corporate social responsibility essay conclusion

Essay on Corporate Social Responsibility

This report provides information on whether the benefits of CSR outweigh the drawbacks. The report shows that the benefits of CSR are more than the drawbacks and managers should consider implementing the strategy. The research utilizes the use of secondary resources to conclude. Most of the authors used in this report show that CSR has more advantages such as consumer satisfaction, financial performance, productivity, and promotes relationships among the companies, the stakeholders, and society. This research informs the managers on the benefits of executing CSR in their companies. More so, it provides information on few drawbacks that the managers should be prepared to experience. The study adds new information concerning the comparison of advantages and disadvantages of CSR which makes it easier to determine if the strategy should be implemented in companies.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a self-controlling model of business that helps business organizations to be socially accountable to the public, stakeholders, and self. Through CSR, companies have conscious of how that affects society environmentally, socially, and economically as they do their businesses (Basuony et al., 2014). Engaging in CSR means that companies are operating in ways that improve society and its environment. As much as CSR influences companies to translate the principles into practical activities, some of the researchers show that CSR may harm companies, stakeholders, and consumers.

Research Questions

Do the positive impacts outweigh the negative effects of CSR among the companies?

Despite some of the researchers revealing the negative impacts of CSR, there are many positive influences that companies, stakeholders, and consumers experience. Companies should ensure that they are responsible for themselves, society, stakeholders, and consumers. This promotes the positive impact of business in society without other people suffering the implications of unethical business activities. However, it is linked to few drawbacks such as costs, conflicts in the profit motive, and “green washing” of customers.

Methodology

This report will utilize secondary sources for review to come up with conclusions. Articles that are less than 10 years old will be used to develop conclusions on whether CSR is effective among companies and if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Literature Review

Based on a substantiation from Mena country, Basuony et al. (2014) state that CSR promotes the performance of business organizations. The stakeholder theory suggests that organizations have to manage relationships with other groups and stakeholders which influences the effectiveness of business decisions. Despite making entrepreneurship progress, businesses that pay attention to the needs of society are successful. For example, branding is effective when a business organization protects the environment and takes part in social activities such as the construction of schools. Most of the researches in this article show that CSR influences business performance through market orientation and consumer satisfaction and financial performance. In research done by Newman et al. (2018), shows that CSR has an independent positive influence on the level of firms efficacy- increased productivity influenced by high effective business engagement. Increased company involvement in community initiatives is a great influence for success in business due to customers’ and stakeholders’ trust.

The concept of the future of CSR presented by Archie Caroll shows that as companies continue to apply CSR, benefits such as stakeholders engagement, increased productivity due to employees being the driving force of business and the enhancement of power among ethically sensitive customers and the client will be experienced (Agudelo et al., 2019). The concept influences effective governance criteria, environmental responsibility, corporate citizenship, the establishment of shared business values, and social performance. However, CSR is linked to various negative impacts. Mahmood et al. (2020) suggest that CSR influences negativity through abusive supervision while valuing employees’ conducts. As much as CSR influences minimization of negative employees’ behavior, it also influences negative conduct when there is abusive supervision. More so, the implementation of CSR needs money. Especially for small businesses, CSR is not affordable to be allocated in the budget. The conflict of the profit motive is also established in CSR as the focus on societal benefits may influence losses to companies. Greenwashing of consumers is linked to CSR. For example, labeling products to be organic to attract consumers.

Implications

This exploration has implications for both bodies of knowledge and management. The research used in this report shows that as much as CSR may have various drawbacks, the benefits outweighs the disadvantages. It contributes to the existing body of knowledge by showing that CSR has more benefits and companies should consider its application in business. The limitations of the current study are the use of secondary sources and few articles to provide more evidence. More so, the articles used in this report do not include cultural factors such as religion which are significant in understanding CSR and the involved activities in the society. The discussion concerning the link between CSR and corporate governance is not provided. Therefore, further research should be done to evaluate this link and its impact on the performance of the company and the experiences of the stakeholders and customers. More so, the research provides a key takeaway for managers which is mainly the benefits of executing CSR in companies to influence performance. The managers should know that despite the presence of drawbacks linked to CSR, there are many advantages such as consumer satisfaction, effective branding, establishing trust, and financial performance.

Based on the previous research used in this report, it is evident that CSR has many advantages. These pros include consumer satisfaction, productivity, good relationships with society and stakeholders, financial performance, and effective branding. These advantages overpower the drawbacks which include costs, conflicts in the profit motive, and “green washing” of customers. However, the limitations of the research include the inclusion of fewer articles and a lack of cultural factors in the research. Therefore, this study concludes that the benefits of CSR outweigh the disadvantages. The implication of the literature is informing managers to execute CSR which promotes productivity and financial performance.

Agudelo, M. A. L., Jóhannsdóttir, L., & Davídsdóttir, B. (2019). A literature review of the history and evolution of corporate social responsibility.  International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility ,  4 (1), 1-23.

Basuony, M. A., Elseidi, R. I., & Mohamed, E. K. (2014). The impact of corporate social responsibility on firm performance: Evidence from a MENA country.  Corporate Ownership & Control ,  12 (1-9), 761-774.

Mahmood, F., Qadeer, F., Abbas, Z., Hussain, I., Saleem, M., Hussain, A., & Aman, J. (2020). Corporate social responsibility and employees’ negative behaviors under abusive supervision: A multilevel insight.  Sustainability ,  12 (7), 2647.

Newman, C., Rand, J., Tarp, F., & Trifkovic, N. (2020). Corporate social responsibility in a competitive business environment.  The Journal of Development Studies ,  56 (8), 1455-1472.

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The Truth About CSR

• V. Kasturi Rangan,
• Lisa Chase,
• Sohel Karim

Despite the widely accepted ideal of “shared value,” research led by Harvard Business School’s Kasturi Rangan suggests that this is not the norm—and that’s OK. Most companies practice a multifaceted version of CSR that spans theaters ranging from pure philanthropy to environmental sustainability to the explicitly strategic. To maximize their impact, companies must ensure that initiatives in the various theaters form a unified platform. Four steps can help them do so:

Pruning and aligning programs within theaters. Companies must examine their existing programs in each theater, reducing or eliminating those that do not address an important social or environmental problem in keeping with the firm’s business purpose and values.

Developing metrics to gauge performance. Just as the goals of programs vary from theater to theater, so do the definitions of success.

