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The Arthur Andersen auditing firm was founded in 1913 by an accounting professor of the same name. After Mr. Andersen’s death in 1947, the firm found itself on the verge of collapse. But in the end it was saved thanks to the efforts of Leonard Spacek, who convinced partners to remain together despite looming uncertainty. Spacek, who was Andersen’s chief executive from 1947 to 1963, had the reputation of being the “conscience” of the auditing profession (Norris 2002a). He was among the first to warn that the auditing profession’s very existence could be put in danger if it did not show sufficient independence from clients. He also complained whenever the US Accounting Principles Board yielded too quickly to pressure from companies which thought that auditing rules would significantly reduce profits. Spacek always insisted that Andersen provide above all high-quality accounting, in accordance with its corporate motto, “Think straight. Talk straight”.

It all started in the late 90s. Allegations of corruption led to the resignation of the team of EU-Commissioners under Jacques Delors. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had to investigate corruption inside their prominent delegates. Presidents of a significant number of countries — from the Philippines to Kenya — were forced out of office because of charges of bribery and corruption. Even the crash of the total economies in Asia and Russia in 1998 was to some extent related to the tradition of nepotism and the culture of bribery and corruption. In 2002 also the crash of Argentina — 45 years ago among the top 5 richest countries of the world — was argued as being the result of a culture of bribery and corruption — widely spread in the upper and medium class. All this caused poverty and destruction of still rather weak social welfare systems. The middle class was completely wiped out and the wealthier people moved more funds to offshore-financial-centers or even completely left their ailing home countries. The collapse of Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat was also attributed to corrupt business practices and caused heavy losses for shareholders and thousands of pensioners. Last but not least thousands of people lost their jobs.

Companies don’t become model citizens overnight. Nike’s metamorphosis from the poster child for irresponsibility to a leader in progressive practices reveals the five stages of organizational growth.

When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system”, I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are — or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously -preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

In recent years the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained unprecedented momentum in Europe. Even the sceptical Martin Wolff, Chief Economics Correspondent of the commented that “CSR is an idea whose time has come” (Wolff, 2002: 62). CSR is a cluster concept which overlaps with such concepts as business ethics, corporate philanthropy, corporate citizenship, sustainability and environmental responsibility. It is a dynamic and contestable concept that is embedded in each social, political, economic and institutional context.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) consists in a company reconciling its economic aims with sustainable growth and human progress. Although every company has its own unique approach to value-oriented corporate management, this approach is usually based on established concepts. These concepts of corporate citizenship or corporate social responsibility emphasize a company’s willingness to assume social responsibility, and include components such as its attitude towards human rights, the needs of its employees and suppliers, and commitment to social issues.

The call to take historical responsibility is mostly found in connection with the consequences that arise from the National Socialist mass crimes.(Baer 2000)) The warning “Never again” was last linked with calls for an appropriate memorial and extensive compensation for the victims.(Spoerer 2002, Thompson 2002) But there are considerable complications with the term: theologians see a comprehensive, “historical responsibility through the eyes of the present day” (Virt 1993) while educationalists prefer “education as historical responsibility”. (Mogge 1988) The dictum is used for political instrumentalisation, rather as the long-serving president of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Joseph Broz Tito, assigned a historical responsibility vis-à-vis world development to his movement of non-aligned countries. Tito 1979)

Geert Hofstede was one of the first to attempt to develop a universal framework for understanding cultural differences in managers’ and employees’ values based on a world-wide survey. Hofstede’s work focuses on ‘value systems’ of national cultures which are represented by four dimensions:

The end of the Cold War and globalization processes have led to renewed interest in the study of transnational relations and the impact of non-state actors on world politics. Some authors praise the emergence of a global transnational civil society (Boli and Thomas, 1999; Florini, 2000; Held et al., 1999), while others denounce an increasing transnational capitalist hegemony (Gill, 1995). Both positions ascribe to non-state actors quite an extraordinary influence on outcomes in international politics. It is certainly true that transnational actors — from multinational corporations (MNCs) to International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) — have left their mark on the international system and that we cannot even start theorizing about the contemporary world system without taking their influence into account. But there is little systematic evidence to sustain claims that the transnational ‘society world’ has somehow overtaken the ‘state world’ (see Czempiel, 1991, on these notions). Rather than analyzing transnational and interstate relations in zero-sum terms, it is more useful to study their interactions and inter-penetration. As Reinicke put it, ‘governing the global economy governments is not an option. Yet for global governance to succeed, governments will also have to enlist the active cooperation of nonstate actors’ (Reinicke, 1998, 219). The following review of the literature tries to substantiate this point.

The United Nations Global Compact is a new initiative intended to increase and to diffuse the benefits of global economic development through voluntary corporate policies and actions. Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, addressing the Davos World Economic Forum in January 1999, challenged business leaders to join a “global compact of shared values and principles” and to provide globalization a human face. Annan argued that shared values provide a stable environment for a world market and that without these explicit values business could expect backlashes from protectionism, populism, fanaticism and terrorism.’ Following the 1999 Davos meeting, Annan and a group of business leaders formulated nine principles, which have come to be known as the UN Global Compact. After lengthy consultation, a tenth principle against corruption was added in June 2004.