The field of Corporate Social Responsibility is described and the theory on it is critically reviewed. It is argued that present theory is insufficient in explaining the phenomenon of CSR and might fail to recognize some of its deeper significance. A new basis for the theoretical analysis of CSR...

Answering the call for a new theoretical approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), this paper makes a suggestion from a Weberian perspective. It briefly appraises the existing research on CSR and develops key points of a new approach based on their criticism. Suggesting that CSR is a...

We investigate the effect of Reformed Protestantism, relative to Catholicism, on preferences for leisure and for redistribution and intervention in the economy. With a Fuzzy Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design, we exploit a historical quasiexperiment in Western Switzerland, where in the 16th...

This paper constitutes the start of a project dedicated to Austrian economist and economic sociologist Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926). Its central claim is that especially in recent decades, Wieser has become a disproportionately underresearched scholar, and the paper provides a set of...

This paper addresses the intellectual relationship between Max Weber and three key proponents of neoliberalism: F.A. Hayek, Walter Eucken and Wilhelm Röpke. This relationship is contextualized in the history of German-language political economy, focusing on the nexus and proximity between early...

Despite having been underlined as contrary to established fact, the myth that there is a causal link between Protestantism and the emergence of capitalism persists in the popuar imagination as well as the academy. This article illustrates where Max Weber’s theory contradicts all the available...

This study aims to uncover Max Weber as a direct and indirect influence on Alexander Rüstow and Wilhelm Röpke and the emergence of ordoliberal socio-economic thought in the 1930s and 40s. Weber contributed to the German Kulturkritik of the early 20th century that shaped the academic and...

Max Weber's path to economic science was impacted to a large degree by political motives. The question emerges how the depiction, which has been maintained by historians of economics, of Weber as a methodologist – who demands objectivity and value freedom in scientific analysis – is...

We revisit Max Weber’s hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber’s Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late nineteenth-century Prussia we reject Weber’s suggestion that...

We revisit Max Weber's hypothesis on the role of Protestantism for economic development. We show that nationalism is crucial to both, the interpretation of Weber's Protestant Ethic and empirical tests thereof. For late 19th century Prussia we reject Weber's suggestion that Protestantism mattered...