Inter-organizational infrastructure for communication

This longitudinal case study of the controversy surrounding Nike’s shoe production from 1993-2004 examines the infrastructure that evolved for communicating about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues among the actors in the controversy. In contrast to conventional views about strategies and instrumentation for communicating CSR that highlights the decision-making of management, the present study highlights how the inter-organizational communication context contributes to the invention and reinvention of CSR strategies and instruments. By mapping the evolving web of relationships among actors, moves, and instruments of communication over the course of the controversy, the study articulates the infrastructure for communication about CSR issues. Infrastructure for communication is defined as the repertoire of rules, materials and practices that provides a tacit framework through which the ambiguities of meaning and action are managed. The study shows how the infrastructure evolved relative to the demands for interaction. The main finding of the study is that infrastructure shaped how the organizations behaved by acting as a coordinating device for the invention and reinvention of the symbolic and material qualities of inter-organizational communication and interaction. Furthermore, the implication of this finding is that it provides a new way of looking at how the communication process itself shapes inter-organizational behavior.