Securing Meaningfulness in Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring meaning-making mechanisms via economies of worth

Research approach

Adopting an exploratory qualitative approach, we mainly relied on semi-structured interviews to elicit respondents’ narratives of meaning-making in CSR work. We used questions that encouraged a form of account analysis, where participants shared meanings and reasons for individual choices and behaviours (Frey, Botan, & Kreps, 2000) in relation to their work. We asked about their aspirations for their work, the meaning the work held for them, the tensions they faced as CSR practitioners and how they overcame such tensions (see Table 1 for the list of questions). We relied on open-ended and follow-up questions to facilitate in-depth exploration of the practitioners’ complex meaning-making processes.

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Table 1.

Semi-structured Interview Questions.

Demographic questions

1. Can you share your background, please? 2. How long have you been working here? 3. What is your current position within the company? 4. What are your main responsibilities in your current position?

Questions on meaning-making

1. What inspired you to pursue your current career? 2. How do you feel about your current position and work? 3. To what extent do you find your work meaningful or meaningless? 4. To what extent do you find your work challenging or tensional? 5. What challenges or tensions did you face in your work (if any)? 6. How did you manage to solve the tensions or challenges (if any)? 7. What are some common barriers to meaning-making in your work, and how do you overcome them? 8. How do your personal belief and values impact on what you consider or find meaningful in your work? 9. How do you approach creating meaning in your work? 10. How do you stay motivated and find meaning in your work when faced with setbacks or challenges? 11. Can you describe the process that helps you to find meaning in your work, please? 12. What do you find the most challenging in that process?

The interviews were conducted in 2019 with 46 CSR practitioners from 21 Vietnamese SMEs located in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (see Table 2 for the participants’ details). We first contacted companies from the Hanoi Association of SMEs (HANOISME) and the Association of SMEs in Southern Vietnam (AMES), and then expanded our sample through the snowballing technique. The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese by the native Vietnamese author, then audio-recorded, transcribed and translated into English. The interviews ranged between 45 and 60 minutes in duration. Due to the limited capacity of SMEs in Vietnam, apart from their primary role in CSR, our interviewees also held other functional roles such as PR, marketing or HR. However, they were all directly involved in designing and implementing CSR projects for their firms. They also had a clear CSR occupational identity, with their CSR role stated on their business cards. In addition to the interviews, we triangulated our data with company CSR reports and internal CSR project documents to familiarize ourselves with the context and further comprehend underlying assumptions influencing the interviewees’ meaning-making as CSR practitioners. Each author independently coded and analysed the data. When discrepancies remained, we revisited the data, discussed different interpretations and coded the data collectively until a consensus is reached. We also cross-checked our coding and interpretation with the interviewees to ensure that the data interpretation was unbiased.

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Table 2.

Participants’ profile and information.

Role		Age/Gender	Company/Sector	Seniority in CSR
P2	CSR Project Coordinator	21-30/F	C1-Management Consultancy	1 year	Newcomer Group (N = 16)
P8	CSR Project Analysis	31-40/M	C3-Telecommunication
P17	CSR Project Coordinator	21-30/F	C7-Hospitality
P24	CSR Project Designer	21-30/F	C10-Medical Services
P45	CSR Project Logistics Manager	21-30/F	C21-Education
P1	CSR Project Facilitator	31-40/F	C1-Management Consultancy	2 years
P12	CSR Project Facilitator	31-40/F	C5-Solar energy
P22	CSR Representative Advertiser	31-40/F	C9-Pharmaceutical
P25	CSR Project Accountant	21-30/M	C11-Medical Training and Services
P28	CSR Project Consultant	31-40/M	C12-Retail Manufacturing
P30	CSR Project Logistics Manager	21-30/F	C13-Biotechnology
P44	CSR Transformation Agent	31-40/M	C20-Finance and Banking
P7	CSR Project Account Manager	31-40/F	C3-Telecommunication	3 years
P32	CSR Project Advertising Manager	41-50/F	C14-Fertilizer Manufacturing
P37	CSR Project Logistics Manager	31-40/M	C16-Finance and Banking
P39	CSR Project Financial Advisor	31-40/M	C17-Information Systems
P9	CSR Representative Advertiser	41-50/M	C4-Retail Manufacturing	4 years	Mid-stage group (N = 18)
P16	CSR Project Advertising Manager	41-50/F	C7-Hospitality
P19	CSR Project Designer	31-40/M	C8-Construction
P23	CSR Project Supervisor	41-50/F	C10-Medical Services
P27	CSR Project Financial Advisor	31-40/M	C11-Medical Training and Services
P33	CSR Representative Advertiser	31-40/F	C14-Fertilizer Manufacturing
P36	CSR Project Financial Advisor	41-50/F	C16-Finance and Banking
P40	CSR Project Manager	41-50/F	C18-Renewable Energy
P3	CSR Project Designer	31-40/M	C2-Agriculture	5 years
P5	CSR Project Leader	31-40/M
P10	CSR Project Supervisor	31-40/F	C4-Retail Manufacturing
P11	CSR Project Advertising Manager	41-50/F	C5-Solar energy
P15	CSR Project Analysis	31-40/M	C6-Education
P18	CSR Project Analysis	41-50/M	C8-Construction
P34	CSR Project Financial Advisor	41-50/M	C15-Publishing
P35	CSR Project Supervisor	41-50/M
P42	CSR Project Supervisor	41-50/F	C19-Medical Services
P43	CSR Project Designer	31-40/F
P4	CSR Project Analysis	41-50/M	C2-Agriculture	10 years	Mature-stage group (N = 12)
P14	CSR Project Public Relations Manager	41-50/M	C6-Education
P20	CSR Project Director	41-50/M	C8-Construction
P21	CSR Project Manager	41-50/F	C9-Pharmaceutical
P38	CSR Project Supervisor	41-50/M	C17-Information Systems
P41	CSR Project Public Relations Manager	31-40/M	C18-Renewable Energy
P6	CSR Project Communicator Specialist	41-50/F	C2-Agriculture	11 years
P26	CSR Project Supervisor	41-50/F	C11-Medical Training and Services
P29	CSR Project Public Relations Manager	41-50/M	C12-Retail Manufacturing
P31	CSR Transformation Consultant	41-50/M	C13-Biotechnology
P46	CSR Project Designer	41-50/M	C21-Education
P13	CSR Project Coordinator	41-50/M	C6-Education	12 years

