ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the rationale—or the business case—for managing corporate responsibility today. It reviews the key external pressures that have created the substantial stakeholder and environmental demands that companies now face. Companies necessarily pay attention to pressures from owners or investors, especially in nations where the shareholder is traditionally seen as the dominant stakeholder. Another source of external pressure for managing responsibility is the numerous ratings and rankings of various corporate activities that now appear regularly. During the 1980s and 1990s, a growing population of social investors began to exert significant pressures on companies to behave more responsibly with respect to certain issues, such as human rights, environmental performance and governance. Some corporate critics actually become investors for the explicit purpose of influencing corporate policy through the activism of shareholder resolutions. The chapter provides some evidence that building better relationships with stakeholders through the strategies and operating practices developed in total responsibility management make good business sense.
