Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee
Biographic Data
| ID | 354420 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee |
| GIVEN NAMES | Subhabrata Bobby |
| FAMILY NAME | Banerjee |
| SIGNATURE | BANERJEE S B |
| AFFILIATIONS | City, University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8699-6368 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 611 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 32 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Business and Environmental Justice
The Biodiversity Moonshot
Biodiversity has recently gained increased attention in sustainability management research. It sustains the ecosystems on which organizations depend, while simultaneously being threatened by organizational activities. By highlighting this dynamic of impact and dependence, the integration of biodiversity into management discourse offers an opportunity to foster a more holistic understanding of the business–nature relationship, grounded in a system…
Environmental Racism and Climate (In)Justice in the Anthropocene
In this paper, we are situated in postcolonial, decolonial, and feminist epistemologies to study environmental racism in the Anthropocene—a new geological epoch where human activity has changed the functioning of the earth. Drawing from critiques of the Anthropocene, the concept of racial capitalism, as well as environmental justice and racism scholarship, we show how proposed solutions to the climate crisis overlook and may even exacerbate racia…
Resistance is fertile
There are more than 3000 ongoing conflicts involving the extractive industries (mining, gas, and oil) and communities impacted by extractive activity. Most of these conflicts are in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In this paper we examine three resistance movements in Brazil, Chile, and India where Indigenous groups are resisting mining operations on their lands. We argue these movements represent forms of translocal …
(Un)Sustainability and Organization Studies
In this essay, we trace the evolution of the field of sustainability in management and organization studies and narrate its epistemological twists and turns. Concerned by the current trajectory that tends to diminish a focus on political concerns, we propose a new research agenda, an ecological case for business, that transforms our paradigmatic orientation in four shifts: (1) altering our epistemological lenses from managerial to critical perspe…
Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood
In this article, we examine the shifting roles played by non-state actors in governing areas of limited statehood. In particular, we focus on the emergence of voluntary grassroots organizations in Palestine and describe how regimes of international development aid transformed these organizations into professional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that created new forms of colonial control. Based on in-depth interviews with 145 NGO members and …
Theoretical perspectives on organizations and organizing in a post-growth era
The fundamental assumption we base this Special Issue on is that narrow concepts of growth have become the ruling ideas of this age, entrenched both in everyday life and to a considerable extent in the theoretical thinking and traditions of research conducted by organization and management studies scholars. We explain how tacit (or overt) endorsement of unbridled economic growth (the growth imperative) has pernicious practical effects and how it …
Decolonizing Deliberative Democracy
In this paper I provide a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. Legacies of colonialism have generally been overlooked in theories of democracy. These omissions challenge several key assumptions of deliberative democracy. I argue that deliberative democracy does not travel well outside Western sites and its key assumptions begin to unravel in the 'developing' regions of the world. The context for a decolonial cri…
Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood
In this paper we describe the role played by non-state actors in governing areas of limited statehood. In particular we focus on the emergence of voluntary grassroots organizations in Palestine and describe how regimes of international development aid transformed these organizations into professional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that created new economic, social and political realities. Based on in-depth interviews with 145 NGO members a…
Transnational power and translocal governance
In this article, I provide a critical analysis of the politics of corporate social responsibility. I argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations to exercise power in the global political economy. Using the global extractive industries as a context, I focus on conflicts between communities, the state and multinational corporations that arise owing to the negative social and environmental impacts…
Microfinance and the business of poverty reduction
In this article we provide a critical analysis of the role of market-based approaches to poverty reduction in developing countries. In particular, we analyse the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation by conducting an ethnographic study of three villages in Bangladesh. Microfinance has become an increasingly popular approach that aims to alleviate poverty by providing the poor new opportunities for entrepreneurship. It also aims to promote e…
When performativity fails
This article argues that recent calls in this journal and elsewhere for Critical Management Studies scholars to embrace rather than reject performativity presents an overly optimistic view of (a) the power of language to achieve emancipatory organizational change and (b) the capability of lone Critical Management Studies researchers to resignify management discourses. We introduce the notion of failed performatives to extend this argument and dis…
