| dc.description.abstract | Corporate social responsibility is fast becoming a fashionable
phrase among businessrnen, managers, management
academics, economists, politicians, and the public at
large. Before these diverse groups plunge into serious
debate on this crucial issue, one could perhaps learn
from the long experience of western countries, especially
the U. S., on this subject.
A detailed scrutiny of a selected sample of western
thought showed that two different and distinct groups
existed. It was significant to find economists, lawyers,
and political thinkers in the former group looking at the
corporation mostly from outside, and teachers, researchers,
and counsellors to the corporate sector in the latter
group looking at the corporation from within. The former
group, called externalists, has wielded better influence
with policymakers in government and the latter, called
managerialists, has influenced decisionmakers in corporations.
The four—externalists, government, managerialists,
and corporation—have continued to function as two
parallel axes: the externalists-government axis almost
always confronting the managerialists-corporation axis. | |
