Emergence de la dimension environnementale de la RSE : une étude historique franco-québécoise d'EDF et d'Hydro-Québec

This dissertation studies the environmental dimension of CSR. Current issues raised by sustainability need to deconstruct the concept of CSR to reveal the underlying structure of the Business & Society academic field. Through historical and comparative approaches, this research follows the trail that socio-Environmental issues leave in the controversies they deploy, in the relationships they forge and in compromises they establish with human and non-Humans through the construction of four energy facilities in France (Tignes’ hydroelectric dam and La Rance’ tidal power plant) and Quebec (Bersimis’ hydroelectric dam and Gentilly’ nuclear plant) during the 1945th until the 1970th. In the line of work that develop non dichotomous understanding of the nature and culture by taking the refusal of Modern ontology (Latour; Descola; Gladwin, Kennely and Krause, and Banerjee etc.) as a base, it sheds light on associations/dissociations performed within heterogeneous group of allies and revisits "environmental turn" thanks to the precise analysis of the work of the founding father of CSR, Howard R. Bowen Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (1953), illuminating its theoretical legacies. This research aims at making three contributions. First, it refines the "naturalistic" approach or "Modern" in two empirical and cognitive perspectives and two modes of relating to collective: realism and nominalism. Then it entered the literature of CSR into the Modern ontology by showing theoretical legacies in wilderness conservation. Finally, it mobilizes the Amodern approach to analyze the socio-Environmental issues, and proposes an alternative understanding of CSR based on a dynamic and relational view of responsibility where the traditional boundaries of the business environment are broken in favor of socio-Environmental networks.