Coordinating programs across theaters. This does not mean that all initiatives necessarily address the same problem; it means that they are mutually reinforcing and form a cogent whole.

Developing an interdisciplinary CSR strategy. The range of purposes underlying initiatives in different theaters and the variation in how those initiatives are managed pose major barriers for many firms. Strategy development can be top-down or bottom-up, but ongoing communication is key.

These practices have helped companies including PNC Bank, IKEA, and Ambuja Cements bring discipline and coherence to their CSR portfolios.

Most of these programs aren’t strategic—and that’s OK.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

Many companies’ CSR initiatives are disparate and uncoordinated, run by a variety of managers without the active engagement of the CEO. Such firms cannot maximize their positive impact on the social and environmental systems in which they operate.

The Solution

Firms must develop coherent CSR strategies, with activities typically divided among three theaters of practice. Theater one focuses on philanthropy, theater two on improving operational effectiveness, and theater three on transforming the business model to create shared value.

Companies must prune existing programs in each theater to align them with the firm’s purpose and values; develop ways of measuring initiatives’ success; coordinate programs across theaters; and create an interdisciplinary management team to drive CSR strategy.

Most companies have long practiced some form of corporate social and environmental responsibility with the broad goal, simply, of contributing to the well-being of the communities and society they affect and on which they depend. But there is increasing pressure to dress up CSR as a business discipline and demand that every initiative deliver business results. That is asking too much of CSR and distracts from what must be its main goal: to align a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values. If in doing so CSR activities mitigate risks, enhance reputation, and contribute to business results, that is all to the good. But for many CSR programs, those outcomes should be a spillover, not their reason for being. This article explains why firms must refocus their CSR activities on this fundamental goal and provides a systematic process for bringing coherence and discipline to CSR strategies.

• VR V. Kasturi Rangan is a Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School and a cofounder and cochair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative.
• Lisa Chase is a research associate at Harvard Business School and a freelance consultant.
• SK Sohel Karim is a cofounder and the managing director of Socient Associates, a social enterprise consulting firm.

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5 Examples of Corporate Social Responsibility That Were Successful

• 06 Jun 2019

Business is about more than just making a profit. Climate change, economic inequality, and other global challenges that impact communities worldwide have compelled companies to be purpose-driven and contribute to the greater good .

In a recent study by Deloitte , 93 percent of business leaders said they believe companies aren't just employers, but stewards of society. In addition, 95 percent reported they’re planning to take a stronger stance on large-scale issues in the coming years and devote significant resources to socially responsible initiatives. With more CEOs turning their focus to the long term, it’s important to consider what you can do in your career to make an impact .

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business model in which for-profit companies seek ways to create social and environmental benefits while pursuing organizational goals, like revenue growth and maximizing shareholder value .

Today’s organizations are implementing extensive corporate social responsibility programs, with many companies dedicating C-level executive roles and entire departments to social and environmental initiatives. These executives are commonly referred to as a chief officer of corporate social responsibility or chief sustainability officer (CSO).

There are many types of corporate social responsibility and CSR might look different for each organization, but the end goal is always the same: Do well by doing good . Companies that embrace corporate social responsibility aim to maintain profitability while supporting a larger purpose.

Rather than simply focusing on generating profit, or the bottom line, socially responsible companies are concerned with the triple bottom line , which considers the impact that business decisions have on profit, people, and the planet.

It’s no coincidence that some of today’s most profitable organizations are also socially responsible. Here are five examples of successful corporate social responsibility you can use to drive social change at your organization.

5 Corporate Social Responsibility Examples

1. lego’s commitment to sustainability.

As one of the most reputable companies in the world, Lego aims to not only help children develop through creative play, but foster a healthy planet.

Lego is the first, and only, toy company to be named a World Wildlife Fund Climate Savers Partner , marking its pledge to reduce its carbon impact. And its commitment to sustainability extends beyond its partnerships.

By 2030, the toymaker plans to use environmentally friendly materials to produce all of its core products and packaging—and it’s already taken key steps to achieve that goal.

Over the course of 2013 and 2014, Lego shrunk its box sizes by 14 percent , saving approximately 7,000 tons of cardboard. Then, in 2018, the company introduced 150 botanical pieces made from sustainably sourced sugarcane —a break from the petroleum-based plastic typically used to produce the company’s signature building blocks. The company has also recently committed to removing all single-use plastic packaging from its materials by 2025, among other initiatives .

Along with these changes, the toymaker has committed to investing $164 million into its Sustainable Materials Center , where researchers are experimenting with bio-based materials that can be implemented into the production process.

Through all of these initiatives, Lego is well on its way to tackling pressing environmental challenges and furthering its mission to help build a more sustainable future.

Related : What Does "Sustainability" Mean in Business?

2. Salesforce’s 1-1-1 Philanthropic Model

Beyond being a leader in the technology space, cloud-based software giant Salesforce is a trailblazer in the realm of corporate philanthropy.

Since its outset, the company has championed its 1-1-1 philanthropic model , which involves giving one percent of product, one percent of equity, and one percent of employees’ time to communities and the nonprofit sector.

To date, Salesforce employees have logged more than 5 million volunteer hours . Not only that, but the company has awarded upwards of $406 million in grants and donated to more than 40,000 nonprofit organizations and educational institutions.

In addition, through its work with San Francisco Unified and Oakland Unified School Districts, Salesforce has helped reduce algebra repeat rates and contributed to a high percentage of students receiving A’s or B’s in computer science classes.

As the company’s revenue continues to grow, Salesforce stands as a prime example of the idea that profit-making and social impact initiatives don’t have to be at odds with one another.

3. Ben & Jerry’s Social Mission

At Ben & Jerry’s, positively impacting society is just as important as producing premium ice cream.

In 2012, the company became a certified B Corporation , a business that balances purpose and profit by meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability.

As part of its overarching commitment to leading with progressive values, the ice cream maker established the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation in 1985, an organization dedicated to supporting grassroots movements that drive social change.

Each year, the foundation awards approximately $2.5 million in grants to organizations in Vermont and across the United States. Grant recipients have included the United Workers Association, a human rights group striving to end poverty, and the Clean Air Coalition, an environmental health and justice organization based in New York.

The foundation’s work earned it a National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy Award in 2014, and it continues to sponsor efforts to find solutions to systemic problems at both local and national levels.

