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Constructing Consumer Responsibility: Exploring the Role of Corporate Communications

Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, robert.caruana{at}mbs.ac.uk

Andrew Crane

Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Canada, acrane{at}schulich.yorku.ca

This article examines the role of corporations in constructing the nature, meaning and implications of `consumer responsibility'. It draws on a theoretical framework that elaborates how objects, subjects and concepts are configured in organizational discourse. Using critical discourse analysis, it reveals how consumer responsibility is organized into meaningful cultural knowledge through corporate communications. The findings suggest that such communications rely on strategic juxtapositions that offer a morally unconflicting concept of consumer responsibility that is facilitative of market choice.

Key Words: consumer responsibility • corporate communications • discourse • power • morality • responsible tourism • corporate social responsibility

Organization Studies, Vol. 29, No. 12, 1495-1519 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840607096387


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