Greece the experiment of market extension

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is being recognised internationally, and also in Greece, as a significant political attitude advancing sustainable development, cross-sector dialogue and cooperation and experimentation with new models and competing ideas of citizenship such as welfare, social, civil, European, and privatised citizenship. Since the 1980s, citizenship theories have predominated in academic literature and "two types of experiments with citizenship are emerging: those concerned with the extension of the market, that is the re-expression of market freedoms as integral to, rather than in conflict with, citizenship; and those concerned with trying to transcend formal political patterns with more social and participative approaches" (Crouch, Eder & Tambini, 2001: 8). In the context of these theoretical debates and more specifically, adhering to the theoretical strand of the experimentation with "market extension", we define corporate citizenship as a political commitment undertaken by corporations towards the global society and local and international stakeholders in order to address pressing social and environmental issues. We regard CSR as a major driver of corporate culture change, in an era where corporate reputation, competitiveness, leadership and risk management are increasingly embedded in corporate social and environmental performance. The notion of CSR is also directly linked with the concepts of civil society and stakeholder capitalism (Kelly, Kelly & Gamble, 1997; Kay, 1997; Hutton, 1999) since it establishes a new business model for the 21st century, the Corporate Citizen (McIntosh, Leipziger, Jones & Coleman, 1998; Janoski, 1998). In Greece CSR is a new concept, almost a neologism, that has gained impetus over the past three years amongst business leaders, opinion makers, media professionals and government. Academic research on the issue is taking its first steps, focusing on the changing role of business in society (Lipovetski, 1992; Bovens, 1998) and the new model of "citizen brands" that integrate corporate citizenship, core values and branding (Willmott, 2001: 5). Other areas of research include ethical consumption, stakeholder theory and cross-sector partnerships, the impact of CSR policies and communication on corporate reputation, and the medias CSR. Public opinion surveys map the changing perceptions and social expectations, fostering our hypothesis that the CSR movement can also be a driver of social change in its own right. On the other hand, our political tradition favours conflict and social confrontation and rarely does it value structured dialogue, cooperation or partnership building among social partners and stakeholders. Nevertheless, during the elections of 8th March 2004, the concepts of "dialogue", "transparency", "responsibility", "participatory democracy", and "cooperation" were introduced into our mainstream political agenda, signalling the eve of a new era where the concept of corporate social responsibility can be embedded in the emergent socio-political values.