CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION3

CRITICIAL ANALYSIS4

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND INTERPRETATION5

CHALLENGES7

MODEL DESIGN12

Evidence OF BUSINESS GOVERNANCE CSR...........................12

INTEGRATING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, BEHAVIORAL THEORY OF THE FIRM, AND CSR.......................................................16

EVIDENCE OF THE ENTERPRISE CASE FOR CSR.......................18

THE OCCURRENCE OF CSR PRACTICES WITH BUSINESS-CASE EFFECTS....19

CSR 'IN ACTION'23

CONCLUSION29

REFERENCES31

Corporate Social Responsibility

Introduction

Over the decades, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has continued to grow in importance and significance. It has been the subject of considerable debate, commentary, theory building and research. In spite of the ongoing deliberations as to what it means and what it embraces, it has developed and evolved in both academic as well as practitioner communities worldwide. The idea that business enterprises have some responsibilities to society beyond that of making profits for the shareholders has been around for centuries. For all practical purposes, however, it is largely a post- World War II phenomenon and actually did not surge in importance until the 1960s and beyond. Therefore, it is largely a product of the past half century. Today, one cannot pick up a newspaper, magazine or journal without encountering some discussion of the issue, some recent or innovative example of what business is thinking or doing about CSR, or some new conference that is being held. Specific journals, news magazines, books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, websites, discussion lists and blogs treat the concept on a regular basis. The business community has formed its own organizations specializing in the topic. Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), for example, is a business association founded in 1992 to provide corporations with expertise on the subject and an opportunity for business executives to advance the field and learn from one another. There has been an explosion of interest in CSR in the European Union and around the world. The London-based Ethical Corporation is another organization that stages high-profile conferences addressing CSR, business ethics and sustainability concerns.

Ethical Corporation is an independent media firm, launched in 2001, to encourage debate and discussion on responsible business practices. So, while CSR was once regarded as largely a domestic business issue in leading countries of origin, in recent years its popularity has spread onto the world scene, and we now see CSR initiatives in virtually all the developed nations, and initial thinking and developing taking place in emerging nations as well. The term 'corporate social responsibility' is still in popular use, even though competing, complementary and overlapping concepts such as corporate citizenship, business ethics, stakeholder management and sustainability are all vying to become the most accepted and widespread descriptor of the field.

 

Historical development

The origins of CSR absolutely continue before WorldWar II, but we will not precede back that far. It should be documented, although, that Dean Donald K. David's remarks to the incoming MBA class at the Harvard Business School in 1946 are particularly befitting to recall. Dean David exhorted the future enterprise bosses to take heed of the responsibilities that had arrived to rest on the bears of enterprise managers (Spector 2008). In this attachment, Bert Spector has contended that the origins of the present communal ...