Corporate Responsibility (PDF)

"This work is comprehensive and accessible analysis of the contemporary challenges to the conduct and legitimacy of businesses. Illustrated throughout with examples and evidence from research, it raises questions and offers new ways to think about these challenges. It is the most engaging and readable work on the subject available."
Mike Rowe, University of Liverpool Management School

Hardly a week goes by without some aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) hitting the headlines. One week it can be bankers' bonuses, next it is the environmental impact of corporations or their approach to human rights. Hardly an aspect of business behaviour or an area of corporate activity is excluded.

Along with the issues, the challenges proliferate not just around Wall Street and the City of London but from Sarajevo to Stockholm, Manila to Manchester. Even the Financial Times talks about a crisis in capitalism with the corporation having 'inherent failings' that grow out stewardship failings because they are not 'effectively owned'.

This new edition of Corporate Responsibility starts with a fundamental shift in perspective from the previous edition by highlighting the change from corporate responsibility being a vital business issue, to being the vital issue facing business. In the process, the author brings together a comprehensive guide to the subject by addressing contemporary developments in both theory and practice.

A distinct intellectual framework is developed that highlights the ways the issues at the heart of corporate responsibility hang together. This links the ethics that underpin the values of corporations and their leadership to the way they exercise their responsibilities as stewards not just of their business but of the natural, human and built environment which they affect. Latest research is integrated with case studies that allow the teacher, student and researcher to access the body of contemporary knowledge while responding to a rapidly changing landscape.

The book has been restructured to allow:

• Greater emphasis on the global challenges of corporate responsibility.
• Space for the policy initiatives that have emerged.
• New chapters on CSR practice internationally, codes of behaviour and the nature and evolution of corporate governance.
• Detailed examination of contemporary events such as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fukushima nuclear radiation disaster, the widening gap between CEO remuneration and that of others and concerns about corporate tax avoidance.
• Essential material for the successful study of international business.

Tom Cannon has held senior academic appointments in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and is currently Professor of Strategic Development at the University of Liverpool.