ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book elaborates the idea of norms and other concepts that relate to the theoretical approach, and concerns international human, labour rights and globalization. It deals with the different stages and key elements of the norm cycle model as applied to the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The book describes early phase of the development of CSR discussed in relationship to three major events of the 1970s, the UN negotiations on a code of conduct for the UN Draft Norms (TNCs), efforts targeting companies in apartheid South Africa and the boycott of Nestle for its practices in marketing breast-milk substitutes. It discusses the norm tipping and norm cascade, with its mushrooming of CSR organizations and initiatives that occurs in the mid-1990s.
