Introduction

As we have discussed in the previous introductory chapter, three types of relationship are relevant for our analysis of corporations and citizenship. In this chapter, we turn to examining the first of these relationships, namely the possibilities and potential for, and limitations of, understanding corporations as citizens.

We start with this aspect not least because the idea of ‘corporate citizenship’ has received so much attention in management theory and practice. As such, claims that corporations can be citizens or even ‘good citizens’ deserves serious examination. For many corporations, as our opening quote in this chapter suggests, it is quite natural, and indeed, reasonable to speak of themselves as good citizens. But for many commentators there are profound dangers in identifying corporations as citizens and especially in extending the entitlements of individual citizenship to such non-human, or even ‘pathological’ entities (Bakan 2004). In this chapter, we therefore ask whether we can seriously consider corporate citizens as in some way analogous to human citizens, and what the implications might be of doing so.