The Legal Origin And Development On American System Of Corporate Social Responsibility

In present society,numerous corporations exert the core spirit of Company Law,which is "profit maximization" to their best,accompanying with the increasing cases on dramatically environmental pollution,labor conflicts and cheating consumers.America is the earliest developed country to carry out the notion of corporate social responsibility,trying to standardize it via legal measures.With regard to this,the thesis is based on the theoretical research on American corporate social responsibility,together with typical cases,trying to tide up the basic development track on corporate social responsibility in America.Generally speaking,there are two sorts of opinions on corporate social responsibility in academic field.From the broad perspective,it extends the concept endlessly.From the narrow perspective,it sets the spectrum to "charitable contributions".The stones of those hills may be used to polish gems.There are various articles on corporate social responsibility in law,economics and management,but rare in foreign material’s further processing.The thesis collects the material and rearrange them via Google academic research,Westlaw-International,HeinOnline and other foreign databases,trying to express opinions of the author on corporate social responsibility.The whole thesis can be divided into four parts.The first part is about the origin and development of corporate social responsibility.It mainly introduces the origins and historical background of American corporate social responsibility.Making judges about the famous two discussions on its evolution and tiding up the stages it goes through,finally leading to the theoretical tendency.The second part is about the legal revolution of corporate social responsibility.It analyzes three typical cases of American:Dodge v.Ford Motor Co.,A.P.Smith Mfg.Co.v.Barlow,Unocal Corp.v.Mesa Petroleum Co.,then overviews the general attitudes about the court on corporate social responsibility.The third part analyzes the core questions on the development of corporate social responsibility in America.Since the quality of corporate social responsibility has been the focus for many years,this part takes the method of searching foreign information,specifically on whether it belongs to the legal responsibility or moral one,how to make judgment on corporate charitable contributions,and then the change from "shareholder"theory to "stakeholder" theory.The last part begins from the fifth item of Company Law,through listing some scholars’ misunderstanding on corporate social responsibility,in the end put forward the author’s own opinion,setting it to the correct position.