Related : How to Create Social Change: 4 Business Strategies

4. Levi Strauss’s Social Impact

In addition to being one of the most successful fashion brands in history, Levi’s is also one of the first to push for a more ethical and sustainable supply chain.

In 1991, the brand created its Terms of Engagement , which established its global code of conduct regarding its supply chain and set standards for workers’ rights, a safe work environment, and an environmentally-friendly production process.

To maintain its commitment in a changing world, Levi’s regularly updates its Terms of Engagement. In 2011, on the 20th anniversary of its code of conduct, Levi’s announced its Worker Well-being initiative to implement further programs focused on the health and well-being of supply chain workers.

Since 2011, the Worker Well-being initiative has been expanded to 12 countries and more than 100,000 workers have benefited from it. In 2016, the brand scaled up the initiative, vowing to expand the program to more than 300,000 workers and produce more than 80 percent of its product in Worker Well-being factories by 2025.

For its continued efforts to maintain the well-being of its people and the environment, Levi’s was named one of Engage for Good’s 2020 Golden Halo Award winners, which is the highest honor reserved for socially responsible companies.

5. Starbucks’s Commitment to Ethical Sourcing

Starbucks launched its first corporate social responsibility report in 2002 with the goal of becoming as well-known for its CSR initiatives as for its products. One of the ways the brand has fulfilled this goal is through ethical sourcing.

In 2015, Starbucks verified that 99 percent of its coffee supply chain is ethically sourced , and it seeks to boost that figure to 100 percent through continued efforts and partnerships with local coffee farmers and organizations.

The brand bases its approach on Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) Practices , one of the coffee industry’s first set of ethical sourcing standards created in collaboration with Conservation International . CAFE assesses coffee farms against specific economic, social, and environmental standards, ensuring Starbucks can source its product while maintaining a positive social impact.

For its work, Starbucks was named one of the world’s most ethical companies in 2021 by Ethisphere.

The Value of Being Socially Responsible

As these firms demonstrate , a deep and abiding commitment to corporate social responsibility can pay dividends. By learning from these initiatives and taking a values-driven approach to business, you can help your organization thrive and grow, even as it confronts global challenges.

Do you want to gain a deeper understanding of the broader social and political landscape in which your organization operates? Explore our three-week Sustainable Business Strategy course and other online courses regarding business in society to learn more about how business can be a catalyst for system-level change.

This post was updated on April 15, 2022. It was originally published on June 6, 2019.

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28 Conclusion

Andrew Crane is the George R. Gardiner Professor of Business Ethics in the Schulich School of Business at York University. He has a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Nottingham, and was previously Chair in Business Ethics and Director of the UK's first MBA in CSR in the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Nottingham University Business School.

Abagail McWilliams, Associate Dean and Professor in the College of Business, University of Illinois at Chicago

Dirk Matten holds the Hewlett-Packard Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto. He holds a doctoral degree and the habilitation from Heinrich-Heine-University Dusseldorf, Germany. He is interested in CSR, business ethics and comparative management. He has published widely, including in Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, and Business Ethics Quarterly.

Jeremy Moon is Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility and Director of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Nottingham University Business School.

Donald S. Siegel, Foundation Professor of Public Policy and Management and Director, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University

• Published: 02 September 2009
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As a field of inquiry, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is still in an embryonic stage. The study of CSR has been hampered by a lack of consensus on the definition of the phenomenon, unifying theory, measures, and unsophisticated empirical methods. Globalization has also added to the complexity of CSR issues to be addressed. Despite these concerns, there is still some excellent research on this topic, which has been gathered in this volume. Specifically, this volume contains findings from numerous experts in a wide variety of social science disciplines and fields in business administration, who have summarized the body of CSR literature and also outlined an agenda for additional research. It is important to note that CSR practices and product features are not always totally transparent and observable to the consumer and other stakeholders. This makes it difficult for consumers and other stakeholders to evaluate the firm's social performance.

Introduction

As a field of inquiry, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is still in an embryonic stage. The study of CSR has been hampered by a lack of consensus on the definition of the phenomenon, unifying theory, measures, and unsophisticated empirical methods. Globalization has also added to the complexity of CSR issues to be addressed.

Despite these concerns, there is still some excellent research on this topic, which we have gathered in this volume. Specifically, the volume contains findings from numerous experts in a wide variety of social science disciplines and fields in business administration, who have summarized the body of CSR literature and also outlined an agenda for additional research.

Given that we have included many perspectives on CSR, readers with a specific ideological or disciplinary orientation will encounter chapters that correspond with their view of CSR. At the same time, they will also be exposed to new perspectives on CSR.

We suspect that most business schools academics who teach courses in CSR or who conduct research on this topic will find the conclusion that firms can ‘do well by doing good’ quite appealing. Neoclassical economists will also accept this argument, especially if it can be framed in such a way as to justify the existence of a rational, economic justification for ‘doing good’ (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001) . Conversely, such academics will dislike the call for broader involvement in social responsibility, such as corporate citizenship implies.

On the other hand, those academics who advocate government intervention in the realm of CSR may ‘dislike’ the positive relationship between doing good and doing well, because it obviates the need for additional regulation vis‐à‐vis CSR. Conversely, they will support the notion, which was discussed in several chapters, for additional discretionary spending on CSR by business.

We hope this heterogeneity in perspectives and paradigms results in rich discussion and additional interdisciplinary research on this topic. From a practitioner standpoint, there may be very different reactions from US businesses (which emphasize stockholder rights) and non‐US businesses (which may emphasize a balance of stakeholder rights). Some mutual understanding may lead to more consistency of CSR actions globally.

The authors in this volume provide insights on many concepts and descriptions of the state of knowledge and practice of social responsibility over a wide range of countries and regions. With that in mind, we review some of the important contributions of this volume.

Defining Corporate Social Responsibility and Related Concepts

In addition to having no consensus definition of CSR, there are multiple related concepts and terms that are sometimes used interchangeably with CSR. CSR is typically used to consider and or evaluate the effects of business on society, beyond the traditional role of seeking to maximize profits. These may include such effects as support of charitable and educational organizations, hiring and training of hard‐core unemployed, non‐discrimination in employment, improved workplace safety, development of green technologies, use of non‐animal testing processes, increased consumer protection, and transparency in reporting. Definitions of CSR can be found in this volume in the chapters by Carroll; Dunfee; Frederick; Mackey, Mackey, and Barney; Orlitzky; and Salazar and Husted.

