Trade Unions and Corporate Social Responsibility

Konferenzbeitrag

Trade unions distort a profit-maximising firm's input choice. The nature of the resulting inefficiency depends on whether there is wage or efficient bargaining. Moreover, trade unions redistribute income and thereby affect welfare. If firms also pursue Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives, input choices are distorted already in the absence of collective bargaining. Adopting a positive perspective, we show that CSR objectives which foster economic activity have ambiguous wage and employment consequences in case of wage negotiations and raise employment if there is efficient bargaining. Importantly from a normative vantage point, such CSR objectives make a welfare-enhancing role of trade unions more likely in the presence of wage negotiations, whereas the reverse may be true in case of efficient bargaining.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2020: Gender Economics

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Welfare Economics: General ; Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects ; Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship ; Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
• Subject: Corporate Social Responsibility ; Efficient Bargaining ; Trade Unions ; Wage Bargaining ; Welfare

Contributors, Location and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Goerke, Laszlo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Kiel, Hamburg
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/224609
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET