Exploring ISO 26000 and Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI): a neoinstitutional analysis of two CSR institutions

In the last decade or so, organizations have witnessed corporate social responsibility (CSR) increasingly becoming part of the mainstream business practice and expectation. CSR has, in many ways been institutionalized as a standard practice for mainly large companies, especially MNCs. At various levels, ranging from individual company level to international level, a wide range of institutional arrangements and structures of CSR have been established, maintained and diffused in order to provide “a logic of appropriateness” and “give the expression and direction” (Campbell, 2006, p. 926) of CSR. However, in the context of institutionalization, these institutional arrangements of CSR have not been examined systematically. In particular, little attention has been given to the comparative analysis of two leading institutions of CSR: ISO 26000 and Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI). Adopting an analytical framework based on neo-institutional theory, this article explores and analyses both GRI and ISO 26000.