The definition of CSR often depends on motivation, that is, whether an effect such as the development of a green technology was motivated by a concern for the environment or simply as a means to reduce the cost of environment compliance (deceasing costs and increasing profits). Motivation is inherently unobservable, therefore a related concept, corporate social performance (CSP), which is defined in terms of observed CSR policies, processes, and outcomes, was developed. This concept has several weaknesses, not least of which is its reliance on the concept of the ill‐defined CSR. However, many researchers have used this concept, rooted in sociology, to test the relationship between firms doing good (CSP) and doing well (corporate financial performance or CFP). Definitions of CSP are found in chapters by Melé and Orlitzky, while definitions of CFP are found in chapters by Carroll and Orlitzky.

While also sometimes used interchangeably with CSR, corporate citizenship (CC), which has its roots in political science, is a broader concept than CSR. It considers the role of corporations as social institutions and their ability to respond to non‐market pressures, especially in a global context. In this volume, discussions of CC are found in the chapters by Frederick, Melé, Orlitzky, and Windsor.

Another related, but not synonymous concept, is that of socially responsible investing (SRI), which has roots in religion, ethics, economics, and political science. SRI differs from the other concepts addressed in this volume, because it is a way for stakeholders to control the socially responsible behavior of managers by determining the incentives for such behavior. A definition of SRI is found in the chapter by Kurtz.

Reviewing and Expanding Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility

A dominant perspective in CSR research and practice is the business case, which has its roots in economics, especially the theory of the firm. The business case is that firms ‘do well’ (financially) by ‘doing good’ (acting responsibly). The mechanism by which ‘doing good’ is translated into ‘doing well’ has been open to discussion, both from a theoretical perspective and based on a critique of the empirical evidence. Kurucz, Colbert, and Wheeler address the means by which firms benefit by ‘doing good’ and argue for ‘building a better case’, which ‘would extend beyond the economic’ in their chapter.

Another economic concept, agency theory, has been used to argue against managers engaging in CSR. This perspective, advanced by Friedman (1970) , asserts that managers who engage in CSR are acting in their own self‐interest, rather than in the interest of shareholders (the owners of the firm). Therefore, CSR is not good business practice. Salazar and Husted extend this analysis by outlining an agency theory model, where the pursuit of CSR can be an appropriate business practice.

An alternative theory is that of stakeholder management, which has its roots in ethics (rights and justice). Stakeholder theory posits that many stakeholders, not just shareholders, are affected by the actions of firms, and therefore also have rights. The chapters by Melé and Carroll constitute an in‐depth analysis of stakeholder theory.

A more extensive and inclusive theory of CSR (sometimes referred to as CC) has its roots in political science and argues that business firms are citizens, with both rights and responsibilities. The responsibilities of firms include both the economic and social welfare of other citizens. This concept extends the responsibilities of firms beyond those of stakeholders to all citizens. This conceptualization is especially important in developing countries where the governments might not offer protection of human rights and there may be insufficient regulation of environmental, employment, and consumer impacts. A discussion of these issues is found in the chapters by Frederick, Levy and Kaplan, Melé, Millington, Scherer and Palazzo, and Visser.

Levels of Analysis

One of the most challenging aspects of developing a unified theory of CSR is that studies of this phenomenon have been conducted at numerous levels of aggregation: individual actor (manager or employee), organization, industry, nation, region, and global. Each of these levels of analysis is represented in this volume.

Individual actors are at the center of the controversy surrounding CSR. While firms may be legal entities and may be thought of as having identities and citizenship rights, it is individual managers who make decisions about firms' actions, including allocating resources to CSR. Several motives for engaging in CSR have been recognized, including personal preference, career enhancement, stakeholder coercion, moral leadership, reputation building and profit enhancement. Mackey, Mackey, and Barney examine the correlation between managers' commitment to socially responsible causes and the activities of the firm, while Salazar and Husted propose a model for creating incentives for managers to engage in CSR. Windsor's chapter is devoted to examining how responsible management is taught.

Most CSR studies have been based on the firm as the unit of observation. This is entirely appropriate, since most CSR‐related decisions are made at the corporate level. Furthermore, while there is substantial turnover among senior managers, large firms continue to operate and affect our lives. It is also easier to identify actions with the firm rather than with individual decision‐makers. Carroll presents a comprehensive history of firm‐level CSR. In examining the business case for CSR, Kurucz, Colbert, and Wheeler analyze the creation of firm value through CSR. Kurtz examines the foundations of SRI and how shareholders can affect the behavior of the firms they own, that is, the role of shareholder activism in promoting CSR by the firm.

In recent years, differences in the provision of CSR across countries have been of interest to both researchers and managers. Donaldson examines differences in corporate governance between American firms (where shareholder interests dominate) and European firms (where other groups' interests are also considered). Moon and Vogel examine differences in the business and government interface between the United States and Western European countries and how these differences affect the provision of CSR in these countries. Visser offers an analysis of CSR in developing countries and draws several conclusions regarding how CSR provision differs in developed and developing countries.

The incidence and nature of CSR in a global context is also a fruitful area of research and discourse because technology improvements have opened up markets throughout the world to Western‐style business with its attendant benefits and costs. Because many countries do not provide sufficient government and legal protection for consumers, employees, and the environment, businesses or firms that operate globally are expected to recognize and respond to greater responsibilities than they may have to in their (developed) home country. Scherer and Palazzo explain these expectations. Millington explains how the recent phenomenon of the global supply chain has created pressure on large multinational firms to set the standards for CSR behavior by their suppliers that often operate in developing countries—what he terms ethical supply chain management (ESCM).

Drivers of CSR

One of the issues central to CSR, but often left unexamined, is what ‘drives’ CSR? That is, where does the idea of responsibility originate? Several of the chapters in this volume address this issue in some detail.

One relatively well‐recognized driver of CSR is the consumer. Smith examines how consumers can drive CSR behavior through both positive ethical consumerism (support for products that are produced by responsible firms) and negative ethical consumerism (boycotting firms that act irresponsibly). Steger is more reserved in his support for consumers as drivers, pointing out that consumers are still generally reluctant to support CSR and may punish laggards, but not reward pioneers in CSR. Williams and Aguilera compares consumer attitudes towards CSR across cultures, postulating that there are significant differences.