Data analysis

Our four-stage analytical strategy followed the abductive approach (Behfar & Okhuysen, 2018). We first inductively analysed our interview data. After reviewing the data several times to identify emerging theoretical arguments and develop first-order concepts, we used open coding with initial codes such as ‘social expectations’, ‘questioning meaning’, ‘prioritizing others’, and so on. We then grouped similar codes together, adjusting and combining them to best capture the nuances of the data and ensure consistency in broader themes, such as tensions – referring to the conflicts and challenges CSR practitioners experienced, and meaning-making – referring to how individuals interpret and make sense of their experiences. We focused on these two key themes, the tensions experienced by the interviewees and their meaning-making processes. We explored how they navigated these tensions, perceived their work, and what made them consider their work meaningful.

The second stage of the analysis was deductive in nature. Focusing on the tensions experienced by CSR practitioners as revealed in their narratives about contested situations at work, which emerged from the first analytical stage, we explored how they interpreted and justified these disputes when their initial moral foundations of work worthiness were disrupted by others’ values. In line with previous EW studies (Demers & Gond, 2020; Patriotta et al., 2011; Roquebert & Gond, 2024; Shin, Cho, et al., 2022), we used semantic indicators ¹ from the original EW texts to analyse these justifications and understand the complexities of their experiences. Drawing on the eight orders of worth (i.e. the market, industrial, domestic, fame, civic, green and inspiration orders) identified by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006 [1991]), Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) and Lafaye and Thévenot (2017), we coded any references conveying distinct contested situations experienced by CSR practitioners in relation to their perception of the meaningfulness of work. We identified particular accounts of tensional moments at work when interviewees expressed that something had gone wrong or seemed unfair (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006 [1991]; Gond & Leca, 2012). These ‘critical moments’ occurred when their routines of work and subjective values of work were challenged.

In this stage, we found three distinct critical moments where subjective moral foundations constituting the initial sense of work worthiness (the self) clashed with and were challenged by others’ moral principles within a socio-cultural context, leading individuals to navigate and reconcile these different perspectives to sustain their sense of meaningful work. We refer to these as others’ socio-cultural moral foundations as they came from others’ views (colleagues at work, societal values and external stakeholders’ values). For instance, the quote ‘I always wanted to be a CSR professional [. . .], I was inspired by how I can make a social impact in this job,’ reveals two moral principles – the civic and the inspired orders. These two principles were key sources of the subjective perception of work worthiness held by the CSR practitioners in our study. However, these subjective moral foundations were challenged by the values of a sense of belonging and respecting colleagues as part of team culture. We categorized this as others’ socio-cultural moral foundation grounded in the domestic order. Supplemental Appendix Table 1 provides a summarized description of the consolidated EW framework used in our study. For the categorization process, we focused on which orders of worth were genuinely embedded or valued in the value-related discourses. For instance, while environment-related CSR projects could be considered to highlight the green order at first glance, our analytical process identified the civic order as more prominent in that their key values and purposes were philanthropic or social contribution activities for local communities, rather than harmonious relationships between humans and nature (Thévenot, Moody, & Lafaye, 2000). Thus, we decided not to consider the green order in our analysis. Supplemental Appendix Table 2 present illustrations from our coding analysis.

In the third stage of analysis, we focused on the meaning-making processes identified in the first stage of our analysis. Specifically, we explored how participants secured the meaningfulness of their work in the tensional situations. We found that they attempted to suspend these tensions through various meaning-making narratives, which involved building compromises by mobilizing different moral grounds. In this compromise-making process, they still found a way to secure their work worthiness in the face of others’ contesting moral grammars through three distinct meaning-making mechanisms: prospective deferring, localizing and diverging. We then focused on how these mechanisms of meaning-making were morally justified, using orders of worth coding. We found the domestic order featured in all the mechanisms as an underlying moral principle. Supplemental Appendix Table 3 presents the conceptual definitions emerging from our analysis and illustrative examples for each mechanism.