A critical perspective on corporate social responsibility
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that there are structural and functional limits to corporate social responsibility (CSR) that determine the boundary conditions of corporate social initiatives. The current preoccupation with win-win situations in CSR may not serve societal interests. For CSR to produce social outcomes that are not necessarily constrained by corporate rationality there needs to be a change in the normative framework…
Conflict and Astroturfing in Niyamgiri
Traditional models of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) and stakeholder management do not capture the nuance and dynamics of (counter-)organizing processes around anti-corporate mobilization. Based on the case of a resistance movement against a planned bauxite mine on tribal land in India, we develop a process theory of interactions between local, national and international actors within transnational advocacy networks. These encounters are …
Voices of the Governed
In this article I want to interrogate the political, economic, and social conditions that enable the extraction of natural and mineral resources from Indigenous and rural communities in Africa, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific. The end of direct colonialism and the emergence of the development state did not necessarily translate into forms of local sovereignty for these communities who bore the brunt of development. I describe the emergence of …
Organizations, Markets and Imperial Formations
Contents:Part I: INTRODUCTION1. The Imperial Formations of GlobalizationSubhabrata Bobby Banerjee, Vanessa C.M. Chio and Raza MirPART II: THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURE AND THE REINVENTION OF NATURE 2. On 'Cultural' Knowledge in International Management Textbooks: A Postcolonial ReadingMartin Fougere and Agneta Moulettes3. Sustainable Development in the Age of Natural Capitalism: Making the World While Saving ProfitsMartin Fougere and Nikodemus Soli…
Managing Globalization
© Oxford University Press, 2013. This article discusses some approaches to globalization that contribute to a critical management studies (CMS) agenda. The vast majority of the literature in management and organization theory takes an inveterately mainstream approach to globalization and lacks a critical perspective. Articles in scholarly journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies and the Colombia Journal of World Business ten…
Organizations, markets and imperial formations
Explores the nexus between organization theory, globalization and imperialism. This work explores how interconnections between organization theory, the shift to markets and globalization have led to the perpetuation of inequality and active reconfigurations of life, labour and the economy
Hegemony and its discontents
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of knowledge transfer within multinational corporations (MNCs), and how the imperatives of thought and action that constitute new knowledge are received in the terrain that constitutes the MNC subsidiary. Design/methodology/approach - This study employs an ethnographic approach, and juxtaposes primary data collection with a variety of secondary data sources. Findings - The data are …
Introduction to the special issue on “Critical reflections on management and organizations
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a short note on postcolonialism as a field of critical inquiry in the business management field, and enable the guest editors to introduce the contents of a special issue entitled “Critical reflections on management and organization: a postcolonial perspective”. Design/methodology/approach The paper states that postcolonial theory seeks to critique and analyze the complex and multifaceted dynamics o…
Necrocapitalism
In this paper I develop the concept of necrocapitalism, defined as contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossession and the subjugation of life to the power of death. I examine how different forms of power - institutional, material, and discursive - operate in the political economy and the violence and dispossession that result. I describe some contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossessio…
Corporate Social Responsibility
In this article I critically analyze contemporary discourses of corporate social responsibility and related discourses of sustainability and corporate citizenship. I argue that despite their emancipatory rhetoric, discourses of corporate citizenship, social responsibility and sustainability are defined by narrow business interests and serve to curtail interests of external stakeholders. I provide an alternate perspective, one that views discourse…
Corporate Social Responsibility
This challenging and somewhat controversial book provides a critical perspective on contemporary discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee questions the win-win assumptions of CSR and identifies the limits of the good that corporations can do, illustrating that the ability of firms to enhance social welfare is constrained by their current form and purpose; that of a shareholder value maximizing entity
Make that sixty-seven
Masking Subversion
Sustainability and sound ecological management of the natural environment, allied to the expanding body of work on managing tacit and explicit knowledge, has led to an increased interest in the contribution which anthropology can make to the practical adaptation of indigenous environmental knowledge and practice to the improvement of organization in western societies. In an exemplary ethnographic study of an indigenous beaver trapper belonging to…
