Abstract

The authors propose a conceptual framework for the analysis of business-society linkages, using the concept of exchange to differentiate types of business-society interactions. The notion of exchange allows for the delineation of the wide range of business-society relationships and the ordering of much of the voluminous literature in the business and society field, which has been developed from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including economics, law, sociology, and political science. While this multiplicity of perspectives has been useful to the development of the field, each discipline is, individually, insufficient to serve as a broad conceptual framework for understanding the business-society relationship.