Editorial

Citation

Aras, G. and Crowther, D. (2009), "Editorial", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 5 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/srj.2009.36805caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Social Responsibility Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3

The current economic crisis is a global phenomenon, affecting people all over the world, and this shows the global nature of economic activity in the modern world. In particular it has focused attention upon failures in regulation and failures in governance – both of course important issues for socially responsible behaviour – not just for corporations but also for governments and other organisations and for citizens as individuals. Many people have been severely affected, both in developed and developing countries, despite the situation that they have never had any involvement in financial market speculation and would be economically unable to do so even if they wished to. Such is the power of finance that it causes this contagious effect which can devastate lives at a distance and affects developing countries just as much as – if not more than – developed countries. It is perhaps no coincidence that most of the contributions to this issue of the journal come from people in developing countries and are concerned with issues in such countries. We welcome this of course and its shows the wide concern with socially responsible issues around the world.

This journal is the official journal of the Social Responsibility Research Network (SRRNet) – www.socialresponsibility.biz. It is one of the main activities which the Network undertakes. The other main activity of the Network is to organise an annual conference and as this issue is published the 8th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility will have taken place in Cape Town as a collaboration between the Network and the University of South Africa. Plans are also firm for the conferences over the next few years, following our plan to host alternative conferences in Europe and elsewhere – and we hope to see you at one of these future conferences. The conferences are designed to act as a forum for the debate and analysis of contemporary issues in the broad area of CSR but we also focus upon a particular issue (without excluding general issues). So in Cape Town the theme of the conference was concerned with NGOs and CSR while in Zagreb in 2010 we will focus upon the question of governance and CSR, an important issue highlighted during th 2008/2009 economic crisis.

The international dimension of the journal remains apparent in this issue, not just as far as topics are concerned but also as far as contributors also are concerned, with contributors from 12 different countries in this issue. This reflects the importance of the topic of social responsibility to academics throughout the world as well as the general appeal and significance of the Network and hence this journal. So we continue to develop and improve. If you are not already a member of the Network then please consider joining – just visit our website.

The Network is interdisciplinary and so too is the conference. This journal, just as the conference, is also interdisciplinary in its focus and international in its outlook – and this is reflected in the papers this volume. They cover such things as disclosure practices in Malaysia, Libya and in Bangladesh; socially responsible purchasing in Sweden; CSR in SMEs in Spain; the role of businesses in developing countries, and the effects of their actions; some theoretical contributions; and some attention to regulation and governance in various countries. All papers have however the commonality that they investigate an aspect of social responsibility – and one feature of social responsibility is that it is a very wide and very interdisciplinary field. With that we leave you to read the papers, hoping that this will inspire you to contribute to a future edition.

Güler Aras, David Crowther