In this study, we aim to investigate: How Business Ethics and CSR discourses balance tensions and contradictions between the corporate reputation sense of ‘enlightened self’ interest and marginalized groups in man-made disaster situations? How these discourses may interact and inform responses to overcome (de)materiality conflicts between identities in those type of situations?
We argue for the need of generating Business Ethics and CSR knowledge from the borders, in this case, from Brazil, in the collapse of the dam Brazilian Mining corporation, Vale, in 2019. To do so, we focus on a specific group of individuals: business managers and specialists in dam management from Vale. These individuals are responsible for decision-making in Vale’s mining operations in the city of Brumadinho while having to meet shareholders’ expectations regarding the financial results of the company. Notwithstanding, they are also responsible for communicating the company’s response to those affected by the dam collapse and Brazilian society as a whole.
For us, this object of research, together as the case of Boeing aircraft, shows the role of Business Ethics and CSR in the process of overcoming (de)materiality conflicts between the corporation and the people affected. Boeing and Vale are both still operating regardless of the lives that were lost and their CSR reports.
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