As corporate social responsibility research increasingly focuses on the role of grassroots organizations in challenging business practices, there remains a gap in understanding how these organizations prefigure alternatives to the prevailing business status quo. This study addresses this gap by developing a framework of prefigurative imaginaries, drawing from a qualitative study of a grassroots organization confronting the social irresponsibility of the Kenyan banking system in serving the poor. The framework captures how grassroots organizations use imaginaries to prefigure an alternative community currency system for enacting and foreshadowing social change. However, when attempts were made to scale up the system, these actions became disjointed, resulting in cracks within the imaginaries and the eventual abandonment of the system. Our study contributes to corporate social responsibility research by broadening its scope to include grassroots organizations and unveiling how they prefigure social change in marginalized contexts. By highlighting the significant influence of imaginaries on experiences and practices, this study underscores their role in shaping the acceptance or rejection of grassroots initiatives by the communities they aim to serve. It has implications for scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the role of imaginaries in shaping community-driven initiatives and advancing social change agendas.

中文翻译：

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预想：赋予肯尼亚非正式定居点中没有银行账户的人发行自己货币的权力


随着企业社会责任研究越来越关注基层组织在挑战商业实践中的作用，在理解这些组织如何预示当前商业现状的替代方案方面仍然存在差距。本研究通过对一个草根组织的定性研究，建立了一个预想的框架来解决这一差距，该组织面对肯尼亚银行系统在为穷人服务时的社会不责任感。该框架捕捉了草根组织如何利用想象来预示替代社区货币系统，以制定和预示社会变革。然而，当尝试扩大系统规模时，这些行动变得脱节，导致想象中出现裂缝，并最终放弃该系统。我们的研究扩大了草根组织的范围，并揭示了它们如何预示边缘化背景下的社会变革，从而为企业社会责任研究做出了贡献。通过强调想象对经验和实践的重大影响，本研究强调了想象在影响其所服务的社区接受或拒绝草根倡议方面的作用。它对于有兴趣了解想象在塑造社区驱动的举措和推进社会变革议程中的作用的学者和实践者具有重要意义。