Another well‐recognized driver of CSR is the manager. The manager as agent for the stockholders (principals) of the firm has control over the resources and can determine how those resources are allocated. Therefore, managers, and especially CEOs, can strongly influence CSR behavior (Waldman et al. , 2006) . This is at the heart of most of the controversy surrounding CSR. Proponents of CSR assert that managers should exercise moral leadership, as proposed in Swanson's chapter. Opponents believe that there is an agency problem when managers engage in CSR or more generally, that ‘investment’ in CSR constitutes an inefficient use of corporate resources. Salazar and Husted examine this tension. Williams and Aguilera discuss differences in CSR attitudes and behaviors across different cultures. Pruzan discusses a spiritual‐based perspective of CSR which implies that managers are—and should be—the drivers of CSR.

The lack of government regulation and legal protections in much of the world is another recognized driver of CSR. In developing countries and regions, firms must take over many of the social functions of government so that there is a stable economy, a viable workforce, and a globally sustainable environment in which to conduct commerce. This driver is discussed in several chapters, but most explicitly analyzed in the Visser chapter. Hanlon argues that unmet social needs create a means for firms to develop relationships with stakeholders that benefit the firm (building reliance on firms rather than governments).

In developed countries, government may be a driver of CSR. Moon and Vogel discuss ways in which governments can actively encourage firms to engage in CSR, for example, through the establishment of non‐binding codes and standards. Alternatively, firms might choose CSR as a way to escape formal regulation. Whether through the stick or the carrot, governments may be effective in encouraging CSR.

Social Auditing and Reporting

One area where proponents of CSR have prevailed is in auditing and reporting. The premise behind the support for reporting is that managers will be encouraged to perform more responsibly if they must report on results, and shareholder activists can use the information in reports to invest responsibly. Owen and O'Dwyer discuss the growth and development of corporate social and environmental reporting. Kuhn and Deetz outline the critical theorists' critique of social audits and reports. Buchholtz, Brown, and Shabana discuss the role of legislation in establishing standards for auditing and reporting and the need for global guidelines.

Information Asymmetry and the Strategic Use of CSR

These chapters underscore the importance of information relating to CSR practices. More generally, we believe that the role of information asymmetry in CSR is a fruitful area of research ( see Baron, 2001 , and Fedderson and Gilligan, 2001 , for theoretical analyses and Siegel and Vitaliano, 2007 , for empirical evidence). It is important to note that CSR practices and product features are not always totally transparent and observable to the consumer and other stakeholders. This makes it difficult for consumers and other stakeholders to evaluate the firm's social performance.

As noted in Fedderson and Gilligan (2001) , the degree of asymmetric information regarding internal operations can be mitigated by the company or by ‘activists’ and/or/‘non‐governmental organizations’ (NGOs). It is interesting to note that McDonalds, Motorola, and Nike now publish ‘annual CSR reports’. One can view this activity as a form of advertising, especially for more general types of CSR. However, stakeholders may perceive this information as biased, since it is presented by incumbent managers and not an independent source. Therefore, NGOs may emerge to fill this gap. Additional evidence is needed on how consumers and other stakeholders respond to these efforts.

More generally, the field would greatly benefit from more research on precisely how firms matrix decisions regarding CSR into their business and corporate‐level strategies. There is now mounting empirical evidence ( Russo and Fouts, 1997 ; Reinhardt, 1998 ; Siegel and Vitaliano, 2007 ) that it is consistent with strategic theories of CSR and rational, profit‐seeking management decision‐making. However, others may view this evidence quite differently. They may perceive this stylized fact as indicative of the notion that CSR is a ‘fraud’ or a ‘smokescreen’, used to disguise other irresponsible behavior. In this regard, it is interesting to note that firms such as Enron and Philip Morris were actively involved in social responsibility.

An interesting recent paper by Strike, Gao, and Bansal (2006) examines this tension between responsibility and irresponsibility. The authors assert that firms can simultaneously be socially responsible and socially irresponsible (e.g. Philip Morris). Based on a strategic/resource‐based‐view framework, they examine whether international diversification influences the propensity of firms to be socially responsible and socially irresponsible. More specifically, the authors demonstrate that firms diversifying internationally create value by acting responsibly and destroy value by acting irresponsibly.

The field of CSR remains wide open and we hope that these authors have expanded your horizons. Hope springs eternal.

Baron, D.   2001 . ‘ Private Politics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Integrated Strategy ’. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy , 10: 7–45. 10.1162/105864001300122548

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Friedman, M. 1970. ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits’. New York Times Magazine , 13 Sep.

McWilliams, A. , and Siegel, D.   2001 . ‘ Corporate Social Responsibility: A Theory of the Firm Perspective ’. Academy of Management Review , 26(1): 117–27. 10.2307/259398

Reinhardt, F.   1998 . ‘ Environmental Product Differentiation ’. California Management Review , 40, summer: 43–73.

Russo, M. V. , and Fouts, P. A.   1997 . ‘ A Resource‐Based Perspective on Corporate Environmental Performance and Profitability ’. Academy of Management Journal , 40: 534–59. 10.2307/257052

Siegel, D. S. , and Vitaliano, D.   2007 . ‘ An Empirical Analysis of the Strategic Use of Corporate Social Responsibility ’. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy , 17(3): 773–92.

Strike, V. M. , Gao, J. , and Bansal, T.   2006 . ‘ Being Good while Being Bad: Social Responsibility and the International Diversification of U.S. Firms ’. Journal of International Business Studies , 37(6): 850–62. 10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400226

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Corporate Social Responsibility — Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Corporate Social Responsibility (csr)

• Categories: Corporate Social Responsibility Structure

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Published: Sep 25, 2018

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Table of contents

Introduction, types of csr, importance of csr.

