Social Responsibility in the Economy

In recent decades affluent capitalist democracies have faced far reaching economic, political, and social changes and grand challenges. These developments have heralded an age of responsibilization of the economy, where economic actors are increasingly called upon to assume responsibility for common goods. In this chapter I first discuss how responsible economic action can be defined. Second, I present both actor and context centered theoretical approaches to explaining responsible economic action. Finally, after reviewing the empirical literature focusing on consumer and corporate responsibility, I conclude by discussing implications of the social responsibility perspective for economic sociology in the twenty-first century.publishe