Ursula Mühle

Institute for World Society Studies
Faculty of Sociology
University of Bielefeld
P.O. Box 100 131
33501 Bielefeld
room U10-116
phone +49 (0)521 106 4692 (until 2009, March)
fax     +49 (0)521 106 89024

ursula.muehle@uni-bielefeld.de

My dissertation project is concerned with the institutionalisation and global diffusion of corporate social responsibility (CSR). I argue that CSR has been institutionalised within the “World Culture” or “World Polity”. Since the last 10 years it is being diffused worldwide by and to companies. This is mainly due to the diffusion by world cultural actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or international organizations (IOs). However, companies themselves play an active part in this process as they are not only passive recipients of political programs but have become active “political” actors themselves. For example, they are part of multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Global Compact or the Global Reporting Initiative. Thus they actively shape the worldviews on how labour-, environmental and anti-corruption standards have to look like, diffuse them and interpret them within their companies` culture.
While analysing the Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative, I ask following questions: Why do we only recently observe the institutionalisation of CSR? What are the mechanisms of the diffusions and what findings about the diffusion patterns do we gain? What exact role do companies play within this process? How do companies interpret the CSR-Norm? Do they only use them as marketing tools or can we find deeper engagement? Does every company interpret the CSR norm in the same way or do we find differences between companies?
With answering these questions, my dissertations want to gain further insights into the institutionalisation, diffusion and impacts of norms. Especially, it wants to illustrate the role companies play within this process. Thus my work locates itself to a growing scholarly literature being concerned with the impact of norms and ideas on politics. These works argue that the impact of norms can not always be related back to material conditions or force but have to be linked to the interpretation process of norms itself. Only after a norm has been interpreted, it can develop impact on actors. However, most of the (political science) literatur focuses on norms which are addressed to states or political actors. My project, however, is concerned with the CSR-norm being addressed to economic actors, nameley companies (although it may still be constructed by political or civil society actors). Thus, the dissertations’ main idea is to transfer the concept of the norm life cycle from states to companies in order to get an deeper understanding of the transformation of political processes.
Additionally, I want to contribute to the neo-institutional world society theory. This school has conducted a huge amount of research on organizations – including companies – which analyse diffusion processes of organizational/management ideas between and within organizations. However, there exist almost no projects which have related these ideas to the world polity approach. This would imply to ask about the active role of companies within the world society – complementary to IOs and NGOs.
Methodologically my work is characterized by a “Triangulation”. One the one hand I draw back to qualitative research methods such as literature or document analysis, expert interviews and a participatory observation. Moreover, I also explore quantitative methods such as descriptive or multivariate statistics in order to learn more about the diffusion patterns of the CSR norm.

Neo-Institutional Theory, Sociological Theory, Organization Studies, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Governance, Human Rights

1997 – 2004

Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich

M.Sc. (Diplom) Sociology (minors: Economics and Communication Studies),

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Beck

2001 - 2002

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

General Course Studies in Sociology, Economics and International Relations Studium

1997

A-Level (Abitur), Ignaz-Taschner-Gymnasium Dachau

September 2005 –
December 2006

University of Bielefeld, Institute for World Society Studies

Managing Director

June – December 2004

32nd Congress of the German Sociological Association (DGS)

Press Officer

April 2003 –
December 2003

Institute for Sociology, Munich, Office Assistant

2006 / 2007

Co-Instructor, University of Bielefeld, “Are Companies the better developmental actors?”

1999 / 2000

Teaching Assistant, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, “Introduction to Sociology”

1999

Teaching Assistant, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, “Methods and Techniques of Empirical Research”

Ursula Mühle: Laudatio zur Verleihung des René-König-Lehrbuchpreises an Nicole Burzan. In: Rehberg, Karl-Siegbert (Hrsg.): Soziale Ungleichheit, Kulturelle Unterschiede. Verhandlungen des 32. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in München 2004, Teil 1, S. 61-62

Ursula Mühle: Die Rückkehr der Soziologie in die Gesellschaft. Reaktionen der Medien auf den 32. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie. In: Soziologie – Forum der deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie. Heft 1.2005, S. 28 – 33

March 2007

Accepted for a presentation at the 3rd workshop on neo-institutional organizational studies,  Bergamo

December 2006

„A Global Norm of Corporate Social Responsibility“. Presentation at the Seminar: „Theories of World Society“, Bielefeld

Novermber 2006

„A Global Norm of Corporate Social Responsibility“. Presentation at the Kolloqium of the DFG Research Training Group „World Concepts and global structural patterns“, Bielefeld

December 2006 – present

German Research Foundation (DFG), scholarship for PhD research

March 2005

German Study Award of the Körberfoundation, 3rd Place
Paper: „Mythos Markt. Die ökonomische, rechtliche und soziale Gestaltung der Arbeitswelt.“ (The myth of the market: economic, legal and social arrangement of the working world”

August – September 2004

Research Grant of the Eberhard von Kuenheim Foundation, Foundation of BMW AG
Projec on “Theresienthal: Unternehmerische Initiative für den Arbeitsmarkt“ (Entrepreneurial Initiative for the labour market)