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20 Ewa Mazur-Wierzbicka concept is widely discussed in academic circles, during conferences, symposiums and in publications (always a theoretical basis), it is put into practice to a small extent. All the more should this concept be emphasized and discussed on the forum of firms that have implemented it and enjoy benefits accruing from this fact. Unfortunately, there are also many firms that, apart from declarations and propagating the idea of responsible business, do not have very much to do with the concept of responsible business. Nevertheless, it is expected that stakeholders will verify such behavior fast. Concept of corporate social responsibility – main issues The origins of responsible business were connected with philanthropy and the United States where the first modern firm was established. At the end of the 19 th century, an idea emerged in the US, that had become particularly popular during the period of the Great Depression, according to which businessmen should be responsible to society. Modern view on corporate social responsibility (CSR) appeared in the 1950’s thanks to Howard Bowen. In “Social Responsibilities of the Businessman” he explained that business activity affected ordinary people and society and so business ought to take such actions that would be coherent with social objectives and values. In the following years, it had been shown that corporate social responsibility drew businessmen’s attention to special relations between a businessman and society, of which the firm should be aware. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, a discussion on ethics in business took place in the USA, which laid foundations of modern tools such as, e.g. social audit. At first, the concept of corporate social responsibility was not well-known in Europe and did not arouse much interest due to a different way in which EU Member States divided their national income. However, the concept has become more and more popular also in Europe as a result of growing competitive advantage of the USA and more and more frequent difficulties with offering social guarantees of Welfare State. Both in the USA and Europe, theory was put into practice. In the 1990’s new trends and concepts such as sustainable development or corporate citizenship were developed. Nowadays, the center of gravity in the development of CSR has been transferred from the United States to Europe (Great Britain in particular where the government has even appointed a Minister for CSR). In order to analyze how CSR concept had been developing, one might follow through (after Rok, 2004) three ways that had led to the construal of responsible business models. The first one was the concept of sustainable development that appeared in the 1960’s and 1970’s. According to it, development processes began to be analyzed holistically and understood not only as economic indicators but also as environmental and social ones. The main argument calling for this concept was the fact that during the period of the Cold War humankind understood dangers in not so much military terms (resulting from the pursuing of ideological policy by the United States and the USRR) as in terms of global dangers resulting from limited natural resources and also large-scale exploitation of these resources. Furthermore, the category of profit, hitherto belonging only to the economic world, found its reflection also in other dimensions, namely environmental (where profit began to be defined as conditions favorable environmentally to the existence of people and communities) and social dimensions (in the case of which profit was understood as social bonds in local community, friendly climate for community members in the form of, e.g. employment). The aforementioned change in comprehending the role of enterprise resulted from the assumption according to which economy was not an autonomous sphere of life, which meant that it was not separated from society. As a consequence, it was concluded that economic sphere of life was an integral part of society.
Corporate Social Responsibility as a Valuable Contribution to Improvement ... 21 The second way involved civil pressure expressed by the fact that citizens were not very willing to enable enterprises to take actions contradictory to their everyday life. In other words, capitalism oriented only to making a profit began to criticized as a result of human rights development and civil society. Consumer movement, environmental protection movement or animal rights protection movement played a profound role in these actions. The third way was connected with business self-regulation. Most of all, social movement appeared within capitalism and business itself, and referred to the reduction in corruption and frauds in business, greater transparency and the occurrence of so-called positive practices, i.e. relations with clients or relations with consumers (Rok, 2004). Globalization processes that took place until the end of the 1980’s were the next giant step in the development of this notion. It was then that enterprises and organizations became an equal actor in international economic and political relations. This led not only to the reduction in the role of state but also imposed a new philosophy, with reference to communities or actors in whom the capital was invested, on enterprises and particularly on MNC’s (Multinational Corporations) and TNC’s (Transnational Corporations). Easy flow of capital, that is controlled by corporations, contributes also to the fact that, among other things, capital is recalled from areas in which no profit accrues to a corporation, however, certain social problems and questions are left behind in communities in the form of, for instance unemployment. Therefore, the responsibility faced by corporations when their profits are very often higher or equal to the country in which they make investments and pursue their policies began to be emphasized. Globalization is also caused by fiscal pressure on public institutions, which has contributed to the fact that a new form of cooperation between social partnership (so-called public private partnership) and its role in development has been established. Therefore, there is a growing awareness of adapting this form of partnership to activities of firms. In other words, people have begun to think in different terms recently, which indicates that responsibility for the functioning of society is accepted not only by governmental structures but also by other actors such as enterprises. In the era of globalization, one cannot forget about the evolution of social awareness, and hence greater importance of intangible values. Reflective current stresses new features determining long-term competitiveness of firms such as ability to create and develop trademarks based on values cherished by key social groups (Moeller, Eldar, 2003). Factors such as globalization, new forms of cooperation between business and public authorities and increasing social awareness of values in economy and social life developed thinking in terms of responsibility. Drawing up the general guidelines for MNC’s during OECD forum in 1976 was an example of the above ideas. The guidelines referred to the following spheres: employment relations, corruption elimination, environmental protection and consumer protection. On the other hand, rules about conducting economic activity were introduced in 1994 during international business environment by the so-called Caux Round Table. These rules referred to the following issues (Rok, 2004): • responsibility to stakeholders, • no acting against the law • respect for the environment • supporting multilateral trade • respect for legal regulations • beyond the letter of the law toward trust • toward innovations, justice and world community. Despite uniform trends and tendencies, it is possible to differentiate between American and European models of CSR. In the case of the former, charity work and philanthropy of
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