Impact of Social Context on Strategic Philanthropy

Although the construct of corporate social responsibility has been on the agenda of academic  research for more than five decades, it is obvious that with global challenges putting pressure  on organizations to modify their modus operandi, interest in this domain is apt to grow.  Organizations are pushed to shift from the formal CSR model to implementation of strategies,  aimed at specific social targets and expectations. For many years the debate between society  and business has had an antagonistic character, at the same time economic and social  objectives were regarded as competing. However, in the modern world this perspective has  been qualified as a false dichotomy, and the correlation between corporate goals and values,  and societal achievements has been acknowledged. With legions of studies and theories in the  field, the academic society is stuck in an omnium-gatherum of terms, concepts, definitions, and  classifications. In this article we present an overview of the achievements of recent research in  the field, focusing on the influences of social context on managerial decisions in favor or against  strategic philanthropy. We lay special emphasis on distinguishing between philanthropic  activities and strategic philanthropy. 

At the same time this work presents the picture of changes in the structures of basic concepts at  different historical periods: the Age of the Enlightenment, epoch of German Empire, epoch of  Peter the Great and Russian post revolution time. Based on lexicographic analysis and discourse  analysis we define some basic conceptual characteristics of the phenomenon of “Education”  and they are described according to the groups combined by one and the same semantics. The  conclusion of the article shows that the concept of “Education” changes constantly and  nowadays is greatly influenced by social, economic, political and cultural factors that lead to its  transformation both in German and Russian linguacultural. 

The content of environmental education at any level of an educational system seems to be  evident and universal because of the gravity of contemporary environmental challenges.  However, obvious differentiation of environmental knowledge is an unresolved issue both in  educational practice and in philosophy of environmental education. Environmental education on the whole and ecology as a course at school or university are determined by  technological, social, political, legal and cultural factors. Besides, environmental education and  its philosophical foundation depend on actual peculiarities of a country’s development. The  factors influencing philosophical reasoning about environmental education in contemporary  Russia and revealed in the paper are the following: the realization of non-Marxist traditions in  Russian philosophy, educational tradition of knowledge paradigm, socially inactiveness of  Russians, depending on state decisions, bureaucratic organization of science branches.