Corporate Social Responsibility - A Comparative Analysis of Germany and the USA

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (Management), course: Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility - An International Comparison, language: English, abstract: Nowadays the power and impact of big organizations has reached a new peak. Corporations are among the world's most powerful and dominant institutions. In some cases they are even surpassing the revenue-producing ability of small governments. In contrast to this economic success, globally acting companies are often accused of social and ecological misbehavior. Nevertheless, revealed affairs like the Nike-case have increased the awareness of customers, governmental organizations, trade unions and other stakeholders. For this reason during the past decades, the construct of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained growing attention, in both political and academic ways. While the image of socially contributing companies, acting beyond their legal duties and obligations, has a longer and more intensive history in the Anglo-Saxon countries and particularly in the United States, the concept is less implemented in central Europe. This is often explained by the fact that in these states many environmental and social responsibilities of companies are defined by laws, which are optional in Anglo-Saxon countries. These cross-national differences shall be outlined and critically analyzed within this paper, by comparing the CSR practices of Germany and the USA. Furthermore the question shall be answered to which extend the institutional background of corporations can shape their behavior and finally lead to a high or weak adoption of corporate social practices.