The Difference Makers: How Social and Institutional Entrepreneurs Created the Corporate Responsibility Movement

Since the 1970s, public and civil society dissatisfaction with the global power of corporations has generated a growing wave of new institutional mechanisms that attempt, in different ways, to create more accountable, responsible, and transparent businesses. These institutional mechanisms have become part of a much-larger social movement that is attempting to develop a set of constraints on business that stands in stark contrast to the dominant economic logic of maximizing shareholder wealth and growing multinational corporations size and power. They include business associations and alliances focused on sustainability, responsibility, and accountability, consultancies that are helping companies to behave as good corporate citizens, responsible investment entities, social research organizations, social and environmental standard setters, monitoring and reporting initiatives, and organizations focused on incorporating social issues into management education. These new institutions would not have emerged without the work of a number of pioneering individuals: 'The Difference Makers' visionary social and institutional entrepreneurs who, together, have had a massive impact on getting decision-makers to incorporate social and environmental criteria in the strategies, practices, and purposes of the modern corporation. Thanks to these 'Difference Makers', there has been remarkable progress in advancing an alternative agenda and in creating a corporate responsibility infrastructure, particularly since the late 1980s and 90s. It is not often that we have the opportunity to hear from the early pioneers of a social movement about how it grew and evolved, but that is exactly what this book sets out to do. It tells the stories of these social and institutional entrepreneurs and the organizations they have founded and led, largely in their own words. The book examines 23 of the key players who have been instrumental in developi