• Environment-Focused Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) This type of CSR focuses on reducing detrimental effects of the corporation’s operations on the environment. The corporation innovates in its manufacturing stage to reduce the production of environment harming by-products. It also promotes the use of non-renewable energy sources to prevent harm caused to the environment by burning of fossil fuels.
• Community-Based Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) The corporation joins hands with other organizations (usually Non-Profit ones) to ensure the welfare of a local community’s people. These organizations either fund or receive funding from corporations to perform tasks that can improve the living conditions of the community’s people.
• Human Resource (HR)-Based Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Corporations focus on the well-being of their own staff and improve their living conditions. The companies may extend compassionate leaves like paternity leaves so that the employee can look after his newborn. They can also provide medical insurance to their employees to take care of accidents caused due to occupational hazards.
• Charity Based Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) In a charity-based CSR, corporations donate to organizations or individuals (usually through a charity partner) to improve their financial condition and for their general upliftment. This is the most common form of a CSR activity. Most corporations provide direct financial support to organizations or individuals who require such assistance.
• Increased employee’s loyalty and retention.
• Gaining legitimacy and access to markets.
• Less litigation
• Increased quality of products and services.
• Bolstering public image and enhanced brand value.
• Less volatile stock market.
• Avoiding state regulations.
• Increased customer loyalty.
• Improved quality of life and changing habits.
• Capacity building creates wealth and employment.
• Balanced eco-system.
• Waste management.
• Clean and green environment

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Business ownership – a view from stakeholders perspective, only a few corporations take the csr seriously, economic hard time and core business focus, role and responsibility conflict, environmental management and corporations’ profitability.

Long periods of time have seen businesses sustain success in the visibly competitive world of trade. This success is linked to good governance from the board of management, with support from the shareholders. Similarly, businesses that have performed poorly in the past are connected to the weaknesses of the boards of governors, who in one way or another failed to address specific issues that confront their business venture. The management of corporations is in most cases under the leadership of a chief executive officer (CEO), who is given the opportunity to manage the corporation by the shareholders (Mallin, 2007). The CEO reports directly to the board of directors. While the board plays a critical role in ensuring that the management and the CEO of the organization get everything right, the board is normally answerable to the shareholders (Monks & Minow, 2007, p.126).

It is noted that the test of any effective governance and management is reflected in the degree to which an organization achieves its purpose and set goals (Jensen, 1976, p.4). However, another phenomenon has emerged in the world of business where the roles of business entities have been billed to go beyond shareholder satisfaction. This is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) which has been linked with the responsibility of caring for stakeholders in a wider perspective of the global or regional community (Carroll, 1999). Others refer to it as corporate citizenship, with the common belief that it influences all the aspects of the business on a global or regional scale. This belief is pinned on the notion that businesses matter since they create a lot of wealth, which they are required to share with the community under the banner of “stakeholders” (Atkinson, Waterhouse & Wells, 1997, p.25). In other words, the concept of the CRS is a state in which an organization decides where it fits in social fabrics, by addressing the ethics of business, corporate governance, environmental issues, and any other issue within the social context of the society (Bushman & Smith, 2003). But is CSR necessary for the success of a corporation? Or is CSR an obligation of the Corporations? This paper critically analyzes whether the corporations have the role of Corporate Social Responsibility as part of their duty in the wider aspect of their roles.

According to some business pundits, business is principally owned by stakeholders, and that any money spent on Corporate Social Responsibility is a waste of corporation’s resources and ‘polite robbery’ from the rightful owners of the business (Bushman & Smith, 2003, p.14). The case against CSR can be traced back to a statement by scholar and business leader, Laisser-Fair. Supporting his position are people like Elaine Sternberg, who argues that practicing CRS is basically going against human rights; the right of owners to enjoy the right to reap from their efforts, hence they are denied the right to property ownership (Werther & Chandler, 2006). Stating that the objectives of every contemporary view are ridiculous, she argues that the right to own a property is earned fairly in a business environment and thus should be respected at all costs (Werther & Chandler, 2006, p.39). However, a view that “ordinary decency, honesty, and fairness” should be at the forefront of every corporation is also paramount in many ways (Jensen, 1996).

It is also argued that corporate social responsibility undermines the very base of a free society (Grossman & Hart, 1982). This is because of the acceptance of the corporate leaders that they have a social responsibility to satisfy the needs of those who have not contributed directly to the success of the corporation. It thus means that the responsibility to make more profit to the shareholders is jeopardized.

The past surveys of the most respected companies in the globe show that corporations that have not concentrated much on the topic do better than the ones which have concentrated much on CSR activities (Freeman, 1994). The survey revealed that the position of “The Most Respected Business Leaders” has been occupied by those executives or business leaders who do not play nice in the market, hence creating a belief that being good to the stakeholders at large is not

the way to go for success in business (Freeman, 1994). For instance, business leaders like Bill Gates are known to have not played the business game fairly, but still emerge with honors on their achievements (Monks & Minow, 2007). In fact, Microsoft is associated with some of the highest-profile cases of playing ‘big brother’ in the business environment hence jeopardizing the success of other firms in the same line of business (Monks & Minow, 2007, p.172). In fact, Bill Gates has used his huge financial achievements in the market to give away huge sums of money to the needy, at the expense of the competing firms.

Another notable case is that of Jack Welch of General Electric. He played nasty in the business world by a memorable and anti-social downsizing in his corporation and cases of environmental pollution that led to a lot of criticism from the society members, including the fellow business leaders (Monks & Minow, 2007, p.173). However, Alchian & Desmetz (2002) argues that Welch played his part in a manner that would be considered social responsibility activity, especially through his restructuring of the employee status through empowerment. Welch is in records as to have said that making a profit and paying taxes should not be the sole agenda that occupies the minds of the corporation leaders (Alchian & Desmetz, 2002).

In the dimension of core business and the need to focus on it, especially during this period of economic hardship, many scholars have argued that one should not lose focus of core business in the name of spending money unnecessarily. Colley (2003, p.213) states that “you cannot go round spending extravagantly” on unimportant issues while you are retrenching workers and the reputation of the company is headed downhill. From this argument, it is easy to argue that the reputation of the company may not be easily redeemed when the very society that is supposed to respond positively towards their activities are skeptical about everything they do in the name of CSR.

Fombrun (1996) on the other hand argues that the process of managing CSR depends on the aspect of managing a business. In this dimension, one can handle it poorly or well depending on whether the managers keep a firm focus on the business goals and objectives. It is, therefore, possible to reason out that time and again it is the corporation’s responsibility to keep off those activities that would attract the attention of pressure groups, especially the environmentalists or to avoid carrying out activities that may lead to prosecution and paying of regulatory charges (Fombrun, 1996). He states that through such an initiative, there would be no need for splashing out money for CSR activities. After all, many observe that CSR can lead to withdrawal of attention towards the improvement of quality, as the corporation will be spending a lot of time and money on building the image through CSR at the expense of improving product quality (Freeman 1994).

