| This dissertation explores the interaction between religion and business by examining a religion-based social movement organization (SMO), the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), and its involvement in the corporate withdrawal movement from Burma. This dissertation considers the context, motivations and actions of ICCR in order to derive inductively ICCR's normative values. ICCR's actions grow out of: (1) the theoretical context of its role as a primary stakeholder of U.S.-based global corporations; (2) the historical context as a social activist stockowner in the corporate social responsibility movement; and (3) the socio-political context of conditions in Burma since 1988 and the international response to the military dictatorship. This dissertation analyzes ICCR's motivations to become involved in the corporate withdrawal movement from Burma by considering factors that created urgency, legitimacy, and power and made the campaign important for ICCR. This dissertation documents the actions of ICCR with U.S.-based global corporations involved in Burma. Through ICCR's submission of stockowner resolutions at annual meetings, ICCR has confronted clothing manufacturers, oil and gas companies, and PepsiCo. This dissertation examines ICCR's internal documents, published materials, and stockowner resolutions in order to analyze ICCR's normative values. The analysis reveals the values of human rights, democracy, human dignity, justice, stewardship, disengagement, cooperation, and prophetic witness. This dissertation argues that the actions of ICCR in the corporate withdrawal movement from Burma provide evidence of religion's influence in the public realm, and it counters the assumption in secularization theory that religion is relegated to the private realm. As a religion-based SMO, ICCR extends the reach of religion beyond the private sphere into the public realm by influencing the actions of U.S.-based global corporations. |
