What does Corporate Citizenship have to do with the consumer? : Views on taking responsibility for a sustainable future

• This paper addresses the concept of corporate citizenship (CC) which has gained increasing attention both in society in general and in academic circles. Based on a review of the concepts of corporate social responsibility, stakeholder view of the firm and CC we argue that the debate on CC has been developed in a promising way the last few years. Although the extended view of CC, which views corporations as administering citizenship rights, is a theoretical advancement there is also an apparent lack of focus on private or individual citizens in order to understand responsibility-taking in society overall. We address this problem by introducing the notion of political consumerism and citizen consumer into the CC conceptualization. By analyzing the responsibilities of both corporations and citizens the possibility of achieving a sustainable future is increased. From this line of arguing we develop a conceptual model, called the CC-matrix, in which we describe the consumer inclusion into the academic CC debate. Thereafter we discuss a case (the Black Spot sneakers) in relation to this model and present some ideas for future research into corporate and consumer responsibilities for a sustainable future.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Corporate citizenship

Corporate responsibility

Consumerism

sustainability

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

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