Conference Proceeding: American Sociological Association 103rd Annual Meeting August 1-4, 2008. Boston, Massachusetts Presented August 3, 2008, Sociology of Law (Regular Session) These are Our Corporate Values; This is What We Stand For: Moving Beyond Stakeholder Theory Gwendolyn Yvonne Alexis Abstract For multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in the global marketplace, the stakeholder model is not a tenable approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). With its emphasis on place -- i.e., on the stakeholders in a particular locale -- the stakeholder model results in piecemeal policy making and thus leads to inconsistent policies and practices within an enterprise, making it impossible for the firm to engender a unified corporate culture. As an example, a firm will appear Janus-faced if it adheres to rigid standards of environmental sustainability when operating in domestic markets, but follows looser corporate guidelines in operating its offshore facilities. The author identifies an emerging trend for the MNC to make its own corporate values -- as reflected in its corporate vision and mission -- the fount of CSR. Referring to this emergent trend as corporate moral obligation (CMO), the author contrasts the stakeholder approach to evaluating the business/society relationship with the self-referential approach embodied in CMO. The author allows that CMO might be viewed as moral imperialism. However, she notes that CMO is the only alternative for MNCs operating in a coercive legal environment where emerging global standards and transnational NGOs make moral relativism a risky proposition.