Definitional clarity, precision and consensus remain elusive with respect to corporate citizenship. This is variously accounted for. Most fundamentally, the lack of definitional agreement rests on the metaphorical construction of the term itself. Demonstrably, corporations are not citizens. While they carry and adopt the attributes of legal personae, they lack either natural rights or the co-equal human and social rights enshrined within the constitutional Bill of Rights.
When applied to the South African context the concept of corporate citizenship arrogates to the holder a degree of political and social legitimacy that implies the possession of rights, but equally too, responsibility, responsiveness, accountability and national loyalty. Yet it is the absence of political engagement that constitutes the weakest and least-developed dimension of South African corporate citizenship. This is particularly notable given the progressive shift in the government and business power dynamic. The support and intercession of the private sector in the delivery of basic services such as energy, health, security, education and infrastructure provides it with an exceptional opportunity to exercise its latent political voice.
South Africa’s hard-won constitutional democracy provides multiple entry points for political corporate citizenship. In addition to formal institutional structures such as Nedlac, corporate South Africa has the opportunity to insert itself fully into the development of green and white papers, socioeconomic impact assessments, draft legislation and parliamentary hearings.