Promoting Development through Corporate Social Responsibility – Does it Work?
Over many decades a heated debate has existed regarding the role and impact of transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. Put simply, some emphasise the actual or potential contribution of TNCs to economic and social development via investment, employment, taxation, and the transfer of technology, knowledge and skills. Others stress the fact that TNCs have been highly implicated in promoting a style of “development” and North-South relations that have put many developing countries, people and the environment at a serious disadvantage. The 1980s saw a major shift in this balance of opinion, as international development agencies and many developing-country governments abandoned the rhetoric of a “New International Economic Order” and actively courted FDI. To do so, they largely accepted the policy proposals and conditionalities of international finance institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, which encouraged developing countrie