ABSTRACT
The debate concerning the legitimization of the exercise of public power by private corporations, within both academic literature and managerial practice, has witnessed an apparently natural progression over the last seventy years. Beginning in the 1930s with the recognition of the separation of ownership and control, through the heyday of corporate social responsibility in the 1970s, it has more recently evolved into the modern concept of corporate citizenship. The claim, implicit in much of the corporate citizenship literature, is that corporate social responsibility has had its day and that a new approach to the regulation of corporate social power is needed.
