Business and Newly Emerging Civil Society Actors: Between Conflict and New Forms of Social Dialogue

Societal transformation processes are causing far-reaching changes in the relationship between businesses and society. The political, economic (information and communications), technological and cultural transfor mation processes lead to the evolution of new types of civil society actors. These necessarily increase the complexity of corporate environments and attempt directly or indirectly to influence their behaviour. Under these conditions, companies are increasingly forced to open up their own organizational boundaries to dia logue and, at the earliest possible stage, to include 'society' as a non-controllable variable. Along with an intensification of the direct relationships between companies and social action groups, a growing number of initiatives have recently evolved, which, often with the support of the state, attempt to create an institution alized dialogue between several companies, unions and non-government organizations (NGOs). The societal transformation processes that form the basis of these interactions as well as necessary and obstructive factors for the success of such multi-stakeholder dialogues will be analyzed in this article.