Corporate social responsibility remains an embryonic and contestable concept. This paper assesses three key approaches and offers a perspective gauging little prospect of theoretical synthesis. Ethical responsibility theory advocates strong corporate self-restraint and altruism duties and expansive public policy strengthening stakeholder rights. Economic responsibility theory advocates market wealth creation subject only to minimalist public policy and perhaps customary business ethics. These two viewpoints embed competing moral frameworks and political philosophies. Any theoretical synthesis must discover some subset of ethical principles yielding corporate competitive advantage. Corporate citizenship language invokes a political metaphor providing neither true intermediate positioning nor theoretical synthesis. Two conflicting interpretations abandon responsibility language without adopting the economic viewpoint. An instrumental citizenship interpretation expands philanthropy as a strategic lever for increasing corporate reputation and market opportunities while retaining managerial discretion. An ideal citizenship interpretation restates ethical responsibility into voluntarism language intended to influence managerial discretion concerning universal human rights. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006.

Corporate social responsibility is one of the earliest and key conceptions in the academic study of business and society relations. This article examines the future of corporate social responsibility. Bowen's (1953) key question concerned whether the interests of business and society merge in the long ran. That question is assessed in the present and future contexts. There seem to be distinctly anti‐responsibility trends in recent academic literature and managerial views concerning best practices. These trends raise significant doubts about the future status of corporate social responsibility theory and practice. The vital change is that a leitmotif of wealth creation progressively dominates the managerial conception of responsibility. The article provides a developmental history of the corporate social responsibility notion from the Progressive Era forward to the corporate social performance framework and Carroll's pyramid of corporate social responsibilities. There are three emerging alternatives or competitors to responsibility: (1) an economic conception of responsibility; (2) global corporate citizenship; and (3) stakeholder management practices. The article examines and assesses each alternative. The article then assesses the prospects for business responsibility in a global context. Two fundamentals of social responsibility remain: (1) the prevailing psychology of the manager; and (2) the normative framework for addressing how that psychology should be shaped. Implications for practice and scholarship are considered.

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A proposed global theory of corporate political activity (CPA) analyzes the complex resource allocation choices involved in integrating politically relevant cross-border and multilevel strategies for multinational enterprises (MNEs). Cross-border CPA is "horizontal" allocation of scarce corporate resources by MNEs to politically relevant strategies across multiple countries. Globalization reshapes CPA among multiple levels functioning below, at, and above national governments. Subnational communities and international policy regimes, supranational quasigovernmental institutions, and supranational nongovernmental organizations all affect businesses. Multilevel CPA is "vertical" allocation of scarce corporate resources to politically relevant strategies among subnational, national, regional, and global levels. Furthermore, in each country and at each level, business-relevant policies are determined in multiple policy arenas, shaped by widely differing nonmarket institutions, corruption conditions, and stakeholder demands for corporate social responsibility. Multiple policy "arena" allocation adds to the analytical complexity of the CPA strategizing problem. Implications for scholarship and practice are presented.

Change process, Creative destruction, Dialog, Dynamics, Engagement, Networks, Participation, Reciprocity, Social construction, Sustainability, Value creation,