Corporate Social Responsibility
In this article I critically analyze contemporary discourses of corporate social responsibility and related discourses of sustainability and corporate citizenship. I argue that despite their emancipatory rhetoric, discourses of corporate citizenship, social responsibility and sustainability are defined by narrow business interests and serve to curtail interests of external stakeholders. I provide an alternate perspective, one that views discourse…
Necrocapitalism
In this paper I develop the concept of necrocapitalism, defined as contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossession and the subjugation of life to the power of death. I examine how different forms of power - institutional, material, and discursive - operate in the political economy and the violence and dispossession that result. I describe some contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossessio…
Voices of the Governed
In this article I want to interrogate the political, economic, and social conditions that enable the extraction of natural and mineral resources from Indigenous and rural communities in Africa, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific. The end of direct colonialism and the emergence of the development state did not necessarily translate into forms of local sovereignty for these communities who bore the brunt of development. I describe the emergence of …
Transnational power and translocal governance
In this article, I provide a critical analysis of the politics of corporate social responsibility. I argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations to exercise power in the global political economy. Using the global extractive industries as a context, I focus on conflicts between communities, the state and multinational corporations that arise owing to the negative social and environmental impacts…
Microfinance and the business of poverty reduction
In this article we provide a critical analysis of the role of market-based approaches to poverty reduction in developing countries. In particular, we analyse the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation by conducting an ethnographic study of three villages in Bangladesh. Microfinance has become an increasingly popular approach that aims to alleviate poverty by providing the poor new opportunities for entrepreneurship. It also aims to promote e…
Introduction to the special issue on “Critical reflections on management and organizations
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a short note on postcolonialism as a field of critical inquiry in the business management field, and enable the guest editors to introduce the contents of a special issue entitled “Critical reflections on management and organization: a postcolonial perspective”. Design/methodology/approach The paper states that postcolonial theory seeks to critique and analyze the complex and multifaceted dynamics o…
White diasporas
While contemporary media studies in Australia has focused on theories of race and representation across different media, research on the intersection of whiteness and media studies is still an emergent field. Theorising whiteness within media studies also requires taking account of the national-local formation of whiteness within Australia. Furthermore, Joseph Pugliese has pointed to the importance of theorising whiteness as an embodied, historic…
When performativity fails
This article argues that recent calls in this journal and elsewhere for Critical Management Studies scholars to embrace rather than reject performativity presents an overly optimistic view of (a) the power of language to achieve emancipatory organizational change and (b) the capability of lone Critical Management Studies researchers to resignify management discourses. We introduce the notion of failed performatives to extend this argument and dis…
Masking Subversion
Sustainability and sound ecological management of the natural environment, allied to the expanding body of work on managing tacit and explicit knowledge, has led to an increased interest in the contribution which anthropology can make to the practical adaptation of indigenous environmental knowledge and practice to the improvement of organization in western societies. In an exemplary ethnographic study of an indigenous beaver trapper belonging to…
Decolonizing Deliberative Democracy
In this paper I provide a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. Legacies of colonialism have generally been overlooked in theories of democracy. These omissions challenge several key assumptions of deliberative democracy. I argue that deliberative democracy does not travel well outside Western sites and its key assumptions begin to unravel in the 'developing' regions of the world. The context for a decolonial cri…
Make that sixty-seven
Silences of the media
This article examines the disjunctures in representations of indigenous Australian histories in the Australian media. In this article we attempt to align stories of the past with present narratives of nationhood in a radical manner so as to uncover the modes of institutionalized silences which govern public discourses with regard to Aboriginal histories. By focusing on the media coverage of the Port Arthur incident in Tasmania, where a lone gunma…
Shades of Green
Environmental appeals are becoming increasingly common in advertising, but all green ads are not created equal. The authors report the results of a content analysis designed to uncover the underlying structure of green advertising. A convenience sample of 95 green TV ads and 173 green print ads were content-analyzed. Multidimensional analysis indicates that the structure of green advertising can be captured in three dimensions: sponsor type (for-…
