The UN Sustainable Development Goals as a North Star: How an intermediary network makes, takes, and retrofits the meaning of the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how a network of informal intermediariesincluding international organizations, consultancies, business alliances, and standard settershas contributed to the persistence of the universalistic meaning of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs). Based on our analysis of 26 interviews and 121 online resources produced by the 22 most prominent intermediaries, we find that SDG diffusion is distinct from linear depictions, such as the regulator-intermediarytarget model. This is because the intermediary network acts via three dynamic mechanisms that lend to an inclusive meaning of the goals; the core intermediaries lead efforts to make the perspective one that can accommodate a range of different audiences and activities, then intermediaries who subsequently join the network accept that broad perspective. Concomitant to their making or taking of the perspective, each intermediary individually works to retrofit the SDGs onto their unique tools and activities and to create their spot within the network. The combination of perspective making and taking, and retrofitting, propels the persistence of the SDGs as a "North Star" rather than a more specific blueprint for companies.

How Political Actors Co‐Construct CSR and its Effect on Firms' Political Access: A Discursive Institutionalist View

“…In this paper, I address Sun et al’s (2021) and Mellahi et al’s (2016) call to theoretically clarify the complementarities between CSR and CPA. By empirically demonstrating the importance of ideas and discursive interactions in shaping the outcome(s) of firms' NMS, this case study elucidates why and how discursive and communicative institutional approaches (see Alvesson and Kärreman, 2000; Blyth, 2002; Meyer and Vaara, 2020; Risse, 2000; Schmidt, 2008; van den Broek and Klingler‐Vidra, 2021) are well‐suited to exploring NMS content and processes within their socio‐political environments. Specifically, I shift the traditional macro‐level focus of NMS studies to the micro‐dynamics of the relations between political actors and firms in order to ‘bring human agency back into institutional theory’ (Mellahi et al, 2016, pp.…”

“…The data show how CSR ideas are constructed through discursive interactions, highlighting actors' power in and over the concept. By tracing the dynamic processes through which CSR understandings are discursively and interactively refined, reframed and reinterpreted, this study improves on the ‘social’ aspect of CSR ideas (Shamir, 2008; van den Broek and Klingler‐Vidra, 2021). The four discursive strategies elucidate how CSR ideas are created, maintained and changed through discursive interactions between political actors, NGOs and/or firms, with all actors expressing different degrees of agency throughout this process.…”

“…Thus, if CSR is the idea, then CSR communication is the discursive and interactive process through which this idea gets its meaning. Communication is not solely functionalist (Schoeneborn et al, 2020), as argued in most NMS studies, but involves discursive struggles between firms, political actors, and other stakeholders (Crane and Glozer, 2016; Kourula and Delalieux, 2016), who all constantly challenge ideas, albeit with different degrees of success (van den Broek and Klingler‐Vidra, 2021). CSR communication and aspirations also ‘instigate organisational reality rather than describe it’ (Christensen et al, 2013, p. 374), connoting its performative character.…”

Environmental impacts associated with the manufacturing of personalised medicines: a scoping review

“…It places emphasis on issues of global justice between different people of the present generation (intragenerational justice across people separated by space) as well as people of different generations (intergenerational justice across people separated by time)(105,106). The sustainable development model has been heavily criticised because economic aspects are often prioritised at the expense of environmental and/or social implications(107), and while the principle may offer a moral 'north star' it is not particularly useful in practice when tensions arise(108). Moral tensions are never easy to solve and frameworks can often only outline what and how to consider, but not necessarily what decisions to make.…”