The fourth stage of the analysis involved inductive identification of variations across CSR practitioners regarding sources of moral contestation at work, and their moral justification to secure the meaningfulness of work in response to these contestations (as established in the previous analytical steps). We recognized that CSR practitioners’ rhetoric and discourses of contestation and meaning-making experiences diverged based on the number of years working in the CSR field. This finding aligns with previous studies (e.g. Arthur & Rousseau, 2001; Fontana et al., 2023). Thus, by focusing on the predominant moral foundations underlying each interviewee’s narratives on what made them consider their work meaningful and difficult, we categorized CSR practitioners with 3 years or less experience in CSR work as the newcomer group (N = 16). Those with 4 years or more experience in CSR work were placed in the mid-stage group (N = 18), while individuals with over 10 years’ experience were classified as the mature-stage group (N = 12).

In the analysis of the moral contestations faced by CSR practitioners at three different career stages, we counted the occurrences ² of an order of worth in the interviewees’ narratives to see which order(s) of worth were most salient in their narratives. We identified the majority of both the newcomer and mid-stage groups consistently referred to their professional aspirations and social purpose [inspired and civic] to articulate their initial intentions for developing and implementing CSR projects, with 56 instances in the newcomer group and 48 instances in the mid-stage groups. However, among the 12 mature-stage CSR practitioners, only three mentioned ‘the inspired order’, and this was noted just once, while ‘the civic order’ was mentioned 48 times. We then examined each group’s distinct coping strategies for securing a sense of meaningfulness of work in key contested situations by investigating how interviewees justified their meaning-making mechanisms based on the orders of worth. Newcomers referenced the domestic order 68 times in relation to navigating tensions with colleagues and other stakeholders. In contrast, mid-stage participants mentioned a combination of the industrial order and the domestic order (68 times and 52 times respectively across N = 16) with regard to managing the public pressure and scepticism underpinned by the fame order (79 times across N = 16). The mature group referenced a combination of the project order and the domestic order (61 times and 49 times respectively across N = 12) to navigate market competition emphasized by the market order (38 times across N = 12), with all mentioning such combinations at least twice.

Contestation #1: Self vs. belonging

Newcomers to the field – those who had been doing CSR work for three years or less – had aspirations to create a significant impact on society through CSR activities. They highlighted the importance of the social impact of CSR [civic] as a key motivation for entering this field and fulfilling their mission-driven ‘dream’ of becoming a CSR professional [inspired]. They wanted to make substantial social changes and believed they could. As a result, they were enthusiastic about trying new things at work:

I always wanted to be a CSR professional because since I studied Business Ethics and Sustainability at university, I was inspired by how I can make a social impact through this job. (P44)

However, the newcomer CSR practitioners emphasized that such aspirations required extra effort and commitment from other colleagues at work, which created tensions:

. . .if I propose something which is a bit demanding for others to expand the impact on our beneficiaries, they tend not to be happy . . . For me, making the most of what we can [for social well-being] is inspiring, but for some of my colleagues, meaningfulness is just that they can go home early and being able to complete the project effectively [. . .] (P17)

A CSR project coordinator for a hotel chain, P17, acknowledged the difference between her own perception of the meaningfulness of work as a CSR practitioner (i.e. her aspiration to create substantial social impacts for the local disabled people) and that of her colleagues. This discrepancy highlights the clash between her sense of work worthiness as grounded in the inspired and the civic orders, and the value of working harmoniously with her colleagues, grounded in the domestic order. However, due to Vietnam’s collectivist culture, which emphasizes mutual support and respect, the tradition of prioritizing harmonious belonging at work remains crucial for the successful implementation of future CSR projects. This reflects how the self is constituted relationally in the process of ‘othering’ (O’Mahoney, 2011) – in a reflexive interrelating with others and contextual factors.

Maintaining harmonious relationships with colleagues and showing respect to senior colleagues were especially essential for newcomers, who had not yet built trust with local communities and local authorities to implement CSR projects:

I had to restrain certain initiatives even though I am the project facilitator. Our beneficiaries (local schools) wanted to discuss with my colleagues whom they know personally, rather than with me [. . .] Some of them, in fact, started to exclude me from some work. (P12)

P12 could not progress her CSR project on her own because the beneficiaries – local schools – demanded assurances from her senior colleagues, who had an established relationship with them from previous projects. A CSR project consultant, P28, also emphasized the significance of collegial support for the continuity of successful CSR projects, stating that his passion and dream to make positive social impacts through this work could not be realized without it:

Without collegial support and approval, it will be very hard to continue to work on future CSR projects [. . .] which would not be good for the society in the future. (P28)

Meaning-making mechanism #1: Prospective deferring

In response to the tensions between the moral foundations of the newcomer group’s work worthiness [inspired and civic] and the moral foundations embedded in work traditions in the context of Vietnam [domestic], the newcomer group adopted the meaning-making mechanism of prospective deferring. In his context, prospective deferring refers to temporarily accommodating the tradition of respecting (senior) colleagues and harmonious belonging [domestic] to gain long-term support for future CSR aspirations [inspired and civic]:

. . . regardless of how my CSR ideas would maximize the societal well-being, I certainly cannot work alone and ignore others . . . for me [as a newcomer] showing respect to more experienced colleagues is important to receive their support later on. (P8)

P8, a CSR project manager in a telecommunication firm with one year’s experience, believed that accommodating senior colleagues’ wishes for CSR projects should come first as a way of showing respect, thereby aligning with the collectivist working culture [domestic] where relationships with local officials are protected and shared among more senior colleagues. He believed that while this might temporarily hold back his CSR ambitions, it would serve as a steppingstone towards achieving his personal goal of creating social impacts as a CSR professional [inspired and civic] in the long run.

