ABSTRACT
The concept of 'social responsibility' does indeed have a long history in the world of business. Social responsibility has to form an essential part of the company's life because it has to be incorporated in its heart, transforming it internally. In the early third millennium the discourse on corporate social responsibility doubtlessly has remarkable global and local weight. There are more and more programmes, publications and university courses on the subject, with an increasing number of institutions helping companies to manage their responsibility. The combination of the words 'ethics' and 'business' continues to sound strange for most people. Recovering ethical values and principles in the business world became a priority and since then there has been a proliferation of publications, chairs, institutes and courses on business ethics. 'Even a people of devils', even a group of companies who understand their only aim to be profit-making, will realize that it in its interests to assume social responsibility.
