Ten years after the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), implementation efforts are in full swing. Companies in particular have used their existing corporate social responsibility (CSR) structures to make sense of and implement Pillar II of the UNGPs. This process has led to a co-optation of the business and human rights (BHR) agenda. One manifestation of such co-optation is the instrumentalization of CSR to confront and undermine the growing trend towards binding BHR legislation. Accordingly, this contribution conceptualizes Pillar II implementation as a process of domestication, co-optation and confrontation of the BHR agenda. It makes sense of this process by juxtaposing it with long-standing critique against CSR put forth particularly by critical management scholars, raising the question whether CSR is indeed well-equipped to drive BHR implementation efforts within companies.

Critical Management Studies (CMS) is interested in examining and challenging the legitimacy of traditional management theories, values and assumptions. CMS believes by reflecting and questioning existing management practices, it is possible to generate better norms, policies, ideas and management values. The essence of CMS is to deconstruct the various management techniques and functions, to expose any forms of discrimination and exploitation taking place in contemporary organisations and emancipate employees from their pain, suffering and frustration.

This paper seeks to make a contribution in the area of CMS, by examining the overall effectiveness of CMS in fulfilling its objectives. It seeks to address the effectiveness of CMS in achieving its goals in organisations, with the support of an empirical study conducted at a professional accounting firm.

We present an empirical study on the community of management consultants in the specialty of corporate governance. Although most studies on consulting are done on large multinational consulting firms, we suggest an alternative framework that encompasses the heterogeneity of the industry, considering also the smaller consulting firm and the independent consultant. We have qualitatively studied the practice of consultants specialized in corporate governance and looked for evidence of community belonging. Drawing on a Kuhnian theoretical framework and adapting his notion of knowledge creation to a governance consulting scenario, we explore community belonging, entry and exit mechanisms into the consulting community of governance, common culture and language, and regulation of the community. Findings confirm that consultants have mixed professional identities and an overlapping of memberships of various communities. Our results show that although no formal regulation or organization regulates corporate governance consulting, mechanisms such as reputation, career paths, experience and credibility work in strengthening the practice of the community.