The Good Company: Rhetoric or Reality? Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics Redux

For millennia, religious teachings and secular ethics have sought to nurture socially beneficial economic behavior. The canonical literatures of virtually every religious tradition as well as Western and Eastern philosophy are replete with precepts and admonitions regarding what constitutes ethical behavior in the economic realm. It is the emergence of large-scale business organizations in the last third of the nineteenth century within Europe and the US that gave rise to concerns about corporate social responsibility (CSR). The author's basic thesis is that ethical teachings and CSR, although necessary, even essential, factors in achieving good companies are inherently insufficient. In descending order of importance, law, affinity regulation, self-regulation, the media, and active civil society all play critical roles in achieving socially beneficial corporate behavior. To summarize, people must rely on legal processes, both nationally and transnationally via regional and global institutions, to establish the rules of the game for desired corporate behaviors.