This thought-provoking history of corporate responsibility in the USA is a landmark publication documenting the story of corporate power and business behavior from the mid-eighteenth century to the modern day. It shows how the idea of corporate responsibility has evolved over time, with the roles, responsibilities and performance of corporations coming increasingly under the spotlight as new norms of transparency and accountability emerge. Today, it is expected that a corporation will be transparent in its operations; that it will reflect ethical values that are broadly shared by others in society; and that companies will enable society to achieve environmental sustainability as well as a high standard of living. As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the social, political and economic landscape is once again shifting: the need for an informed public conversation about what is expected of the modern corporation has never been greater.

This thought-provoking history of corporate responsibility in the USA is a landmark publication documenting the story of corporate power and business behavior from the mid-eighteenth century to the modern day. It shows how the idea of corporate responsibility has evolved over time, with the roles, responsibilities and performance of corporations coming increasingly under the spotlight as new norms of transparency and accountability emerge. Today, it is expected that a corporation will be transparent in its operations; that it will reflect ethical values that are broadly shared by others in society; and that companies will enable society to achieve environmental sustainability as well as a high standard of living. As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the social, political and economic landscape is once again shifting: the need for an informed public conversation about what is expected of the modern corporation has never been greater.

In the first anthology of its kind, Thomas O'Brien and Scott Paeth have gathered unique pieces from across religious perspectives to illustrate the growing influence and contribution of religion to the field of business ethics. Events in the recent past make clear people in business urgently need to focus on the moral dimension of practices and behaviors. Courses in business ethics are increasingly more prevalent in business schools and in departments of philosophy and religious studies, and yet texts for these courses normally pay scant attention to the much-needed religious perspective on what constitutes ethical practice and behavior. O'Brien and Paeth now fill that need with this new text Tackling such wide-ranging subjects as Jewish environmental ethics, Zen in the workplace, and Christian social ethics, this text is a valuable addition to any business ethics course.