Historically, businesses have moved beyond morality and public policy, hence the need to do what is needed; create an environment for sustainable profit and growth (Millstein, 1998). By doing this, the government is benefiting through taxation, hence the need to create a favorable framework for the proper and fair game in society. Millstein (1998) argues that it is not logical to insist that smoking remain legal and adding a huge tax on it at the expense of consumers, and still act in the name of CSR. In fact many have argued that such activities or actions are purely not in the interest of the wider stakeholders, hence the call for the wholesome illegalization of tobacco.

It is indeed becoming extremely challenging as it is getting extremely hard to sustain the impact of such negative perceptions. In fact, taking an example of the tobacco industry still, they are actually global players, a big corporation that does continuously grow in its global networks at the expense of other locally based corporations. This makes it possible to take a global look at the scenario thus assuming the roles played by the locally based corporations. In essence, this may be the point behind many organizations hiding in the blanket of “small impact group” of corporations (Alchian & Desmetz, 2002).

Several studies have indicated that almost every business idea or a business venture that one may think of has the ability to “shift 1% of its overall turnover straight into its bottom line”, only if proper environmental management is undertaken in a way that would minimize wastes (Bushman & Smith, 2003). However, a lot of business leaders do not positively conceive the idea of spending money on environmental conservation or minimizing waste through specific environmental initiatives (Bushman & Smith, 2003). According to Bushman & Smith, business leaders do not like the idea of preventing the on-coming problem, but like acting after the disaster so that they can rebuild their name through CSR activities. In principle, the solution to the problems only comes after the need to solve an already existing problem rather than acting to clear the looming one.

There is considerable evidence that good governance cannot be replaced by activities of CSR. It must also be noted that the governance of corporations relies on the internal means through which their performances are accomplished (Colley, 2003). There is also little debate that good corporate governance will definitely impact the overall performance of the corporation. Again, while governance of a corporation is comprised of the internal relationships amongst shareholders, boards of directors, and managers, it must be acknowledged that such relationships are a result of respective roles of the government and private sector. This is seen in the way governments manage the laid down regulations, the general perception of the public as well as voluntary private initiatives. It is therefore important to note that CSR is basically an image-building initiative that in most cases can be avoided at the initial stages of company development. Again it should therefore be acknowledged that the primary role of corporate governance is to ensure the shareholders get their rightful control and benefit of the corporation rather than venturing into the image-building exercise through CSR.

Alchian, A., & Desmetz H. (1972) Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization. American Economic Review , 62, pp. 777-795.

Atkinson, A., & Waterhouse J., & Wells R. (1997) A stakeholder approach to strategic performance measurement. Sloan Management Review , Spring [38(3)]: 25-36.

Bushman, R., & Smith J. (2003) Trasparency, Financial Accounting Information and the Corporate Governance. FRBNY, Economic Policy Review , April.

Carroll, A. B. (1999) Corporate social responsibility: Evolution of a definitional construct. Business and Society 38(3), 268-295.

Colley, J.L. (2003) Corporate Governance . London. McGraw-Hill Professional.

Fombrun, C., J. (1996). Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image . Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

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Werther, B.W., & Chandler, D. (2006) Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment . Miami. University of Miami Publishing Press.

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• Review Article
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A literature review of the history and evolution of corporate social responsibility

• Mauricio Andrés Latapí Agudelo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7157-4015 1 ,
• Lára Jóhannsdóttir 1 &
• Brynhildur Davídsdóttir 1  

International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility volume  4 , Article number:  1 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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There is a long and varied history associated with the evolution of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). However, a historical review is missing in the academic literature that portrays the evolution of the academic understanding of the concept alongside with the public and international events that influenced the social expectations with regards to corporate behavior. The aim of this paper is to provide a distinctive historical perspective on the evolution of CSR as a conceptual paradigm by reviewing the most relevant factors that have shaped its understanding and definition, such as academic contributions, international policies and significant social and political events. To do so, the method used is a comprehensive literature review that explores the most relevant academic contributions and public events that have influenced the evolutionary process of CSR and how they have done so. The findings show that the understanding of corporate responsibility has evolved from being limited to the generation of profit to include a broader set of responsibilities to the latest belief that the main responsibility of companies should be the generation of shared value. The findings also indicate that as social expectations of corporate behavior changed, so did the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. The findings suggest that CSR continues to be relevant within the academic literature and can be expected to remain part of the business vocabulary at least in the short term and as a result, the authors present a plausible future for CSR that takes into consideration its historical evolution. Finally, this paper gives way for future academic research to explore how CSR can help address the latest social expectations of generating shared value as a main business objective, which in turn may have practical implications if CSR is implemented with this in mind.

Introduction

The current belief that corporations have a responsibility towards society is not new. In fact, it is possible to trace the business’ concern for society several centuries back (Carroll 2008 ). However, it was not until the 1930’s and 40’s when the role of executives and the social performance of corporations begun appearing in the literature (Carroll 1999 ) and authors begun discussing what were the specific social responsibilities of companies. In the following decades, the social expectations towards corporate behavior changed and so did the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The aim of this article is to find out which have been the main factors and/or events that have influenced the evolutionary process of CSR and how they have shaped the understanding of the concept. This will allow to recognize CSR as a concept that reflects the social expectations of each decade and be able to explore if it will remain relevant in the near future.

This review focuses on the most relevant academic publications and historical events that have influenced the evolution of CSR as a conceptual paradigm. The review begins with the historical roots of social responsibility and then explores the early stages of the formal and academic writing about the social responsibilities of corporations and goes through its evolution to the latest understanding of CSR. Considering that the history of CSR is long and vast, it is necessary to point out that this article focuses on publications that have provided an original perspective and understanding to the concept of CSR along with the most significant papers with regards to the evolution of the social expectations of corporate behavior (see Appendix for additional recommended readings). Along with these papers, the review takes into consideration articles that have been cited the most and can be considered as significant contributors to the evolution of the concept as well as publications that provide new definitions and frameworks. It is relevant to point out that this paper will focus on the development of CSR as a definitional construct and will not explore in detail alternative concepts that emerged in the late twentieth century.

