Department/School

Center for Ethical Business Cultures

Date of this version

2010

Document Type

Working Paper

Keywords

corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, corporate philanthropy and ethics

Abstract

This essay explores the pre- and early history of corporate philanthropy in the United States, from the mid nineteenth century till the mid-twentieth century, a period that witnessed a slow, halting progression toward the public acceptance of corporate giving. Efforts to win legitimacy for corporate giving required the reconciliation of contending imperatives—to increase a corporation’s profits on behalf of its shareholders and to honor the social responsibilities inherent in the corporate form. The essay demonstrates both the various strategies adopted to secure such a reconciliation, and how precarious that reconciliation often was, as victories on behalf of corporate giving’s legitimacy often triggered various counter-reactions that vitiated some of those victories’ achievements.

Citation/Other Information

Copyright: This paper is copyrighted by the Center for Ethical Business Cultures.

URL: This paper is posted on the Center for Ethical Business Cultures website at http://www.cebcglobal.org/index.php?/knowledge/history-working-papers/.

Citations: This paper may be cited as: Soskis, Benjamin. 2010. The pre- and early history of American corporate philanthropy. History of Corporate Responsibility Project Working Paper No. #3. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Ethical Business Cultures located at the Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas - Minnesota. www.cebcglobal.org (Keyword: Soskis)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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