School for Health, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom.
PLoS Med. 2011 Aug;8(8):e1001076. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001076. Epub 2011 Aug 23.
Recent attempts by large tobacco companies to represent themselves as socially responsible have been widely dismissed as image management. Existing research supports such claims by pointing to the failings and misleading nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. However, few studies have focused in depth on what tobacco companies hoped to achieve through CSR or reflected on the extent to which these ambitions have been realised.
Iterative searching relating to CSR strategies was undertaken of internal British American Tobacco (BAT) documents, released through litigation in the US. Relevant documents (764) were indexed and qualitatively analysed. In the past decade, BAT has actively developed a wide-ranging CSR programme. Company documents indicate that one of the key aims of this programme was to help the company secure access to policymakers and, thereby, increase the company's chances of influencing policy decisions. Taking the UK as a case study, this paper demonstrates the way in which CSR can be used to renew and maintain dialogue with policymakers, even in ostensibly unreceptive political contexts. In practice, the impact of this political use of CSR is likely to be context specific; depending on factors such as policy élites' understanding of the credibility of companies as a reliable source of information.
The findings suggest that tobacco company CSR strategies can enable access to and dialogue with policymakers and provide opportunities for issue definition. CSR should therefore be seen as a form of corporate political activity. This underlines the need for broad implementation of Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Measures are needed to ensure transparency of interactions between all parts of government and the tobacco industry and for policy makers to be made more aware of what companies hope to achieve through CSR.
大型烟草公司最近试图表现出对社会责任的关注，这些努力被广泛视为形象管理，这种说法已得到广泛认同。现有研究通过指出企业社会责任（CSR）举措的失败和误导性，支持了这种说法。然而，很少有研究深入关注烟草公司希望通过企业社会责任实现什么目标，也没有反映这些目标在多大程度上得以实现。
对英美烟草公司（BAT）内部与企业社会责任战略相关的文件进行了迭代搜索，这些文件是通过美国的诉讼程序公布的。对 764 份相关文件进行了索引和定性分析。在过去的十年中，英美烟草公司积极制定了广泛的企业社会责任计划。公司文件表明，该计划的主要目标之一是帮助公司获得决策者的支持，从而增加公司影响政策决策的机会。本文以英国为例，展示了企业社会责任如何用于与决策者保持和更新对话，即使在表面上不受欢迎的政治环境中也是如此。实际上，这种政治用途的企业社会责任的影响可能因具体情况而异；取决于政策精英对公司作为可靠信息来源的可信度的理解等因素。
研究结果表明，烟草公司的企业社会责任战略可以为决策者提供获取和对话的机会，并为问题定义提供机会。因此，应将企业社会责任视为一种企业政治活动。这突显了需要广泛实施《烟草控制框架公约》第 5.3 条。需要采取措施确保政府各部门与烟草行业之间的互动透明，并使政策制定者更加了解公司希望通过企业社会责任实现什么目标。
