Neuroliberalism as a Deliberate Corporate Governmentality Project by the Private Sector

Using the Foucauldian genealogical approach to the concept of behaviour change programmes, and imagining that these behaviour change programmes manifested through the CSR initiatives, the landscape of the dominant political economic tradition, something new is revealed: a project in corporate governmentality operating today. Some of the CSR programmes deviate from the established understanding of CSR. Carroll (2008) established six categories that CSR programmes fell into, although not exhaustive and with other scholars categorisations (Garriga & Mele, 2004)there is still a specific type of CSR initiative that multi-national companies (MNCs) are engaging in that does not fall into any category. Specifically, there are forms of behaviour change initiatives that are being pursued by MNCs that have nothing to do with corporate social marketing, the lens through which Carroll associated behaviour change initiatives in CSR, but that are still being labelled as CSR by the MNCs engaging in these types of initiatives. The initiatives that have been neglected in this categorisation are unique and embody several specific properties that differentiate them the from the existing CSR narrative.
The debates from a neo-classical perspective in the liberal economic tradition surrounding the role of the private sector can be seen from multiple stand points, that of Friedman (2002 [1982]) for whom the private sector has no role or responsibility in society apart from the generation and maximization of profits, so emphatic is he in this position that he says, "few trend could so thoroughly undermine the foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible" (Friedman, 1962 as quoted in Carroll, 2008). In contrast to this, there is the theoretical development of the concepts of CSR as being equivalent to the concept of the public sector becoming citizen-like entities that do have a responsibility to society. This is developed considerably in the work of Matten and Crane (2005); the label of corporate citizenship that is fungible with CSR, and has been developing historically since the work of Bowen (1953) in his musings on the responsibilities of the businessman.
With the debate raging on a theoretical level of political economy scant research has been directed towards the identification or evaluation of case studies, CSR that does not fit in to the typical CSR definition (those described previously), nor has there been research into the motivations and intentionality of the contemporary private sector actors that are engaging in them. These are private sector actors who intentionally assume a governance role for the explicit purpose of constructing or managing the socio-economic environment as a project in corporate governmentality through these activities. Therefore, the central research question of this project is: is there evidence that the current private sector, though its use of the unique type of CSR initiatives described above, can be considered a deliberate corporate governmentality project?