating core debates in business ethics has been the question of whether there is a “business case for CSR” (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). In other words, do companies “do the right thing” for intrinsic reasons, or are they just engaging in hypocritical “woke capitalism”? Our paper aims at contributing to this debate by showing that while there might not be a direct financial benefit from engaging in CSR, CSR practices can nevertheless provide indirect benefits to organizations by way of strengthening organizational resilience. The industry we have chosen to demonstrate this is professional football because, as the COVID-19 crisis (Ahmed et al., 2022; Szymanski, 2021) and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar (Ward, 2022) have made abundantly clear, running a football club is a highly precarious enterprise in terms of both existential financial risk and constant ethical challenges. In an industry that is increasingly being perceived as scandal-ridden and “morally bankrupt” by the general public (Leeks, 2022; Zeidan & Fauser, 2015), a small minority of football clubs have started developing strong sustainability and CSR profiles in order to establish an identity for themselves as socially progressive pioneers trying to stem the tide of ever-increasing commercialization and corruption in modern football. Specifically, a small number of underdog football clubs in Europe rhetorically present themselves as progressive counter-movement to modern hyper-commercial football, which is why they emphasize CSR practices that are motivated by being socially conscious and inclusive, environmentally aware, and critical of excessive commercial imperatives in the world of sports.

This paper investigates how these clubs manage to use their CSR activities to bolster their organizational resilience. That is an interesting question because thus far, little is known about whether CSR practices actually contribute to organizational resilience. In this context, football is a highly promising industry to study, as its many inherent sporting and business risks (such as relegation, loss of successful players and coaches, and financial volatility) put constant existential pressure on clubs.

The paper will thus put into conversation the academic literature on the business case for CSR with the literature on CSR in football and connect it to the academic debate on organizational resilience. Since commercial sports in general and football in particular are highly volatile endeavors, we argue that this competitive, precarious, and ethically challenged industry allows for ample insights into resilience as vital organizational capability (Duchek, 2020). Against this background, the paper aims to serve as a steppingstone towards a theoretical framework for future empirical studies addressing the question whether “woke” clubs might outperform their more conservative peers in some regards, comparing them along several sporting and financial criteria (such as average place in league standings, team value, reputation, etc.). In doing so, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationship between CSR and organizational resilience in high risk, volatile industries.

This paper presents a systematic literature review focusing on environmental sustainability within family firms, addressing a significant gap in the existing research landscape. Despite an increasing interest in sustainability, much of the literature tends to overlook the distinct drivers of environmental performance specific to family businesses, often conflating social and environmental dimensions under the broader umbrella of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). By examining publications from 1980 to 2024 through Web of Science and Scopus, this study seeks to categorize key themes related to environmental sustainability and identify the theoretical frameworks prevalent in the field. The findings aim to provide a nuanced understanding of how family dynamics influence sustainability practices and to propose actionable insights for both scholars and practitioners.

Corporate Social Responsibility as a discourse has been in existence for more than five decades (Freeman and Hasnaoui, 2010). It refers to the different expectations that society has of the organizations operating therein – whether they are profit or nonprofit-oriented. Though there are varying definitions of CSR in extant literature and business practices, they all seem to agree on the issues that characterise CSR, some of which include environment, employee relations, human rights, corporate ethics, and community relations (Moir, 2001; Windsor, 2001; Freeman and Hasnaoui, 2010; Wang et al, 2016). While most of the existing studies on CSR have extensively explored its dynamics in profit-oriented organisations, especially multinational corporations, only a little attention has been paid to the nature of CSR in nonprofit organisations, especially charities (Caulfield, 2013). Therefore, this study seeks to further investigate CSR from the standpoint of the UK charity sector using an award-winning UK charity – Tempus Novo as a case study. The study will draw from the stakeholder theory to explore how CSR can enhance the social impact of UK charities without them losing their charity ethos. As a case study, thematic analysis of focus group discussions with Tempus Novo key stakeholders, and document analysis of Tempus Novo reports and publications will be adopted for a deeper insight into Tempus Novo’s CSR strategies, programs, and initiatives. The findings of the study will be analyzed and presented in the context of the broader CSR practices in the UK charity sector. The findings are also expected to serve as a guide for other charities seeking to improve their social impact. Finally, some recommendations for future research will be given.