In modern society the global corporations are considered among the most powerful actors in terms of resources, geographical reach and decision power. Accordingly, the scope of corporate social responsibilities is constantly expanding, making companies take on new public responsibilities to fill governance gaps left by governments. In this regard political CSR research corpus has emerged seeking to theorize a new political role of the business in globalized world. The principal assumption of PCSR research corpus is the shift of regulatory authority from government to corporations leading to substitution of government by powerful corporate actors. However, this largely uncontested axiomatic assumption has faced significant criticism among scholars who argue that while the governments may be losing some power in some spheres they still play a significant role in governing business conduct (Eberlein, 2019; Kourula et al., 2019a; Schrempf-Stirling, 2018). Seeking to address this fair criticism, we attempt to refine the political CSR concept by bringing insights from social control perspective on organizational misconduct. Drawing on the social control account of organizational misconduct, we contend that in the modern globalized world global corporations are taking on the role of social-control agents rather than substituting the state authorities. Thus, this conceptual paper provides an alternative theorization of the role of global business actors within the process of global governance. We limit our conceptual analysis to the scope of global value chain/global production network. We believe that bringing the insights from social control perspective may contribute to the development of political CSR concept in following ways. First, it refines the principle problematic assumption of PCSR contending that at the level of global production network global corporations are taking on a role of social-control agents rather than substituting the state government. Second, such conceptualization allows for more contextualized approach to global governance through CSR since the notion of misconduct is being constructed by social control agents depending on the time and context. Third, such conceptualization allows for collaborative interaction between private and public authority and is not limited by substitution assumption, thus, opening new avenues for expanding the scope and focus of political CSR concept.
