Georges Enderle proposes a radically new understanding of corporate responsibility in the global and pluralistic context. This book introduces a framework that integrates the ideas of wealth creation and human rights, which is illustrated by multiple corporate examples, and provides a sharp critique of the maximizing shareholder value ideology. By defining the purpose of business enterprises as creating wealth in a comprehensive sense, encompassing natural, economic, human and social capital while respecting human rights, Enderle draws attention to the fundamental importance of public wealth, without which private wealth cannot be created. This framework further identifies the limitations of the market institution and self-regarding motivations by demonstrating that the creation of public wealth requires collective actors and other-regarding motivations. In line with the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, this book provides clear ethical guidance for businesses around the world and a strong voice against human right violations, especially in repressive and authoritarian regimes and populist and discriminatory environments.

Enderle illustrates the importance of corporate responsibility by integrating wealth creation and human rights. An invaluable reference for students, teachers and researchers in business and economic ethics, social sciences and human rights studies, as well as for leaders in business, civil society organizations and international institutions.

This landmark history of corporate responsibility documents corporate power and business behaviour from the mid-eighteenth century to the modern day. It shows how corporate responsibility has evolved, with the roles, responsibilities and performance of corporations coming increasingly under the spotlight as new norms of transparency and accountability emerge.

Your business should respect human rights, but what are the human rights? According to the globally agreed minimum standard for responsible business conduct, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the UNGPs) from 2011, your business should - at minimum - manage risks of impacts on the human rights contained in the 'International Bill of Human Rights' (IBHR), confer UNGPs Foundational Principle 12. You business may have adverse impacts on all human rights. Human rights represent the key elements of social sustainability and define the S in ESG. Human rights outline all key areas of importance to human dignity. Human Rights Explained is a tool that provides a basic understanding of how businesses can impact human rights and how such impact can be managed. This handbook presents all 48 human rights contained in the IBHR and explains how each right is relevant in a business context. Becoming familiar with human rights in a business context is a necessary step for companies to ‘respect human rights’ as required by the UNGPs. If you and your employees gain a clear understanding of human rights, your company will be much better equipped to be able to avoid adverse impacts on human rights. Through concrete examples, Human Rights Explained illustrates how businesses may adversely impact human rights, while also demonstrating how your business can manage that impact and even contribute positively to the fulfilment of each human right.

This book takes a unique approach to the topic of poverty reduction, primarily employing an international business framework as opposed to the usual economic or political lens. Some of the key ideas explored in the book include: poverty is primarily the lack of choices, not the lack of material possessions; attacking inequality of opportunity might be a more effective means to reduce poverty than attaching inequality of wealth; political systems matter, but individuals and for-profit firms also have a vital and indispensable role in helping to create the wealth needed to reduce poverty; and an effective corporate social responsibility strategy to help reduce poverty may include finding innovative and creative ways to operate profitably in areas of the world where poverty is currently robbing too many people of the opportunity to live their version of the good life. Building on such ideas, the book advocates for private companies to expand operations into the least developed regions of the world as part of their corporate social responsibility programs and to reframe the debates away from ones focused on exploitation and economic nationalism to one of creating opportunities across political borders.

With this book, Charlotte Walker-Said and John D. Kelly have assembled an essential toolkit to better understand how the notoriously ambiguous concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) functions in practice within different disciplines and settings. Bringing together cutting-edge scholarship from leading figures in human rights programs around the United States, they vigorously engage some of the major political questions of our age: what is CSR, and how might it render positive political change in the real world? The book examines the diverse approaches to CSR, with a particular focus on how those approaches are siloed within discrete disciplines such as business, law, the social sciences, and human rights. Bridging these disciplines and addressing and critiquing all the conceptual domains of CSR, the book also explores how CSR silos develop as a function of the competition between different interests. Ultimately, the contributors show that CSR actions across all arenas of power are interdependent, continually in dialogue, and mutually constituted. Organizing a diverse range of viewpoints, this book offers a much-needed synthesis of a crucial element of today’s globalized world and asks how businesses can, through their actions, make it better for everyone.

This volume of Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability harnesses corporate responsibility and green management to integrate social and environmental concerns into productive business operations, paving the way for future successes in emerging economies.