This experience was also shared by the mature-stage group, as represented in the following quote from P14, a CSR manager in an education firm. Based on his experience, P14 emphasized that neglecting colleagues’ needs in implementing CSR initiatives would not serve to advance CSR projects in Vietnam, especially for newcomers. This is because CSR projects are founded on personal relationships between contractors and senior colleagues:

There are so many hidden channels and agreements in CSR work that were established within closed networks and relationships based on personal trust with some of my colleagues. Without being a member of the system, the project could never be advanced. (P14)

The strong Vietnamese cultural heritage of respecting (senior) colleagues and harmonious relationships at work [domestic] was seen by interviewees as essential in the context of SMEs in Vietnam due to their ‘like families’ culture.

While this meaning-making mechanism led newcomers to defer the actualization of their current work worthiness until they earned trust from their colleagues and built capacities through experience, such delays often reinforced their career passion and goals as CSR professionals:

. . . by showing respect, I hope that I can and will have to do more impactful things once I am accepted as a trustful member of our CSR team. (P8)

However, delaying the realization of work worthiness could potentially lead to unresolved tensions in later stages of CSR professionals’ careers, as their anticipation and dedication to their aspiration as a CSR practitioner were intensified:

I was hoping that I could do big things when I was being part of the team but then the public pressure (due to scepticism) and expectation placed on us as CSR practitioners just added more challenges for me to do what I really want to. (P14)

As exemplified by P14, interviewees in this career stage set aside what made them feel meaningful through CSR, hoping that their career passion for making social impacts [inspired and civic] could be realized when they eventually become integrated into their team as trusted and harmonious members. However, this meaning-making mechanism could exacerbate tensions, compelling individuals to exert greater effort to fulfil their CSR aspirations once they gained more experience and become integrated into their CSR team.

Contestation #2: Self vs. societal perceptions

CSR practitioners’ aspirations for the values of CSR work [inspired and civic] were disrupted by the instrumental and symbolic view of CSR [fame] ingrained in public opinion. Since the Vedan corporate scandal of 2008, when the company discharged a large amount of untreated sewage into the Thị Vải River in Vietnam (Nguyen & Pham, 2012), the Vietnamese public has tended to see companies’ CSR activities as merely a part of their public relations efforts, a perception that challenges CSR practitioners’ original work worthiness. Therefore, even after gaining the trust of their team members and accumulating experiences, and while holding ever higher career hopes to make their CSR work more meaningful to themselves [inspired and civic], the mid-stage CSR practitioners confessed encountering another challenging situation they had to deal with: public doubts about the ‘real’ value of ‘grand’ CSR projects [fame].

People see CSR as window dressing . . . I have to constantly explain myself and fight against this prejudice . . . our CSR is nothing like symbolic charity. . . (P35)

P35, a CSR project supervisor from a publishing firm, complained about the general public perceiving CSR as merely symbolic [fame], undermining his genuine efforts to promote social well-being [inspired and civic]. He was dissatisfied with the perception of CSR as merely a marketing tool or one-time charitable event held during the lunar new year period, primarily for media coverage. As he pointed out, he had been working on various CSR initiatives for his company throughout the year (e.g. reading week for kids in rural areas; fund raising campaign through reality shows, and so on).

I had high expectations [of how I can make social changes with CSR] . . . I always believed that having the right network and right team to work with could be enough to make CSR work . . . nobody took me seriously when I said I was doing CSR. . . . After five years of being a CSR practitioner . . . I am still struggling to position myself and my ambition in the field. (P40)

P40, a project manager in a renewable energy firm, shared similar struggles. Her narratives emphasized the meaningfulness of her work – creating social impacts in CSR as a CSR practitioner [civic and inspired] – which she willingly delayed by integrating herself into the collectivist working environment [domestic] while awaiting the right opportunities to realize her CSR aspirations. Yet, these accumulated career aspirations intensified her struggles when confronted with the public’s perception of the value of CSR [fame], demonstrating the ongoing tensional dynamics embedded in CSR work in Vietnam.

Meaning-making mechanism #2: Localizing

To deal with this contestation between the general public’s view of CSR as symbolic and instrumental [fame] and the values placed on it by CSR practitioners [civic and inspired], the mid-stage CSR practitioners deployed the meaning-making mechanism of localizing. Localizing refers to reframing CSR projects to emphasize the values of practicality and effectiveness through focusing projects on smaller and more targeted local communities where they operate. Our interviewees believed that this could avoid the public scepticism. Such revised CSR projects often led CSR practitioners to scale down their initial ambitions and the value of the work [civic and inspired]. They justified smaller CSR projects by emphasizing their effectiveness and efficient management, which was meaningful not only to themselves but also to the beneficiaries, and these small projects did not encounter public scepticism.

