Corporate and State Social Responsibility A Long-Term Perspective英文文献资料.docVIP

Modern Economy, 2012, 3, 91-99 91 /10.4236/me.2012.31013 Published Online January 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/me) Corporate and State Social Responsibility: A Long-Term Perspective Rosetta Lombardo, Giovanni D’Orio Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy Email: {r.lombardo, gio.dorio}@unical.it Received October 16, 2011; revised November 20, 2011; accepted November 29, 2011 ABSTRACT Companies have caught the changes in consumer perceptions and have developed corporate social responsibility (CSR) as long run survival strategy. The CSR signals that companies are overcoming the logic of the short term. The question is whether an evolution towards something similar that we call State social responsibility (SSR) is possible. State social responsibility is exerted when the State, in absence (or in case of ineffectiveness) of a formal supranational law, protects the rights of current and future generations of its citizens and citizens of other states and/or raises the current genera- tions’ awareness regarding the opportunities reduction generated in space and time by meta-externalities. States would signal the tendency to overcome their short-sighted logic if the meta-externalities became a crucial question in their agenda. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Economics and Social Values; Meta-Externalities; Sustainability 1. Introduction bility. The most important reason why we look in a compara- Corporations are often accused of damaging the environ- ment and it is not clear what should be the appropriate correction of the external effects they produce. Yet, a number of them adopt social responsibility practices, that is, go considerably beyond what is legally required and incur significant costs in order to minimize the environ- mental impact. Is it socially desirable for managers to take costly en- vironmental initiatives at the expense of shareholder