ABSTRACT
Over the past decades, the evolution of the “old economy” into a “new global economy” has brought about numerous changes in how businesses go about conducting their operations. The accompanying explosion of information technology has changed the speed and reach of business operations, not only bringing about new structures at the market, industry, and firm levels but also changing the role and power of consumers as customers (Zuboff and Maxmin 2004). In this new business environment, the customer has evolved from “solution demander” to “value demander” and from “client” to “partner” (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004; Porter and Kramer 2011). Moreover, there are increased expectations from businesses to be responsive to a wide variety of environmental and social issues. The period characterizing such expectations is often called the corporate social responsibility (CSR) era, and CSR has emerged as one of the most profound topics for both business practitioners and academicians. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of environmental and social initiatives led by the private sector that traditionally were within the purview of government. Overall, businesses are developing new models to respond to emerging expectations.
