Corporations and Citizenship

It is widely accepted that corporations have economic, legal, and even social roles. Yet the political role of corporations has yet to be fully appreciated. Corporations and Citizenship serves as a corrective by employing the concept of citizenship in order to make sense of the political dimensions of corporations. Citizenship offers a way of thinking about roles and responsibilities among members of polities and between these members and their governing institutions. Crane, Matten and Moon provide a rich and multi-faceted picture that explores three relations of citizenship – corporations as citizens, corporations as governors of citizenship, and corporations as arenas of citizenship for stakeholders – as well as three contemporary reconfigurations of citizenship – cultural (identity-based), ecological, and cosmopolitan citizenship. The book revolutionizes not only our understanding of corporations but also of citizenship as a principle of allocating power and responsibility in a political community.

An exploration of the political concept of citizenship as a way of understanding the place of corporations in contemporary society.

Andrew Crane is George R. Gardiner Professor of Business Ethics at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto.

Dirk Matten is Professor of Policy and holds the Hewlett-Packard Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto.

Jeremy Moon is Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility and Director of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Nottingham University Business School.