Introduction

The emphasis was strongly on the challenges of corporate citizenship in the developing world, including specific pieces on the Millennium Development Goals and the 'Bottom of the Pyramid' concept about servicing lower-income markets, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Pacific Rim, the Middle East, Chile, Nigeria and Russia. An idealistic–realistic approach calls us to engage in making CSR a catalyst for systemic change. Idealism is important as we must reawaken the values that underscore the CSR agenda, rather than hiding them sheepishly behind commercial arguments for action. Exploitative North–South supply chains, tax avoidance and anti-competitive practices are fairly typical of international corporations, undermining their economic contribution to development. These economic issues have been overlooked by mainstream work on corporate responsibility, but this review chronicles the initiatives and debates during 2004 that together suggest such economic issues will become more central in future.