The aim of this book is to explore and compare the welfare strategies of businesses, including the various forms of «paternalism», over two centuries and across a number of countries. Specifically, the book examines differentiation and variation among the social mindsets of companies. Business history inevitably involves the study of social policies, including analysis of the societal influence of companies and their response to workforce demands concerning living conditions. In this book, historical forms of patronage are considered (old paternalism), as well as structured social policies aimed at stabilizing and appeasing labour relations (new paternalism). Issues of «post-paternalism» are then studied, opening the door to an assessment of the differences between the various types of paternalism and an exploration of the «fad» of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE). This concept, which gained prominence among transnational companies around the turn of the 1980s and the beginning of the third industrial revolution, involved the design of an entrepreneurial strategy to identify, analyse, organise, create and manage a venture to initiate sustainable and systematic socio-economic change.

Contents: Hubert Bonin: Issues Concerning the Stages of Paternalism - Michel Hau: Industrial Paternalism and Social Development. The Commitment of the Community of Businessmen in Alsace - Georges Ribeill: From Enlightened Paternalism to Rigid Corporatism. A Perspective on French Railway Companies (19th-21st Centuries) - Hubert Bonin: The Prehistory of Corporate Social Responsibility. Why Did Paternalism Fail in France? - Hubert Bonin and Laurent Leroy: Iconographic Insert. Pictures about «Old Paternalism» by a French Businessman in Romorantin in the 1870s-1900s - Paul Thomes: Beyond Paternalism? An Innovative German Corporate Social Entrepreneurship Model (1825-1923) - Corinne M. Belliard: Women's Philanthropy Tested by Paternalism in the 19th Century. England and France - Jean-Louis Moreau: The Genesis of Paternalism in the Colonial Territories. The Union minière du Haut-Katanga's Social Policy in the 1920s - Alexandre Fernandez: Some Aspects of Industrial Paternalism in Spain. The Asturias and Biscay (1880-1919) - Boris M. Shpotov: A Fresh Approach to Henry Ford's Paternalism - Valerio Varini: Welfare at Pirelli. From Its Origins to the Post-WWII - Irina Potkina: From Paternalism to Socially Oriented Enterprise. The Experience of the Russian Businessmen - Jean-Marc Figuet/Bernard Sionneau: New Paternalism, Welfare and US Moral Contract. Capitalisms in the United States of America - Alain Cortat: Paternalism or Paternalisms? The Example of Société anonyme des câbleries et tréfileries de Cossonay, Switzerland, 1898-1980 - Pierre-Yves Donzé/Laurence Marti: Paternalism in an Era of Taylorism and Centralism. The Example of Swiss Watchmaker Aubry Frères - Jean-Marc Figuet/Bernard Sionneau: Boosting, then Trampling the Moral Contract. How Financialised Globalisation Gave Birth to Corporate Social Irresponsibility - Isabelle Daugareilh: Corporate Social Responsibility, a Stalled European Project - Hubert Bonin: Paternalism at the Turn of the 21st Century. Mothballed or Regaining Momentum? - Philippe Vayssettes: «Old Paternalism, New Paternalism, Post Paternalism».