Between "philanthropy" and "corporate strategy" : a critical analysis of power, resistance, motivation and process within community-corporate engagement

Abstract

The emergence and increasing significance of corporate philanthropy, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and community-corporate engagement in the Australian welfare context, has presented new opportunities and challenges to community-based organisations. Such trends have occurred within a wider political, economic and social context, typified by a devolving Welfare State, and the expansion of neo-liberalism as a "cure-all" to enduring issues concerning third sector legitimacy and sustainability. However, underlying relations of power have continued to pervade seemingly benign concepts such as "philanthropy", "engagement" and "partnerships". These factors prove to be often omitted from discussions about the future of the third sector, and relationships between corporations and community sector organisations. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the nature and extent of power as a relational force within the field of community-corporate engagement. This research undertook a collaborative, multi-phased method, utilising a combination of surveys, semi-structured interviews, and a day-long "search conference" to explore the experiences, tensions and opportunities experienced by participants from both the community and corporate sectors. Both pragmatic and critical objectives underpinned this research. The practical objectives were: 1. The development of a comprehensive understanding of cross-sector collaborations, with a specific focus upon the opportunities and inequities located within existing practice. This exploratory research will result in; 2. The creation of a final tool kit designed to assist local community sector organisations to more effectively engage with the corporate sector. This tool kit (in the form of a resource handbook) would be developed in consultation with community and corporate sector practitioners. While these pragmatic objectives are assessed within this thesis, this research was particularly concerned with the role of participatory action research (PAR) in fostering greater democratic dialogue between participants from both sectors. More specifically, this thesis provides an assessment of the attempts made to shift power within community-corporate relationships, while considering the ongoing implications of this process inclusively. This research employed the combined framework of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992, 2003, 2010) and researcher reflexivity to assess power dynamics within the research texts and wider PAR process. A key finding of this study was that a "strategic" corporate discourse has increasingly underpinned the motivations, processes and activities within community-corporate engagement, resulting in new forms of inequities and tensions, particularly for small community organisations. Similar tensions were also located within the university-industry research partnership, leading to further critical insight. An analysis of interactions during the search conference, and developments subsequent to the research process, have raised the spectre of an emerging resistance to instrumental positioning "" opening up new possibilities for alternative discourses, motivations and agendas to emerge. These findings are assessed with reference to their implications on future research, as well as applied practice.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	English