Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship and the Global Compact

This article addresses the apparent demise of the concept of corporate social responsibility and its usurpation within academic literature, managerial practice and policy debate, by the concept of corporate citizenship. Having failed in its attempt to compel companies to behave responsibly, corporate social responsibility has been superseded by a more consensual approach that seeks to encourage companies to behaveas good corporate citizens. To view these two concepts as alternatives, however, fails to recognize the value to be gained in using them in combination. The role envisaged for corporate citizenship by this article is illustrated by an account of the United Nations Global Compact and concerns the establishment, through consensual means, of the norms necessary for an effective regime of corporate social responsibility.To this extent therefore, corporate citizenship should be viewed, not as a replacement for corporate social responsibility, but as a complement to it.