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CSR research has tended to overlook the complexity of different managers' values, interests, ideologies and identities within organisations, which compete for the organisation's stance on CSR. In this paper, we draw upon the theory of strategic action fields, which melds insights from institutional and social movement theories, to present a political model of the internal contest for CSR. Based on interviews with 26 middle-upper managers, we theorise that CSR is formed internally by an overt contest for CSR between incumbent-abdicators and challenger-activists, and covert actions by challenger-activists that navigate the ongoing reproduction of organisational processes. The interpretation of events and choice of strategic actions by incumbent-abdicators and challenger-activists is influenced by the structural conditions of political opportunity and praxis transformation, and the personal conditions of moral shock and managerial biography. As such our model frames CSR as a manifestation of a dynamic, political contest between the key actors of the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to develop Fligstein and McAdam's theory of strategic action fields (2011; 2012). This perspective relates field development patterns to the interactions between different typologies of actors: incumbents, challengers and internal governance units (IGUS). In this paper we focus on the role, behavior and changing strategies of internal governance units (IGUS) which are an essential component in field level settlements but have been largely under-researched. Based on a 60-year study of the development of the UK management consulting field, we examine the changing relationship patterns between various types of internal governance units and different waves of challengers and incumbents. In particular, we show how IGUS are not limited to a passive and conservative role as posited by Fligstein and McAdam (2012) but are capable of pursuing more independent courses of action. Based on our exploratory study, we seek to better theorize these complex behaviours of IGUS, their relations with other field members and their role in field evolution dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the strategic action field perspective (Fligstein, 2013; Fligstein and McAdam, 2012) in exploring the dynamics of competition in the American Film Industry. The paper specifically focuses on the period prior to the establishment of the major Hollywood studios as the dominant players in the 1930s, and explores their role as challengers against the incumbents led by the Industry's first cartel, the Motion Picture Patents Company (the "Trust"). I argue that the strategic action field perspective helps provide valuable insights into the dynamics of emergence, change, and stability in this field through its unique articulation of incumbents, challengers, and socially skilled actors--as well as these actors' interactions with one another and adjacent fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) constitute a newcomer to the field of higher education. To understand the emergence of a new Strategic Action Field (SAF), we apply exploratory semantic network analysis to determine how incumbents and challengers apply their social skills in influencing discourse around MOOCs to foster acceptance or rejection of this new phenomenon. For that purpose, we analyse the discourse arising around the MOOCs generated by incumbents - represented by the major newspaper specialized on news from higher education - and challengers - a MOOC platform. We first perform semantic analysis to determine central concepts and major themes that dominated the discourse over the different time periods and then conduct sentiment analysis of the titles to understand the implicit attitudes associated with MOOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]