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58 N. Ir. Legal Q. 1 (2007)
The Corporate Social Responsibility Movement and Law's Empire: Is There a Conflict?

handle is hein.journals/nilq58 and id is 3 raw text is: THE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MOVEMENT AND LAW'S EMPIRE: IS THERE A CONFLICT? Professor Irene Lynch Fannon, Faculty and Department of Law, University College Cork* ABSTRACT At the heart of corporate governance and social responsibility discourse is recognition of the fact that the modern corporation is primarily governed by the profit maximisation imperative coupled with moral and ethical concerns that such a limited imperative drives the actions of large and wealthy corporations which have the ability to act in influential and significant ways, shaping how our social world is experienced The actions of the corporation and its management will have a wide sphere of impact over all of its stakeholders whether these are employees, shareholders, consumers or the community in which the corporation is located As globalisation has become central to the way we think it is also clear that community has an ever expanding meaning which may include workers and communities living very far away from Corporate HQ. In recent years academic commentators have become increasingly concerned about the emphasis on what can be called short-term profit maximisation and the perception that this extremist interpretation of the profit imperative results in morally and ethically unacceptable outcomes.' Hence demands for more corporate social responsibility. Following Cadbury's2 classification of corporate social responsibility into three distinct areas, this paper will argue that once the legally regulated tier is left aside corporate responsibility can become so nebulous as to be relatively meaningless. The argument is not that corporations should not be required to act in socially responsible ways but that unless supported by regulation, which either demands high standards, or at the very least incentivises the attainment of such This paper was first delivered at a conference at Queens University Belfast in October 2005. My thanks are due to the Institute for Accountable Governance for organising the event and inviting me to present. Thanks are due to Kieran Walsh BCL. BL who provided research assistance for this paper. Finally thanks are due to Professor Sally Wheeler for her intellectual interest and patience. Mitchell. Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export, (2001). Mitchell. Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export 70 George Washington Law Review. 2002. David Millon. Why is Corporate Management Obsessed with Quarterly Earnings and What Should be Done about It? 2002. George 2W1ashington Law Review 70: 890. Cadbury. The Company Chairman (1990)

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