The political economy of CSR in Western Europe

Purpose – The increasing engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) potentially indicates an attempt to “re‐embed” the economy in a wider societal context, following a period of neoliberal market exposure, deregulation, and separation of commercial and societal concerns. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between this new social embedding of the economy and older traditions of social embeddedness, such as the welfare state, neocorporatist arrangements, and other socio‐political and labour market arrangements.Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the relationship between old and new embeddedness by examining how 17 West European nations and the USA are ranked on “old” embeddedness dimensions and comparing this ranking with “new” CSR rankings of nationally aggregated industrial performance.Findings – The overall findings at an aggregate level provides some support for the idea of a symmetric relationship between the “old”, politically‐driven embeddedness and the “ne...

[1]  J. Keynes,et al.  The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. , 1936 .

[2]  P. Katzenstein,et al.  Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe , 1985 .

[3]  P. Katzenstein,et al.  Small States In World Markets , 1985 .

[4]  David Vogel,et al.  National Styles of Regulation: Environmental Policy in Great Britain and the United States , 1986 .

[5]  E. Savas,et al.  Privatization: The Key to Better Government , 1989, American Political Science Review.

[6]  Wolfgang Streeck,et al.  Private interest government : beyond market and state , 1988, American Political Science Review.

[7]  Charles J. Fombrun,et al.  Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image , 1996 .

[8]  Jan-Erik Lane,et al.  Public sector reform : rationale, trends and problems , 1997 .

[9]  John Elkington,et al.  Partnerships from cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st‐century business , 1998 .

[10]  E. Huber,et al.  Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism: The Welfare State in Hard Times , 1999 .

[11]  P. Hall,et al.  Varieties of Capitalism , 2001 .

[12]  Simon Zadek,et al.  The Civil Corporation: The New Economy of Corporate Citizenship , 2001 .

[13]  L. Mjøset.  Employment, unemployment and ageing in the West European welfare states , 2001 .

[14]  B. Jessop.  Regulationist and Autopoieticist Reflections on Polanyi's Account of Market Economies and the Market Society , 2001 .

[15]  R. Boyer,et al.  Regulation Theory: The State of the Art , 2001 .

[16]  J. Stiglitz,et al.  The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time , 2001 .

[17]  Halina Ward,et al.  Public sector roles in strengthening corporate social responsibility: a baseline study , 2002 .

[18]  M. Porter,et al.  The competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy. , 2002, Harvard business review.

[19]  G. Kell,et al.  Global Compact , 2004, The Raoul Wallenberg Institute Compilation of Human Rights Instruments.

[20]  S. Waddock,et al.  Unfolding stakeholder thinking , 2003 .

[21]  H. Ward.  Public sector roles in strengthening corporate social responsibility : taking stock , 2004 .

[22]  Sunita Kikeri,et al.  An assessment of privatization , 2004 .

[23]  A. Midttun.  Realigning business, government and civil society , 2005 .

[24]  A. Sapir.  Globalisation and the reform of European social models: Background document for the presentation at ECOFIN Informal Meeting in Manchester, 9 September 2005 , 2005 .

[25]  M. Friedman.  The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits , 2007 .

[26]  A. Midttun.  Norway in the 1980s: Competitive Adaptation or Structural Crisis? A Comment on Katzenstein's Small-State/ Flexible-Adjustment Thesis , 2007 .

[27]  W. Korpi.  The Democratic Class Struggle , 2018, The Democratic Class Struggle.