ABSTRACT
When are corporations called upon to contribute towards the realization of equity and the effective provision of public goods in society? What occasions such a demand? When does ‘global warming’, ‘child labour’ or ‘obesity’, for instance, become an ‘issue’ for individual companies? In the post-war period corporate responsibilities first became an ‘issue’ because of a number of major triggering events-either through major incidents involving big companies or through NGO awareness-raising campaigns. Reputationthreatening societal discontent landed on the corporate agenda and the response was to ‘manage’ the issue. In the past, issues management amounted to a reactive form of crisis management-required in the face of crit-ical incidents. Issues management largely involved problems encountered on consumer markets leading, for instance, to recalls of particular products. The challenge for the Public Affairs department was to come up with a strategy that would minimize (long-term) reputational damage.
