Linking Business and Society: An Overview

In recent years the approach of corporate social responsibility has been very much discussed. It started as a mere defensive/reactive approach (compliance oriented) and is now developing towards an innovative/proactive management concept (Sustainable Entrepreneurship). The term “sustainable entrepreneurship” recently emerged in the business world to describe this latest very entrepreneurial and business-driven view on business and society. Current definitions for Sustainable Entrepreneurship focus on new solutions or sustainable innovations that aim at the mass market and provide value to society. Entrepreneurs or individuals or companies that are sustainability driven within their core business and contribute towards a sustainable development can be called sustainable entrepreneurs, according to Schaltegger and Wagner (2011). Others argue that sustainable entrepreneurship stands for a unique concept of sustainable business strategies that focuses on increasing social as well as business value – shared value (Porter and Kramer 2011) – at the same time.