Corporate Citizenship as Investing in Social Capital

André Habisch, Hans-Peter Meister, René Schmidpeter [Hrsg.]

ISBN 978-3-89722-579-4
202 pages, year of publication: 2001
price: 35.00 €
Corporate Citizenship as Investing in Social Capital

At the beginning of the 21^st century globalisation and technical revolution are transforming our world. New possibilities are arising and co-operative networks are going to be created in order to multiply the capacy and productivity of economics as well as cultural exchange. However, with globalisation new challenges emerge. The gains of the process are unequally distributed between communication elites and the poorly educated which remain sceptical and negative about the current developments. Thus, with exponential growth of communication between certain groups, others are threatened by isolation and disintegration. They expect the winners to "give back" and protest against the "upsetting forces", thus questioning the gains for all of us. The protesters of Seattle and Davos may easily become the precursors of a new protectionist backslash.

"Corporate Citizenship" is not just a remake of the traditional business ethics debate. Rather it reflects the fact that at the end of the 20^th century the relationship between business and society is fundamentally changing. Modern corporations have to "invest" in their social and institutional environment ("social capital") as they learnt to invest in buildings ("physical capital") or in the professional training of their employees ("human capital"). Communitiy relations become an important asset to generate trust, foster innovations and facilitate regular contacts of business with other "stakeholder-groups". Acting as a "good corporate citizen" could solve urgent problems and increase long-term corporate profits.

Contents:

Social Capital, Corporate Citizenship and Constitutional Dialogues - Theoretical Considerations for Organisational Strategy; Theoretical foundations: Globalization and Destabilization Tendencies of the International System, Political Dimensions of (Post)Modern Societies, The Evolution of Morality: F.A. von Hayeks Perspective on Social Capital; Social Captial, Corporate Citizenship and the Social Market Economy - The Third Way Politics in Great Britain and in Germany. Social Capital; Comparison of Innovation Process in China an the UK: trust, networks and knowlege exchange, Corporate Citizenship and Social Capital in Modern Society, Social Capital and Economic Development: Some Reflections on the Italian Case, "Citizen Can" - Building Shareholder-Values as a Corporate Citizen. Examples from Germany showing how investing in Social Capital leads to win-win Situations, InnoRegio Networks as Social Capital of the Region. Corporate Citizenship; A Corporate Citizen's Strategy, Social Capital in the Small Firm, Shareholder Value and Moral Capital, Integrated Communication and Sustainability Networks - First Insights into a New Concept, A Social Constructivist Perspective on Social Partnerships - Sense-making, Enactment and Identity Creation.