We offered a paid internship for agricultural students by financially supporting local farmers to host students for the summer internship . . . living among farmers can help agricultural students to identify start-up initiatives for organic farming in local communities for their projects . . . [and] farmers can gradually ‘đón nhận’ (accept) modern organic farming methods through building trust with everyday interactions with students which is a local culture of “tinh thần đoàn kết và hòa mình” (spirit of solidarity and integration) . . . with the help of agricultural engineering students residing in the field with hands-on experience on local farms, we have streamlined our automatic irrigation system (hệ thống tưới tự động) to reduce manpower and minimize water usage . . . I would have wanted to engage with the Vietnam National Union of Students (VNUS) but this might have been perceived as us wanting public recognition. (P5)

P5, a project leader at an agricultural company, shared how he was willing to adjust his ambition for a CSR project [inspired and civic] in terms of both scale and scope. In doing so, he believed that his re-focused CSR project created distance from the social scepticism surrounding national-scale CSR projects in Vietnam [fame]. As he noted, the project also became more useful for farmers and students as the beneficiaries, and more efficient for him to manage as a result of training and collaborating with the agricultural engineering students. These students eventually became helpful in effectively managing the irrigation system, leveraging the expertise and experience gained from living within the local community. Thus, while the project was scaled down to focus on a closer local community and initially appeared less ambitious, this approach proved to be more productive and efficient because it created a durable and reliable environment for the beneficiaries [industrial]. It also accommodated targeted local culture and expectations [domestic] while avoiding unwelcoming prejudice from the public.

Similarly, P26, a project supervisor with over 10 years’ experience in CSR work, recalled a CSR project during his mid-career stage as his most meaningful and memorable experience. The project was successfully tailored to maximize effectiveness and efficiency for the target community despite its relatively modest scope.

Based on that [the training of basic first aid and elderly care techniques to local women], they [local women] set up local support groups where they bring their elderly parents who need attention and take turns caring for them each week . . . our project was turned into an effective self-sustained operation by them, some decided to make it a profession and took further certified training . . . [and] helped us operating and expanding the care groups . . . they even recruited and trained young women for this profession . . . now there are more than 6 groups like this, all maintained and monitored by locals . . . What I initially wanted was no longer as important as ensuring that my CSR project have a positive impact on the community. (P26)

P26 scaled down his initial CSR project to address public scepticism. Nevertheless, he was able to make his modified project more practical and valuable to local beneficiaries and his team by establishing a self-sustaining, supporting infrastructure run by local women who had received certified training and acquired specialized skills. Recalling this modified project, P26 highlighted its operational practicality and usefulness [industrial], as well as its successful commitment to meeting the expectations and needs of the target local community. The project thus emphasized familial responsibility, particularly towards elderly family members [domestic].

These experiences reinforced the importance of CSR practitioners reevaluating and revising their CSR projects and career aspirations [inspired], especially when they realized that making CSR projects meaningful is not solely about fulfilling their own aspirations. Instead, it is about delivering ‘a positive impact on the community’ [P26]. To do so, it was crucial for CSR practitioners to localize their approach by seeking practical and tailored ways of operating CSR projects that could benefit smaller targeted local communities [industrial and domestic], without appearing merely symbolic and thereby triggering public scepticism. Therefore, mid-stage CSR practitioners maintained their sense of meaningfulness at work by gradually adjusting their initial aspirations. Their primary focus shifted from the personal aspiration of delivering ‘big’ CSR projects to ensuring that their CSR initiatives could practically benefit the community and their team.

Contestation #3: Self vs. external stakeholders’ changing interests

The mature-stage CSR practitioners faced tensions between the intended values of CSR projects grounded in the civic order and the values of market competition and self-interest of major stakeholders (i.e. the management, funders and local authorities). Acknowledging the tensions moving them to scale down in localizing approaches to CSR, we no longer saw the inspired order in their narratives of the work worthiness. They mainly highlighted the value of social welfare through CSR projects without linking them to their personal career aspirations and passion.

We need to think about how to develop more competitive CSR projects compared to those of other firms . . . it’s meaningless that I have to deal with all these . . . the project changed more than three times to accommodate the director’s wish to compete with other projects in the region . . . (P26)

P26 highlighted that her CSR project initially designed to help the disabled [civic] was disrupted by her organization’s top management, who prioritized the competitive advantage to be gained by the firm through the CSR project [market], rather than focusing on the project’s societal impact. As other companies were engaged in similar CSR projects for the disabled, the top management requested her to find a niche way to generate competitive advantage for her company by establishing a distinctive CSR approach in their project. Consequently, she felt pressured to reposition the project to satisfy the top management of her firm by redirecting the project to focus only on the deaf community. However, she believed that such a modified version of the project would not be sufficient to achieve the larger impact she had originally envisioned.

P13, a project coordinator at an education firm, also shared how the initial target for his CSR project could not be maintained due to the demands and interests of key market partners, particularly the local authorities.

I had a very meaningful CSR project that helped improve elementary education in Northern provinces 4 years ago . . . The system we had built up was ruined by local officials’ interests because they wanted to expand the facility without considering the quality of teachers they hire to compete with other provinces . . . (P13)

Local authorities viewed the CSR project as a means of competing against other nearby provinces that also had CSR projects for schools and therefore wanted P13 to change his original CSR project. Since local authorities in Vietnam can influence regulatory matters that affect CSR projects, such as licensing and permits or access to resources (Phuong, Biesbroek, & Wals, 2018), P13 had to respond to their request. The revised CSR project offered internship programmes for urban teachers from prestigious universities. While recruiting teachers from prestigious universities might look compelling in terms of the competition among provinces, these urban teachers may not necessarily know how to localize their teaching skills to the needs of local pupils. Furthermore, the job security of local teachers was threatened. As a result of the local authorities’ interest in competing against other provinces through CSR projects [market], P13 could not implement his CSR project as he planned.