Whose Land Is It Anyway? National Interest, Indigenous Stakeholders, and Colonial Discourses
In this article, the author examines the case of the highly controversial Jabiluka uranium mine that was recently given the green signal by the Australian government. The mine, to be constructed in the heart of the Kakadu National Park (home to the Mirrar people and a World Heritage site) has been the topic of public debate and controversy involving Aboriginal communities, political parties, the mining industry, and environmentalists. By examinin…
Silences of the media
This article examines the disjunctures in representations of indigenous Australian histories in the Australian media. In this article we attempt to align stories of the past with present narratives of nationhood in a radical manner so as to uncover the modes of institutionalized silences which govern public discourses with regard to Aboriginal histories. By focusing on the media coverage of the Port Arthur incident in Tasmania, where a lone gunma…
Globalization, Multiculturalism and Other Fictions
In this paper, we critically examine different discourses of globalization and explore how concepts of globalization have been represented in organizational theory. We argue that, despite its celebratory rhetoric of `one world, many peoples', notions of globalization are inextricably linked with the continued development of First World economies, creating new forms of colonial control in the so-called `post-colonial' era. Thus, globalization beco…
The Practice of Stakeholder Colonialism
After decades of struggle, the land rights of Aboriginal people of Australia were finally recognized by the Native Title Act of 1993. Recognition of Native Title overturned the long-standing view that Australia was terra nullius—land belonging to no one—and finally recognized the rights of Aboriginal people over their illegally occupied land. While this was hailed as a major milestone in the process of reconciliation between indigenous and non-in…
Corporate Environmentalism
How does a business firm manage its relationship with the natural environment? What are the factors that influence the choice of such strategies? Does industry type matter? The authors introduce and operationalize the concept of corporate environmentalism in an effort to answer these questions. Using stakeholder theory, the authors identify four important antecedents to corporate environmentalism, namely, public concern, regulatory forces, compet…
Who Sustains Whose Development? Sustainable Development and the Reinvention of Nature
This paper explores the contradictions inherent in one of the more popular buzzwords of today: sustainable development. I argue that, despite claims of a paradigm shift, the sustainable development paradigm is based on an economic, not ecological, rationality. Discourses of sustainable development embody a view of nature specified by modern economic thought. One consequence of this discourse involves the transformation of ‘nature’ into ‘environme…
Masking Subversion
Sustainability and sound ecological management of the natural environment, allied to the expanding body of work on managing tacit and explicit knowledge, has led to an increased interest in the contribution which anthropology can make to the practical adaptation of indigenous environmental knowledge and practice to the improvement of organization in western societies. In an exemplary ethnographic study of an indigenous beaver trapper belonging to…
White diasporas
While contemporary media studies in Australia has focused on theories of race and representation across different media, research on the intersection of whiteness and media studies is still an emergent field. Theorising whiteness within media studies also requires taking account of the national-local formation of whiteness within Australia. Furthermore, Joseph Pugliese has pointed to the importance of theorising whiteness as an embodied, historic…
Make that sixty-seven
Corporate Social Responsibility
This challenging and somewhat controversial book provides a critical perspective on contemporary discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee questions the win-win assumptions of CSR and identifies the limits of the good that corporations can do, illustrating that the ability of firms to enhance social welfare is constrained by their current form and purpose; that of a shareholder value maximizing entity
Hegemony and its discontents
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of knowledge transfer within multinational corporations (MNCs), and how the imperatives of thought and action that constitute new knowledge are received in the terrain that constitutes the MNC subsidiary. Design/methodology/approach - This study employs an ethnographic approach, and juxtaposes primary data collection with a variety of secondary data sources. Findings - The data are …
Introduction to the special issue on “Critical reflections on management and organizations
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a short note on postcolonialism as a field of critical inquiry in the business management field, and enable the guest editors to introduce the contents of a special issue entitled “Critical reflections on management and organization: a postcolonial perspective”. Design/methodology/approach The paper states that postcolonial theory seeks to critique and analyze the complex and multifaceted dynamics o…
Necrocapitalism
In this paper I develop the concept of necrocapitalism, defined as contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossession and the subjugation of life to the power of death. I examine how different forms of power - institutional, material, and discursive - operate in the political economy and the violence and dispossession that result. I describe some contemporary forms of organizational accumulation that involve dispossessio…
