Realigning business, government and civil society

Corporate Governance (Bingley) - 2005
AtleMidttun1
1Professor at The Norwegian School of Management, Sandvika, Norway. E‐mail: [email protected]

Tóm tắt

PurposeThis article aims to explore the character of an emerging model of corporate social responsibility (CSR)‐oriented societal governance in an exchange theoretical perspective and to examine the distinctive characteristics of the relations between civil society, business and government in the new model and the drivers behind it.Design/methodology/approachBy analyzing typical roles and role‐sets in political, commercial and regulatory exchange, the article pin‐points characteristics of the embedded relational governance/CSR model contrasted against liberal governance and the Keynesian welfare state. The analysis is stylized and conceptually based, in line with the Weberian ideal type concept and brings out stylized juxtapositions of the three governance models based on previous studies.FindingsAn emerging model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or embedded relational governance seems to share the basic market orientation of the liberal model, yet, at the same time, sharing many of the social and collective goals of the welfare state. This combination is apparently achieved by embedding the social dimension into civil society and self‐regulatory market processes. Finally, the paper reflects on the drivers behind the new governance approach, in the context of a globalizing economy. The paper argues that NGO‐driven communicative intermediation interfacing with an increasing CSR and corporate governance focus in financial evaluation may serve to retain some of the social agenda from the welfare state, under the CSR‐ or embedded‐relational model, an agenda that seemed to be gradually losing out with the global competitive exposure of the welfare state.Research limitations/implicationsThe article presents a stylized analytical framework of CSR/embedded relational governance that lays a basis for further exploration and systematic testing through comparative empirical studies.Practical implicationsThe paper brings out the interplay between political, regulatory and commercial processes and gives a broader understanding of the societal implications of CSR.Originality/valueOriginal contributions of this paper: first, the analytical formulation of the societal governance implications of CSR; second, the exchange theoretical conceptualization of this mode of societal governance.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Albareda, L., Ysa, T. and Lozano, J.M. (2004), “Governments and corporate social responsibility (CSR)”, paper presented at European Academy of Business in Society – 3rd Annual Colloquium, Gent, 27‐28 September.

Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B. and Rahman, S.S. (2002), Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking, Greenleaf Publishing, Sheffield.

Barth, F. (1966), “Models of social organization”, Occasional Paper, The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Anthropological Institute, p. 23.

Baumol, W.J. (1967), Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State: With a New Introduction, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London.

Berger, S. (1981), Organizing Interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, Corporatism and the Transformation of Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Blau, P.M. (1964), Exchange and Power in Social Life, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.

Burns, T.R. and Flam, H. (1987), The Shaping of Social Organization: Social Rule System Theory with Applications, Sage, London.

Coleman, J.S. (1986), Individual Interests and Collective Action: Selected Essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Doz, Y. (1986), Strategic Management in Multinational Companies, Pergamon Press, Oxford.

Elkington, J. (1998), Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line for 21st Century Business, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island.

Fombrun, C. (1996), Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA.

Fox, T., Ward, H. and Howard, B. (2002), “Public sector roles in strengthening corporate social responsibility: a baseline study”, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Washington DC, October.

Freeman, R.E. (1984), Stakeholder Management: Framework and Philosophy, Pitman, Mansfield, MA.

Friedman, M. (1970), “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”, New York Sunday Times Magazine, 13 September.

Habermas, J. (1979), Communication and the Evolution of Society, Beacon Press, Boston, MA.

Hayek, F.A. (1948), Individualism, and Economic Order, Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL.

Hernes, G. (1975), Makt og Avmakt: en Begrepsanalyse, Norwegian University Press, Bergen.

Hirschman, A.O. (1970), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Homans, G.C. (1961), Social Behaviour: Its Elementary Forms, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Homans, G.C. (1971), in Turk, H. and Simpson, R.L. (Eds), Institutions and Social Exchange: the Sociologies of Talcott Parsons and George C. Homans, The United Chapters of Alpha Kappa Delta, The National Sociological Scholarship Society, The Bobbs‐Merrill Co., Indianapolis, IN.

Jessop, B. (1999), “The changing governance of welfare: recent trends in its primary functions, scale and modes of coordination”, Social Policy and Administration, Vol. 33 No. 4.

Jessop, B. (2001), “Regulationist and autopoieticists' reflections on Polanyi's account of market economies and the market society”, New Political Economy, Vol. 6 No. 2.

Johansen, L. (1987), in Førsund, F.R. (Ed.), Collected Works of Leif Johansen, North‐Holland, Amsterdam.

Jones, M.R. (1997), “Spatial selectivity of the state? The regulationist enigma and local struggles over economic governance”, Environment and Planning, Vol. 29 No. 5.

Katzenstein, P.J. (1985), Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe Cornell Studies in Political Economy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

Keynes, J.M. (1936), The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, Macmillan, London.

Kikeri, S. and Nellis, J. (2004), “An assessment of privatization”, World Bank Research Observer, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 87‐119.

Kotler, P. (1967), Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning and Control, Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Lane, J.‐E. (2002), “Transformation and future of public enterprises in continental Western Euope”, Public Finance & Management, March, pp. 56‐81.

Levi Strauss, C. (1969), The Elementary Structures of Kinship, trans. from the French by Bell, J.H., von Sturmen, J.R. and Needham, R., Beacon Press, Boston, MA.

Lipset, S.M. (1963), Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, Anchor Books, New York, NY.

Löhr, A. (2004), “CSR: the Puma case”, paper presented at the 20th EGOS Colloquium, Ljubljana, 1‐3 July.

Marin, B. (Ed.) (1990), Generalized Political Exchange: Antagonistic Cooperation and Integrated Policy Circuits, Westview, Boulder, CO.

Mendoza, X. (1996), “Las transformaciones del sector público en las sociedades avanzadas. Del estado del bienestar al estado relacional”, Papers de Formació, No. 23, Diputación de Barcelona, Barcelona.

Midttun, A. (1998), “The weakness of strong governance and the strength of soft regulation: environmental governance in postmodern form”, Innovation, Vol. 12 No. 2.

Nash, J. (1998), “Industry, self‐regulation for environmental improvement: pretence or reality?”, paper presented at the 7th International Conference of the Greening of Industry Network, Rome.

Olson, M. (1971), The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Polanyi, K. (1944), The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Rinehart & Company, New York, NY.

Porter, M. and Kramer, M.R. (2002), “The competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 80 No. 12, p. 56.

Sauvée, L. (2001), “Collective brand governance and the design of interorganisational relationsips”, EMAC Conference, Bergen, May.

Savas, E.S. (1977), Alternatives for Delivering Public Services, Westview Press, Boulder, CO.

Smith, A. (1992), in Glahe, F.R. (Ed.), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: A Concordance, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.

Stinchcombe, A.L. (1990), Information and Organizations, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

Streeck, W. and Schmitter, P.C. (Eds) (1985), Private Interest Government: Beyond Market and State, Sage, London.

Takahashi, N. (2000), “The emergence of generalised exchange”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 105 No. 4, pp. 1105‐34.

Weber, M. (1964), in Parsons, T. (Ed.), The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation, The Free Press/Macmillan, New York, NY.

Zadek, S. (2001), The Civil Corporation: The New Economy of Corporate Citizenship, Earthscan, London.

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Corporate Governance (Bingley)

Thông tin tác giả