Meaning-making mechanism #3: Diverging

The mature-stage group used a diverging mechanism to navigate the pressures of the market values held by major stakeholder groups and secure the meaningfulness of their work. Diverging refers to using flexible adaptation to local ways of doing things [project and domestic] to find space for an optimal action between the intended values of CSR projects [civic] and key stakeholders’ self-interest in enhancing competition through such projects [market]. In our study, the mature-stage CSR practitioners highlighted such flexibility in handling CSR projects to sustain the meaningfulness of their work in challenging situations. With experience, more skilful CSR practitioners found ways to preserve the core meaning of their work [civic], even when the initial meaning and intent of CSR projects were disrupted by market demands [market]:

Local authorities’ prioritization of urban teachers’ internship in rural schools affected the quality of teaching because urban teachers are just ticking the boxes to fulfil their required services to attain their certificates to go back to big cities. And this also left many rural teachers jobless . . . Our initial CSR project was to provide more educational facilities [but] . . . we decided to offer a training programme [to local teachers]as one of our CSR services in local areas . . . which enhanced local teachers’ competitiveness in the job market and would also help maintain quality teaching in local schools. (P20)

P20, a CSR project director of a construction company with more than 10 years of experience, shared how he could always find an alternative way to preserve the core meaning of his project – improving local education – through constant adaptation to the changing market situation. He flexibly revised his CSR project to both accommodate local authorities’ interest in fostering educational competitiveness within the community and fulfil his intention to benefit his target community. In his view, his flexible adaptation responded meaningfully to real local problems by developing local teachers’ skills. He thought that complying with the local authorities’ initial request for building more schools and facilities to attract urban teachers would lead to a deterioration in the sustainable quality and culture of the local education. Thus, he revised his initial CSR plan to provide local teachers with certified in-house training to give them an opportunity to be more competitive in response to the influx of urban teachers. He felt that his approach was meaningful because he was able to find a flexible solution to meet both key market stakeholders’ demands and the needs of local beneficiaries [project and domestic]. He also highlighted how maintaining the core value of CSR while having to constantly divert the project’s initiatives to meet the changing expectations of key market stakeholders in response to market dynamics presented him with a series of constantly evolving challenges to tackle:

Our competitors saw how training local teachers was more cost-effective and received greater support from the local community so they initiated some similar programmes. We had to add more initiatives to our campaign by introducing short training field trips and internship opportunities in different cities . . . it’s part of the job, we always have to adjust . . . when responding to the market, our competitors, or local authorities. (P20)

The mechanism of diverging therefore underscores the ongoing process of practitioners navigating and negotiating with various stakeholders in a flexible manner while preserving the benefits for local beneficiaries and the meaningfulness of CSR work.

Conceptualizing a justification approach to meaning-making through the EW lens

The primary theoretical contribution of our study lies in illuminating the dynamic interplay between the self and others in the constitution of meaningful work using a justification approach (Lepisto & Pratt, 2017). The study introduces meaning-making mechanisms in conflicting situations within CSR work, where the meaningfulness of work for the self is disrupted by others’ assessments of CSR work (see Figure 1). By employing the EW framework, we have conceptualized a justification approach to meaning-making as a continuous tensional process, in which individuals constantly (re)construct and (re)negotiate their understanding of the worthiness of work by engaging with different moral principles at different career stages. These principles are brought into play to resolve contested situations where their initial work worthiness (the self) is challenged by others’ moral grounds towards CSR work. This process ultimately brings together both subjective and social accounts of meaningful work (Michaelson, Pratt, Grant, & Dunn, 2014; Michaelson, 2021), reflecting the inherently tensional and changing nature of work worthiness.

We identified three meaning-making mechanisms in the form of moral compromises that constitute individuals’ experience and interpretation of their work worthiness at different career stages. First, prospective deferring refers to temporarily accommodating the tradition of respecting (senior) colleagues and fostering harmonious belonging to establish long-term support for future work aspirations, thereby upholding the worthiness of work. Prospective deferring thus compromises the balance between the domestic order and the inspired and civic orders. Early career CSR practitioners – the newcomer group – engaged with this mechanism when they encountered conflict between their own aspirations for CSR projects (a sense of meaningfulness for the self) and the need to adhere to work traditions to be part of their team (a sense of meaningfulness for others, colleagues). In this mechanism, the values of respecting colleagues – especially senior ones – and fostering belonging grounded in the domestic order appeared to be dominant. CSR practitioners in the study strategically prioritized the collective and relationship-dependent culture of Vietnam (Vu & Trang, 2021), with the expectation that this would help them secure work worthiness in the long term. This mechanism reveals how the subjective aspect of the meaningfulness of work – how individuals subjectively perceive what constitutes meaningful work – is influenced by others’ perceptions within a socio-cultural context – the values, beliefs and priorities of where they belong. It also highlights the assimilation process of CSR practitioners through socialization (Kramer, 2011). In this process they interact with and assimilate into senior teams to understand the expectations and norms of CSR work (Miller, 1996; Morrison, 1993), and manage the uncertainty regarding the nature of their roles, job performance and relationships with others at work (Miller, 1996; Waldeck & Myers, 2008), thereby ensuring the future and long-term success of CSR initiatives. The willingness of individuals to postpone fulfilment of the meaningfulness of work for them illustrates the subjective temporal experience of meaningfulness through intertemporal comparison (Albert, 1977) between individuals’ actual selves in the present and the desired selves they aspire to become in the future (De Boeck, Meyers, & Dries, 2018). This reinforces the tensions of having to fulfil one’s aspirations for work worthiness by postponing the execution of work.

