Corporations across the country are embracing efforts to improve society. Unlike traditional efforts by businesses to appear socially responsible, the current movement emphasizes profit and long-term company success along with good works. Firms such as Whole Foods and Nike strive to make good citizenship a recognized part of their brand. General Electric, Coca-Cola and other more traditional corporations also support corporate social responsibility (CSR), motivated by advocacy group pressures, threatened government regulations and demands from employees, customers and investors. Some conservatives oppose CSR activities, arguing a company's only legitimate purpose is to enhance shareholder value. Some critics from the left label CSR a public relations ploy and say the government should expand corporations' legal responsibility to employees, the public and the environment.

Tom Price is a Washington-based freelance journalist who writes regularly for CQ Researcher. Previously he was a correspondent in the Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau and chief politics writer for the Dayton Daily News and The Journal Herald. His most recent book, written with former congressman and ambassador Tony Hall, is Changing The Face of Hunger: One Man's Story of How Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, and People of Faith Are Joining Forces to Help the Hungry, the Poor, and the Oppressed. He is the author of two Washington guidebooks, Washington, D.C., for Dummies, and the Irreverent Guide to Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Rolling Stone and other periodicals. He earned a bachelor of science in journalism at Ohio University.