Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance: Comparative Perspectives

摘要

At its most basic, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is represented in the firm's choices of how it will operate within the social, political, legal, and ethical standards of the environments in which it finds itself, as well as choices about where it will and will not operate. As such, a firm's CSR strategy is unlikely to be independent, or even separable, from its basic value propositions to its customers, workers, suppliers, shareholders, or other key stakeholders: groups which are themselves embedded wholly or partially within their own societies (Freeman, 1984). This implies that one cannot understand the CSR strategy and politics of organizations without understanding the nature of the institutional environments in which they choose - or are forced - to operate. Equally, CSR strategies and policies represent critical aspects of the choices that the firm - or more correctly its shareholders and managers - makes about how it wants to be governed. This includes who the firm and its managers and owners believe has legitimate claims on the residual rents as well as which stakeholders deserve to have a legally recognized voice in corporate decisions. Thus, at both a macro and micro level, the interaction of corporate governance (CG) and corporate responsibility is a topic the editors felt worthy of further exploration.