Against corporate responsibility: critical reflections on thinking, practice, content and consequences

This article critically reflects on today's dominant articulation of corporate responsibility (CR) in terms of thinking, practice, content and consequences. We examine what has and has not changed since a seminal critique of the notion of business social responsibility put forward by Theodore Levitt 50 years ago. We illustrate our argument with the case of Botnia in Uruguay, which has recently generated much discussion in international media, and other examples that are illuminating on the problematic nature of contemporary CR. We find that little in fact has changed between the 1958 and 2008 versions of CR except for the context of (global) business, especially the threat posed by sustainability questions and the more systematic ideological rejection of regulation. As opposed to these contemporary evolutions, we call for alternative, regulation‐based articulations of CR, which would improve corporate accountability on social and environmental questions.