Second, the localizing mechanism involves reframing CSR projects to emphasize practicality and effectiveness within smaller and more targeted local communities where they are implemented and address public scepticism about the motives behind CSR work. This mechanism is grounded in the industrial and domestic orders. This may require scaling down practitioners’ initial ambitions and the value of work underpinned by the civic and the inspired orders in our case. The mid-stage CSR practitioners engaged with this meaning-making mechanism to address negative societal perceptions of the value of CSR as grounded in the fame order. CSR practitioners revised their subjective view of work worthiness (a sense of meaningfulness for the self) by embedding themselves within broader social relations (others) (Hancock, 2016), in our case, the local communities and beneficiaries. This illustrates how CSR practitioners negotiate and situate the ‘self’ (De Boeck et al., 2018) within societal and cultural discourses (Meisenbach & Kramer, 2014). In doing so, CSR practitioners reassess the initial intentions of projects rooted in the civic and inspired orders, undergoing a gradual adjustment of their grander aspirations for CSR. This shift aims to secure the meaningfulness of CSR work by making CSR projects more practical and feasible, not only for local beneficiaries but also for CSR practitioners themselves.

Third, diverging refers to finding leeway for an optimal action between the intended values of CSR work and key stakeholders’ interest in enhancing competition through this work via flexible adaptation that caters to local customs and culture around doing things. This mechanism navigates the tensions between the civic and the market orders through the combination of the project and the domestic orders. The mature-stage CSR practitioners with more than 10 years’ experience tended to adopt this mechanism when their own sense of work worthiness (the self) grounded in the civic order was challenged by the interests of market stakeholders (others). This signifies that individuals’ understanding of the core moral grounds of work worthiness is crucial in addressing the central question of how to sustain meaningfulness, or conversely, avoid meaninglessness (Reinecke et al., 2017) in work. Diverging as a meaning-making mechanism suggests that the sense of subjective meaningfulness may have to be (re)interpreted, (re)negotiated and (re)constructed in circumstances that offer restricted opportunities for meaning (Lepisto & Pratt, 2017). As such, diverging requires constant flexible adaptations to the surrounding local institutional and cultural contexts and the changing nature of others (the dynamics of market and major stakeholders) (Sharma, 2014).

We tackled the fundamental question of how individuals negotiate meaningfulness in situations of moral multiplexity (Reinecke et al., 2017) by specifying how multiple moral principles interact in individuals’ meaning-making mechanisms (Bailey et al., 2019; Michaelson, 2021) when their inherent understanding of work worthiness grounded in the inspired and civic orders is disrupted. We showed that experiences of meaningful work, grounded in different orders of worth, is constantly (re)created through moral justification. All CSR practitioners at different career stages in our study managed to strategically (re)create and (re)construct the meaningfulness of work for themselves. This process entailed constant justification to navigate the reinforced tensions (e.g. the need to implement more impactful CSR projects when work worthiness is delayed for newcomers) or newly created dynamics with others (e.g. meeting local authorities’ changing expectations due to the evolving market competition), under the ever present and prominent influence of local norms and culture.

This study advances recent scholarly considerations of a justification approach to meaning-making that embraces the interplay between what is meaningful to the self and what is meaningful to others (Lepisto & Pratt, 2017; Lysova et al., 2023), moving beyond the self-oriented mechanisms characterizing the majority of research on meaning-making at work (Rosso et al., 2010). Mitra and Buzzanell (2017) acknowledge that individuals communicatively negotiate their experiences of meaningful work according to their circumstances. Their exploration of individuals’ negotiation of meaning is grounded in sociological and communication perspectives (Gond & Moser, 2021). However, using the EW framework, we demonstrate the underpinning personal moral grounds and values by which individuals justify their choices regarding what they consider worthwhile and what they do not – a previously underdeveloped aspect in the literature (Bailey et al., 2019). Moreover, our case showed co-occurrence between changes in justifications and changes in substantive discursive actions. This extends the scholarly discussion beyond a focus on the communicative nature of meaning-making (Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017), responding to the call for more research into the role of relationality in understanding meaningful work as a fluctuating experience (Lysova et al., 2023; Vu & Fan, 2024).

