ABSTRACT
The primary responsibility for human development continues to rest with national governments and their administrations. Sustainable success depends on governments being as effective as possible with the resources available. Mainstream business ethics and the bulk of corporate responsibility literature suggest that acting in a responsible way means favouring a 'legitimacy' over a 'legality' approach. Corporate responsibility literature suggests two sets of reasons for corporations to apply standards higher than the legal minimum: intrinsic rightness and the business case. Part of the discrepancy has to do with political dynamics within the NGO community and with the fundamental ideological resistance of some constituencies to the corporate sector, capitalism and globalisation in general. Good stakeholder relations are seen to be advantageous to the company because they serve as an 'early warning system' for societal expectation trends and thus help to develop corporate social competence. Just like the UN Global Compact, the European Commission sees stakeholder relations as an integral part of corporate responsibility.
