IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rug/rugwps/04-245.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

To What Extent Is Business And Society Literature Idealistic?

Author

Listed:
  • N. A. DENTCHEV

Abstract

This paper focuses on the general concern that theories on the social responsibility of business have not much practical value. We discuss the central theses of mainstream themes in the business and society literature – corporate social responsibility, corporate social responsiveness, social issues, corporate social performance, stakeholder management, corporate citizenship, business ethics, sustainable development, and corporate sustainability – and evaluate their descriptive accuracy, normative validity and instrumental power. A great deal of the literature views corporate contribution to social and environmental issues from a moral perspective. Such moral prescription widens the expectational gap between theories and practice. If business and society literature is to have any practical value, our theorizing should make sense to businesses. It therefore needs to reflect, at least partially, the practitioners’ concerns with social responsibility. Hence research questions with practical relevance should be posed, and methods adopted from empirical inquiry, focusing on well-defined problems. Although the empirical method is advocated here, we do not plead for its enforcement on colleagues who might consider it inappropriate. Yet, we do appeal to normative theorists to ponder whether their prescriptions to business can be realistically implemented.

Suggested Citation

  • N. A. Dentchev, 2004. "To What Extent Is Business And Society Literature Idealistic?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/245, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  • Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:04/245
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wps-feb.ugent.be/Papers/wp_04_245.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. Graham Astley & Raymond F. Zammuto, 1992. "Organization Science, Managers, and Language Games," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(4), pages 443-460, November.
    2. Carroll, Archie B., 1991. "The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 39-48.
    3. Ricart, Joan E. & Rodríguez, Miguel A. & Sanchez, Pablo, 2002. "Sustainable development and sustainability of competitive advantage: A dynamic and sustainable view of the firm," IESE Research Papers D/462, IESE Business School.
    4. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2000. "The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1441-1478.
    5. Freeman, Edward & Liedtka, Jeanne, 1997. "Stakeholder capitalism and the value chain," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 286-296, June.
    6. Freeman, R. Edward & Liedtka, Jeanne, 1991. "Corporate social responsibility: A critical approach," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 92-98.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beck, Donizete & Ferasso, Marcos, 2023. "How can Stakeholder Capitalism contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? A Cross-network Literature Analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    2. Mario La Torre & Sabrina Leo & Ida Claudia Panetta, 2021. "Banks and environmental, social and governance drivers: Follow the market or the authorities?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(6), pages 1620-1634, November.
    3. Ruth Zárate-Rueda & Juan Sebastian Bautista-Zárate & Yolima Ivonne Beltrán-Villamizar, 2021. "Stakeholders within the framework of Corporate Social Responsibility: A systematic review," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, vol. 37(160), pages 460-471, August.
    4. Miguel Arato & Stijn Speelman & Guido Van Huylenbroeck, 2016. "Corporate Social Responsibility Applied for Rural Development: An Empirical Analysis of Firms from the American Continent," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, January.
    5. Sergiy D. Dmytriyev & R. Edward Freeman & Jacob Hörisch, 2021. "The Relationship between Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Social Responsibility: Differences, Similarities, and Implications for Social Issues in Management," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(6), pages 1441-1470, September.
    6. Yuan‐Shuh Lii & Kuang‐Wen Wu & May‐Ching Ding, 2013. "Doing Good Does Good? Sustainable Marketing of CSR and Consumer Evaluations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 15-28, January.
    7. Ina Freeman & Amir Hasnaoui, 2011. "The Meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility: The Vision of Four Nations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 419-443, May.
    8. A. Heene & N. A. Dentchev, 2004. "A strategic perspective on stakeholder management," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/253, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    9. Seo, Kwanglim & Moon, Joonho & Lee, Seoki, 2015. "Synergy of corporate social responsibility and service quality for airlines: The moderating role of carrier type," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 126-134.
    10. Dawson, Alexandra & Ginesti, Gianluca & Sciascia, Salvatore, 2020. "Family-related antecedents of business legality: An empirical investigation among Italian family owned SMEs," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 11(1).
    11. Davide Secchi, 2009. "The Cognitive Side of Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(3), pages 565-581, September.
    12. Saurabh Ahluwalia, 2022. "A critique of corporate social responsibility in light of classical economics," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 12(1), pages 25-29, June.
    13. Lan Li & Gang Li & Fu-Sheng Tsai & Hsiu-Yu Lee & Chien-Hsing Lee, 2019. "The Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Service Innovation Performance: The Role of Dynamic Capability for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, May.
    14. Jae-Bin Cha & Mi-Na Jo, 2019. "The Effect of the Corporate Social Responsibility of Franchise Coffee Shops on Corporate Image and Behavioral Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-16, December.
    15. Tao Zhang & Lishi Gu & Jenny Jing Wang, 2023. "State‐owned capital and corporate social responsibility of private‐holding companies: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(S1), pages 1101-1120, April.
    16. Jose Luis Retolaza & Ricardo Aguado & Leire Alcaniz, 2019. "Stakeholder Theory Through the Lenses of Catholic Social Thought," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(4), pages 969-980, July.
    17. N. A. Dentchev & A. Heene, 2003. "Toward stakeholder responsibility and stakeholder motivation: Systemic and holistic perspectives on corporate sustainability," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/196, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    18. Bo Enquist & Mikael Johnson & Per Skålén, 2006. "Adoption of corporate social responsibility – incorporating a stakeholder perspective," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 3(3), pages 188-207, September.
    19. Muhammad Faisal Majid & Muhammad Meraj & Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik, 2022. "In the Pursuit of Environmental Sustainability: The Role of Environmental Accounting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, May.
    20. Hana Hlochova, 2019. "The Origins of CSR In Theory and Practice: Chapter from CSR History In The CEE Region," International Journal of Business Research and Management (IJBRM), Computer Science Journals (CSC Journals), vol. 10(4), pages 84-101, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    business and society; corporate social responsibility; corporate social performance; integrated approach; theory building;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:04/245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nathalie Verhaeghe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ferugbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.