Corporate or Governmental Duties? Corporate Citizenship From a Governmental Perspective

Abstract

Recent discussions on corporate citizenship (CC) highlight the new political role of corporations in society by arguing that corporations increasingly act as quasi-governmental actors and take on what hitherto had originally been governmental tasks. By examining political and sociological citizenship theories, the authors show that such a corporate engagement can be explained by a changing (self-)conception of corporate citizens from corporate bourgeois to corporate citoyen. As an intermediate actor in society, the corporate citoyen assumes co-responsibilities for social and civic affairs and actively collaborates with fellow citizens beyond governmental regulation. This change raises the question of how such corporate civic engagement can be aligned with public policy regulations and how corporate activities can be integrated into the democratic regime. To clarify the mode of CC contributions to society, the authors will apply the tenet of subsidiarity as a governing principle which allows for specifying corporations' tasks as intermediate actors in society. By referring to the renewed European Union strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility, the authors show how such a subsidiary corporate-governmental task-sharing can be organized.

Developing Socio-Techno-Economic-Political (STEP) Solutions for Addressing Resource Nexus Hotspots

“…This commentary builds on a wide body of literature that focuses on the interactions between government, business, and society; and it categorizes these players into three types, accordingly [39][40][41][42][43][44]. The commentary highlights the way in which a better understanding of those interactions can be useful in the context of addressing resource hotspots.…”

Understanding political responsibility in corporate citizenship: towards a shared responsibility for the common good

“…The corporation is provided with the legal status of an economic citizen (bourgeois). Its core purpose is to make a profit for the 'real' economic citizensthe owners of the company (Assländer and Curbach 2017). Hence, from a liberal perspective the corporate citizen should abide by the law, but does not have any additional social or political responsibilities.…”

“…At the same time, when subsidiary entities fail their societal tasks, or cannot accomplish them in an efficient way, a higher entity (usually national government) must intervene and tasks are shifted to the next level. In the past years, subsidiarity and devolution have mainly been used to think about the relation between national governments and supranational institutions such as the EU, but according to Assländer and Curbach the principle of subsidiarity can also provide guidance on corporate-governmental task-sharing (Assländer 2011;Assländer and Curbach 2017).…”

“…While corporate actors are taking over some traditional governmental activities, this does not guarantee that corporate actors will sufficiently compensate for 'a lack of governmental services in all relevant areas on a sustainable basis' (Assländer and Curbach 2017, 17, our emphasis). Government regulation remains crucial in the case of (1) democracy enhancing or freedom promoting activities, (2) when the assignment of responsibilities to lower entities causes friction with: justice, equal treatment of citizens or endangers fundamental citizenship rights (political participation) and (3) in instances that require strict coordination (for instance when facing epidemics) (Assländer and Curbach 2017).…”

“…If the political responsibilities of corporations are to be taken in a successful way, national governments are to develop governance structures to allow this to take place. Political discourse in national and supranational organizations is to determine the scope and content of these corporate co-responsibilities (Assländer and Curbach 2017).…”