Foreword

With the political and media spotlight falling on climate change, sustainability, the ethics of business leaders (and those in the financial services preceding the recession) as well as the other global problems in the under-developed world of poverty, HIV, etc., the business world is beginning to see the necessity of being more socially and ecologically responsible. This is not just about being ‘green’, but about exploring the full range of socially responsible behaviours. As Theodore Zeldin suggested in his book An Intimate History of Humanity: ‘The Green Movement could not become a major political force so long as it concerned itself primarily with natural resources rather than with the full range of human desires. Its setbacks are yet another example of idealism being unable to get off the ground because it has not looked broadly enough at human aspirations in their entirety’. This book, edited by Craig Smith and his colleagues, provides the research base to this growing and increasingly important field. They focus on three key issues of corporate responsibility: embedding corporate responsibility, marketing and corporate responsibility and corporate responsibility and developing countries. Their contributors are comprised of some of the leading international scholars in the field from eight different countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, UK and the United States. This volume is based on state of the art research, which illustrates the importance of corporate responsibility, not only in terms of the ethical and environmental challenges but also because of their business imperative