Corporate Social Responsibility
In this article I critically analyze contemporary discourses of corporate social responsibility and related discourses of sustainability and corporate citizenship. I argue that despite their emancipatory rhetoric, discourses of corporate citizenship, social responsibility and sustainability are defined by narrow business interests and serve to curtail interests of external stakeholders. I provide an alternate perspective, one that views discourse…
Organizations, Markets and Imperial Formations
Contents:Part I: INTRODUCTION1. The Imperial Formations of GlobalizationSubhabrata Bobby Banerjee, Vanessa C.M. Chio and Raza MirPART II: THE CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURE AND THE REINVENTION OF NATURE 2. On 'Cultural' Knowledge in International Management Textbooks: A Postcolonial ReadingMartin Fougere and Agneta Moulettes3. Sustainable Development in the Age of Natural Capitalism: Making the World While Saving ProfitsMartin Fougere and Nikodemus Soli…
Managing Globalization
© Oxford University Press, 2013. This article discusses some approaches to globalization that contribute to a critical management studies (CMS) agenda. The vast majority of the literature in management and organization theory takes an inveterately mainstream approach to globalization and lacks a critical perspective. Articles in scholarly journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies and the Colombia Journal of World Business ten…
Organizations, markets and imperial formations
Explores the nexus between organization theory, globalization and imperialism. This work explores how interconnections between organization theory, the shift to markets and globalization have led to the perpetuation of inequality and active reconfigurations of life, labour and the economy
Voices of the Governed
In this article I want to interrogate the political, economic, and social conditions that enable the extraction of natural and mineral resources from Indigenous and rural communities in Africa, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific. The end of direct colonialism and the emergence of the development state did not necessarily translate into forms of local sovereignty for these communities who bore the brunt of development. I describe the emergence of …
Conflict and Astroturfing in Niyamgiri
Traditional models of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) and stakeholder management do not capture the nuance and dynamics of (counter-)organizing processes around anti-corporate mobilization. Based on the case of a resistance movement against a planned bauxite mine on tribal land in India, we develop a process theory of interactions between local, national and international actors within transnational advocacy networks. These encounters are …
A critical perspective on corporate social responsibility
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that there are structural and functional limits to corporate social responsibility (CSR) that determine the boundary conditions of corporate social initiatives. The current preoccupation with win-win situations in CSR may not serve societal interests. For CSR to produce social outcomes that are not necessarily constrained by corporate rationality there needs to be a change in the normative framework…
When performativity fails
This article argues that recent calls in this journal and elsewhere for Critical Management Studies scholars to embrace rather than reject performativity presents an overly optimistic view of (a) the power of language to achieve emancipatory organizational change and (b) the capability of lone Critical Management Studies researchers to resignify management discourses. We introduce the notion of failed performatives to extend this argument and dis…
Microfinance and the business of poverty reduction
In this article we provide a critical analysis of the role of market-based approaches to poverty reduction in developing countries. In particular, we analyse the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation by conducting an ethnographic study of three villages in Bangladesh. Microfinance has become an increasingly popular approach that aims to alleviate poverty by providing the poor new opportunities for entrepreneurship. It also aims to promote e…
Transnational power and translocal governance
In this article, I provide a critical analysis of the politics of corporate social responsibility. I argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations to exercise power in the global political economy. Using the global extractive industries as a context, I focus on conflicts between communities, the state and multinational corporations that arise owing to the negative social and environmental impacts…
Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood
In this paper we describe the role played by non-state actors in governing areas of limited statehood. In particular we focus on the emergence of voluntary grassroots organizations in Palestine and describe how regimes of international development aid transformed these organizations into professional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that created new economic, social and political realities. Based on in-depth interviews with 145 NGO members a…
Sociology (23 works) · Political science (21 works) · Politics (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Economics (13 works) · Social science (12 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (10 works) · Business (9 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Environmental ethics (7 works)