Purpose

Many nonprofit missions and the goals of socially responsible corporations are often found to refer to similar moral ideals related to improving the quality of human life. To take account of this salient fact, the paper aims to theorize the functional equivalence between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the nonprofit sector.

Design/methodology/approach

The argumentative strategy is to draw on the conceptual construct of the complexity-sustainability trade-off to develop a systems-theoretic interpretation of Roger Lohmann’s vision of the commons as an embodiment of collective voluntary action.

Findings

The emerging conceptual imagery is that of corporations and nonprofits as social systems continually seeking to sustain themselves by processing and codifying their societal environment which includes the commons in which Lohmann took a central interest. The possible functional equivalence of corporations and nonprofits is traced back to their struggling to develop and improve their responsiveness to the respective commons.

Originality/value

This argument is shown to cut across a range of issues in the modern nonprofit sector scholarship, while shedding new light on the ongoing debates on CSR and stakeholder theory.

中文翻译：

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企业社会责任与非营利部门：探索共同点

目的

许多非营利使命和对社会负责的公司的目标经常被发现与提高人类生活质量相关的类似道德理想有关。考虑到这一突出事实，本文旨在对企业社会责任 (CSR) 与非营利部门之间的功能等效性进行理论化。

设计/方法/方法

论证策略是利用复杂性-可持续性权衡的概念构造，对罗杰·洛曼 (Roger Lohmann) 将公地视为集体自愿行动的体现的愿景进行系统理论解释。

发现

新兴的概念意象是公司和非营利组织作为社会系统，不断寻求通过处理和编纂他们的社会环境来维持自己，其中包括 Lohmann 感兴趣的公地。公司和非营利组织可能的功能等同可追溯到他们努力发展和提高对各自公地的响应能力。

原创性/价值

这一论点被证明跨越了现代非营利部门学术界的一系列问题，同时为正在进行的关于企业社会责任和利益相关者理论的辩论提供了新的思路。