Unpacking the micro-dynamics of individuals’ compromise-making in the field of CSR

This study extends organizational studies of the EW framework (Anesa et al., 2024; Patriotta et al., 2011; Reinecke et al., 2017) by specifying how actors mobilize and combine different moral principles to reconcile the tensions associated with CSR–compromise-building (Demers & Gond, 2020; Finch et al., 2017; Shin, Vu, & Burton, 2022). The study unpacks the dynamics of compromise-building mechanisms, which have been largely understudied (Cloutier et al., 2024; Demers & Gond, 2020; Reinecke et al., 2017). Beyond showing how compromise is constructed (Demers & Gond, 2020), we conceptualize the mechanisms of compromise as situated, fragile and temporary (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006 [1991]; Grattarola et al., 2024; Patriotta et al., 2011; Reinecke et al., 2017), based on individuals’ career experiences. Our study offers insights into compromise-building mechanisms within each career stage. For instance, CSR practitioners engaged in meaning-making as compromises when others’ assessments of the worthiness of their work conflicted with their initial evaluations. To suspend these clashes, they drew upon diverse moral foundations to secure and recreate the meaningfulness of their work at different career stages. Our case also exemplifies post-compromise situations. For instance, the newcomer group’s compromise mechanism was conditional and time-bound. Consequently, the compromise was subject to challenge when these conditions were not met, as the sacrifices involved became more salient (Anesa et al., 2024). The mid-career CSR practitioners were more vulnerable to struggles when they realized that their evaluation of work worthiness was still being disrupted by others’ values. Hence, the mid-career group engaged with a different compromising-building mechanism by drawing on moral worlds that enabled them to maintain some degree of the initial meaningfulness of their work.

Moreover, our study challenges prior EW studies that have highlighted the market order as a common denominator connecting coexisting or contradicting moral principles of CSR (Finch et al., 2017; Shin, Cho, et al., 2022). It was the domestic order that played a central role in the meaning-making mechanisms as compromises enacted by CSR practitioners in our study. The CSR practitioners in our case strategically integrated the domestic order with other moral principles in their meaning-making mechanisms. These temporary compromises remain in place only as each career stage group deals with the differing moral values of others, which leads each group to develop a peculiar situated judgement (Anesa et al., 2024; Grattarola et al., 2024). By underscoring the significance of the domestic order in these compromises, this study addresses the question of which moral grounds are mobilized across composite situations (Grattarola et al., 2024) in the case of CSR in Vietnam. By revealing the domestic order-based meaning-making mechanisms of CSR practitioners, our study resonates with prior CSR studies documenting strong domestic traditions of social contribution in Asian contexts (Chapple & Moon, 2005; Shin, Cho, et al., 2022). It thus offers new insight for current studies of the EW framework in the context of CSR by shedding light on the often-overlooked moral drive for CSR amid the current ascendancy of the business case for CSR, evidencing the moral pluralism of CSR (Roquebert & Gond, 2024; Shin, Cho, et al., 2022).

Unpacking the relational tensions and meaning-making of CSR practitioners at work

The study also advances micro-CSR research (Girschik et al., 2022; Gond & Moser, 2021), particularly explorations of CSR practitioners’ day-to-day struggles at work (Iatridis et al., 2022; Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017; Fontana, Shin, Oka, & Gamble, 2022; Fontana et al., 2023). While prior micro-CSR studies have mainly focused on tensions between the business and social goals of CSR (e.g. Carollo & Guerci, 2018; Fontana et al., 2023; Ghadiri et al., 2015), our case demonstrates tensions derived from the various relationships in which CSR practitioners engage. We specifically demonstrated that CSR practitioners’ micro-level experiences and practices are influenced by and interact with the macro-social normative principles surrounding them (Gond & Moser, 2021) – as embodied by their colleagues, society and market stakeholders. This extends the self-versus-other view of CSR practitioners (Iatridis et al., 2022) to provide a more complex picture of the relational tensions in CSR work, delineating the interplay between the contestations and meaning-making experienced by CSR practitioners.

Uncovering the various relational tensions experienced by CSR practitioners throughout their career cycle, our study also highlights individual disparities in meaning-making in CSR work (Aguinis & Glavas, 2019; Iatridis et al., 2022). It emphasizes the significance of ‘shifts in meaning-making’ within CSR work (Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017, p. 595), furthering prior studies that have delineated a recalibration process of meaning-making by CSR practitioners in response to their contextual situations (e.g. Fontana et al., 2023; Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017). In particular, Fontana et al. (2023) demonstrate how CSR practitioners’ social aspirations can be reconfigured as they come to embody the commercial values of their companies through their occupational stages. Our case enriches this reconfiguration process by showing how CSR practitioners morally negotiate between their own professional social aspirations and the moral values of ‘others’ that influence their CSR work. It also examines the different justifications across three different career stages regarding their meaning-making mechanisms via the EW framework. Moreover, while Fontana et al. (2023) show that CSR practitioners’ social aspirations might wane over time in the process of aligning with corporate commercial objectives, our findings indicate that this is not always the case. The CSR practitioners strategically recalibrated their professional social aspirations to uphold them in the longer term, thereby sustaining meaning in their work at different career stages. The study shows how CSR professionals navigate tensions to reconfigure their work worthiness in a more positive manner, that is not confined within the hegemony of the business case for CSR (Girschik et al., 2022).

The study informs several practical implications for SMEs involved in CSR activities in similar contexts where resources and systematic organizational management for CSR are limited compared to large corporations (Oduro, Bruno, & Maccario, 2024). Since the CSR activities and agendas of SMEs are often influenced by government policies (Oduro et al., 2024), and CSR practitioners frequently navigate tensions at work through informal meetings and discussions with peers outside their organizations (Fontana et al., 2022), governments can facilitate and encourage such dialogues within the field. This can enable CSR practitioners to share their challenges and collectively secure the meaning of their work.