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Progressive Business

An Intellectual History of the Role of Business in American Society

Christiansen, Christian (Institute for Culture and Society, Institute for Culture and Society, Aarhus University)

Progressive Business

Progressive Business

An Intellectual History of the Role of Business in American Society

Progressive Business

 

This book offers a new intellectual history of ideas about reforming capitalism from within. Tracing the emergence of different value systems in the American context, the book offers a fresh perspective on debates about capitalism in the late 19th century and 20th century US


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Beschrijving Progressive Business

Today, an increasing number of researchers, citizens, politicians, civil organizations, activists, and corporations are concerned with questions such as: Can the financial rationality of firms be constrained by social concerns? Can the market be reformed 'from within'?

Starting in the post-Civil War period of American industrialization, the book traces the emergence of ideas about reforming businesses in the American context, and the ideological and intellectual disputes about these ideas. This book offers a new historical, critical, and in-depth understanding of ideas that have today become increasingly widespread in debates about: corporate social responsibility, corporate philanthropy, corporate citizenship, social entrepreneurship, creating shared value, doing business and being virtuous at the same time. What underlies this discourse is the claim that corporations can change from 'within' - reforming themselves into being good citizens of society. While there has been much enthusiasm about ideas of restructuring the corporation, and the relationships between business and society, critics have argued that businesses continue to focus exclusively on making money. What neither the overly optimistic nor the overly sceptical typically takes into consideration, however, is the long history of social and humanistic business and management ideas.

This book offers a new intellectual history of ideas about socialising or humanising capitalism from within, and the critiques of these ideas. It introduces the concept of 'progressive business' as an analytical category around which these competing ideas can be arranged and studied. This conceptual innovation will allow the reader to acknowledge remarkable resemblances between present day ideas of corporate social responsibility and corporate citizenship, and earlier notions of the soulful corporation, industrial betterment. This will be helpful for gaining new insight into these long-lasting debates about state, business and civil society relationships, and thus for grasping the intellectual background for present-day debates.


ISBN
9780198701033
Pagina's
288
Verschenen
NUR
780
Druk
1
Uitvoering
Hardback
Taal
Engels
Uitgever
OUP Oxford

Economie en bedrijf