Online research in philosophy

The development of legislation determining corporate behaviour is a fascinating topic, offering insight into the societal problems of corporate enterprise as they are related to their accounting, their administration, and their external reporting. In this paper the following specific implications for accounting are examined:– -Should accountants get involved in social auditing and are they the core persons in corporate social accounting systems? – -Should corporate social performance measurement and reporting become obligatory and to what extent? – -A general framework for the implementation of corporate social accounting systems is suggested and quidelines for its auditing are proposed. – -A tentative set of social auditing standard is outlined together with its methodological accompaniments.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its action-oriented offspring Corporate Citizenship (CC) currently trigger an intensifying debate on ethics, role and behavior of companies within civil society. For companies, CSR raises the question of what may be the "good reason(s)" for acting responsible towards its members, customers or society. In order to answer this question, we face the debate on CSR and its strategic engagement drivers on the levels of corporate culture, social innovation, and civil society. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework based on the analytic distinction of legitimation and sensemaking. The conceptual framework developed in this article can serve as a basis to develop a company's CSR strategy. It provides measures and instruments to make complex CSR processes more visible and manageable.

In light of the many corporate scandals, social and ethical commitment of society has increased considerably, which puts pressure on companies to communicate information related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The reasons underlying the decision by management teams to engage in ethical communication are scarcely focussed on. Thus, grounded on legitimacy and stakeholder theory, this study analyses the views management teams in large listed companies have on communication of CSR. The focus is on aspects on interest , motives/reasons , users and problems related to corporate communication of CSR information. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews confirm that there is a distinct trend shift towards more focus on CSR in corporate communication. Whilst this trend shift started as a reactive approach initiated by the many corporate scandals, the trend shift is now argued to be of a proactive nature focussed at preventing legitimacy concerns to arise. These findings are significant and interesting, implying that we are witnessing a transit period between two legitimacy strategies. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the way respondents argue when it comes to CSR activities coincides with consequentialism or utilitarianism, i.e. companies engage in CSR activities to avoid negative impacts instead of being driven by a will to make a social betterment or acting in accordance with what is fundamentally believed to be right to do. This provides new input to the ongoing debate about business ethics. The findings should alert national and international policy makers to the need both to increase the vigilance and capacity of the regulatory and judicial systems in the CSR context and to increase institutional pressure to enhance CSR adoption and CSR communication. Furthermore, stakeholders need to be careful in assuming that CSR communication is an evidence of a CSR commitment influencing corporate behaviour and increasing business ethics.

The paper questions current assumptions about the benefits of corporate social responsibility and the claims that corporations make on behalf of their corporate social responsibility programmes. In particular, the paper suggests that the use of corporate social responsibility for public relations ends raises moral problems over the motivation of corporations. The paper cautions that the justifications which corporations employ may either be immoral or inaccurate with regard to the empirical evidence gained from a small-scale qualitative study carried out in the UK at a time when the practice of corporate social responsibility was expanding quickly (1989). It is noticeable, in retrospect, that great emphasis is placed upon environmental rather than social responsibility. This implies that organisations are primarily reactive in their development of corporate social responsibility programmes and that they respond to external pressures rather than working out the nature of their corporate responsibilities. It might suggest that corporations only take such actions when they feel compelled to do so by consumerist and environmentalist lobbies. The paper argues that corporations do need to find moral justifications for their moral activities and to ensure that corporate social responsibility practice lives up to the claims made by public relations practitioners. The paper explores the nature of public relations and illustrates how its responsibility for corporate social responsibility extends beyond truthfulness in publicity.

The practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has often been described as a balance of profitability and social or societal responsibility by scholars as well as practitioners. It is assumed that regulations and guidelines of CSR practices link competitiveness and responsibility together. While recognising that formal CSR statements represent a goal-oriented managerial approach to CSR, we argue based on the description of a qualitative case study that the relationship between profitability and social or societal responsibility is not as clear and simple as it is often described. Instead, CSR should be considered as a continuously negotiated process between companies and stakeholders. Hence, the creation of a constructive link between profitability and social or societal responsibility is dependent on the amount of effort that has been put into exploring the concerns of the stakeholders, vis-a-vis the company, while simultaneously accepting changes when they are necessary.

Rwanda is recovering from the trauma of the 1994 war and genocide but continues to have a weak corporate and industrial infrastructure. Against this background, the present study was undertaken with the aim of tracing to what extent Rwandan enterprises are geared for the fulfillment of social responsibility within a strained socioeconomic milieu. The objectives of the study are to review the concept of corporate governance and its relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR), to describe the current state of corporate governance in Rwanda, to establish the relationship between corporate governance and CSR and standard ethical practice, and to suggest solutions for problems encountered in the system.

While the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is based predominantly on the experiences of developed countries, the context in developing countries differs greatly, varying according geography, culture, and level of development. A survey was conducted in Macedonia with the aim of determining the local context and specifics of CSR through an analysis of four elements: the rule of law, competition and standards, complementary CSR institutions, and internal corporate structures and practices. It showed that an increasing number of companies are starting to consider CSR as an investment and not simply as a cost.

Rwanda is recovering from the trauma of the 1994 war and genocide but continues to have a weak corporate and industrial infrastructure. Against this background, the present study was undertaken with the aim of tracing to what extent Rwandan enterprises are geared for the fulfillment of social responsibility within a strained socioeconomic milieu. The objectives of the study are to review the concept of corporate governance and its relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR), to describe the current state of corporate governance in Rwanda, to establish the relationship between corporate governance and CSR and standard ethical practice, and to suggest solutions for problems encountered in the system.

In this paper, we analyze the impact of interaction between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social capital on corporate competitiveadvantage in a transitional context. Using survey data of Chinese companies, we examine the theoretical relationship empirically. Results show that CSR has no direct association with corporate financial performance or organizational reputation. However, corporate social capital can very much magnify the impact of CSR in a transitional context. Specifically, the social responsibility of a firm with higher social capital is more positively related to organizational reputation than that of a firm with lower social capital, and this expands the theory of CSR. We present the strategic implication that the interaction between CSR and social capital improves corporate sustainable advantage.

With over 2 billion people lacking medicines for treatable diseases and 14 million people dying annually from infectious disease, there is undeniable need for increased access to medicines. There has been an increasing trend to benchmark the pharmaceutical industry on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in access to medicines. Benchmarking creates a competitive inter-business environment and acts as incentive for improving CSR. This article investigates the corporate feedback discourses pharmaceutical companies make in response to criticisms from benchmarking reports. It determines whether these responses are part of a healthy process in increasing access to medicines or a barrier to improvement. A qualitative analysis on the feedback the industry provided was performed, and the responses seen in these statements were grouped by analysing the language used, the ideas portrayed and atti- tudes of the companies. Increasing transparency through benchmarking is a powerful tool which reveals the industry’s shortfalls to the public, affects the decisions of socially responsible investors, and is a risk to their financial bottom line. This article demonstrates the importance of benchmarking and transparency in creating inter-business competition and the translation of these responses to actual access to medicine practices.