This article reviews the key historical events that played a role in the evolution of CSR. In particular, the paper focuses on events that influenced to a certain extent corporations to assume broader social responsibilities Accordingly, this article focuses on the relevant inputs to the definitional construct of the concept, most of which are of Anglo-American character, but it also considers that the growing attention on CSR has been influenced by specific calls for better business practices, such as the European CSR Strategy. As such, this paper does not portray the entire literature on the subject but highlights the key factors that shaped the evolution of CSR. Accordingly, the authors provide a summary of the evolution of the concept through a chronological timeline that allows the reader to follow the history of CSR by pointing out the most relevant academic contributions as well as the most significant events that played a role in shaping it as a conceptual paradigm.

The main contribution of this paper is a structured historical review that is accompanied with a chronological timeline of the evolution of CSR. Accordingly, the article contributes to the literature by exploring how the societal expectations of corporate behavior of each period have influenced the understanding and definitional construct of CSR. Furthermore, this article contributes to the literature on CSR by providing an innovative review of the evolution of the concept that contextualizes its development with a connection to the wider changes happening in each period. This paper also contributes to the current understanding of CSR by including a review of the development of CSR in the early twenty-first century, a period that has not been reviewed as much as earlier periods of the development of the concept.

Research method

The formal publications and literature on CSR begun as early as the 1930’s and continues to be relevant among academic journals, business magazines, books, and reports from international bodies as well as from non-governmental organizations and associations. This means that the literature on the subject is broad and a specific method is needed to achieve a comprehensive review. Given these aspects, the research was carried out following a systematic literature review (SLR) as understood by Okoli and Schabram ( 2010 ) who built on from Fink’s ( 2005 ) definition of a research literature review to define it as a systematic, explicit, comprehensive and reproducible method. The motivation for following a SLR is because it is commonly used to summarize the existing literature and identify gaps, to describe the available body of knowledge to guide professional practice, to identify effective research and development methods, to identify experts within a given field and to identify unpublished sources of information (Fink 2005 ; Okoli and Schabram 2010 ).

The extensive nature of the CSR literature required to limit the scope of the research to thematic areas directly related to the evolution and history of the concept and also limited to publications of academic or institutional character considering that they have already undergone a rigorous peer review that indicates a suitable quality for this SLR. The initial search was conducted for published journal articles using the search words “corporate social responsibility”, “history of CSR” and “evolution of CSR” on the online databases of Science Direct, ProQuest and Web of Science along with the search engine of Google Scholar. The searches were made within the search windows of the website of each database in the titles, abstracts and body of the articles and the results were provided in order of relevance. The first selection was limited to the titles of the publications and was followed by a review of the keywords and abstracts of the preferred articles. To determine the suitability of some of the articles it was necessary to review their introduction and scope. The next step in the selection of articles was focused on their quality and relevance which was determined by reviewing the level of impact factor of the journal of publication as well as the amount of citations the article has had, looking specifically for a high impact factor for each individual paper. Each article was then reviewed to determine its relevance for the research. Some articles pointed to additional references outside the initial search scope which were then searched online for their review. This included business magazines, books, and reports from international bodies and non-governmental organizations and associations. These references were reviewed and selected according to their pertinence and contribution for this paper. Following this systematic strategy allowed to review published journal articles with high impact factors along with publications of relevance mentioned by the authors of such articles. Some publications with regards to CSR had to be excluded from this review because they did not contribute directly to the evolution of the concept but we believe they are of interest in the CSR literature and thus they are listed in Appendix . Finally, the paper is structured in a way that each section corresponds to a particular period making it easier to follow the evolutionary process of CSR.

Historical roots of social responsibility

For Chaffee ( 2017 ), the origins of the social component in corporate behavior can be traced back to the ancient Roman Laws and can be seen in entities such as asylums, homes for the poor and old, hospitals and orphanages. This notion of corporations as social enterprises was carried on with the English Law during the Middle Ages in academic, municipal and religious institutions. Later, it expanded into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the influence of the English Crown, which saw corporations as an instrument for social development (Chaffee 2017 ). In the following centuries, with the expansion of the English Empire and the conquering of new lands, the English Crown exported its corporate law to its American colonies where corporations played a social function to a certain extent Footnote 1 (Chaffee 2017 ).

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Christian religious philosophy and approach to the abiding social context were seen as a response to the moral failure of society, which was visible in terms of poverty of the overall population in the English Empire and some parts of Europe (Harrison 1966 ). This religious approach gave way to social reforms and to the Victorian philanthropy which perceived a series of social problems revolving around poverty and ignorance as well as child and female labor (Carroll 2008 ; Harrison 1966 ). The religious roots of the Victorian social conscience gave Victorian Philanthropists a high level of idealism and humanism, and by the late 1800’s, the philanthropic efforts focused on the working class and the creation of welfare schemes with examples that could be seen in practice both in Europe as in the United States of America (USA) (Carroll 2008 ; Harrison 1966 ). A clear case was the creation of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), a movement that begun in London in 1844 with the objective of applying Christian values to the business activities of the time, a notion that quickly spread to the USA (see: Heald 1970 ).

During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the creation of welfare schemes took a paternalistic approach aimed at protecting and retaining employees and some companies even looked into improving their quality of life (Carroll 2008 ; Heald 1970 ). For Heald ( 1970 ), there were clear examples that reflected the social sensitivity of businessmen, such as the case of Macy’s in the USA, which in 1875 contributed funds to an orphan asylum and by 1887 labeled their charity donations as Miscellaneous Expenses within their accounting books, and the case of Pullman Palace Car Company which created a model industrial community in 1893 with the aim of improving the quality of life of its employees.

Also during this period, there was a growing level of urbanization and industrialization marked by large-scale production. This brought new concerns to the labor market such as: new challenges for farmers and smalls corporations to keep up with the new interdependent economy, the creation of unions of workers looking for better working conditions, and a middle class worried for the loss of religious and family values in the new industrial society (Heald 1970 ). As a response to these new challenges, and with the aim of finding harmony between the industry and the working force, some business leaders created organizations for the promotion of values and improvement of the working conditions. Such was the case of the Civic Federation of Chicago, an organization created to promote better working conditions and where religious values merged with economic objectives with a sense of civic pride (Heald 1970 ).

By the 1920’s and early 1930’s, business managers begun assuming the responsibility of balancing the maximization of profits with creating and maintaining an equilibrium with the demands of their clients, their labor force, and the community (Carroll 2008 ). This led to managers being viewed as trustees for the different set of external relations with the company, which in turn translated into social and economic responsibilities being adopted by corporations (Carroll 2008 ; Heald 1970 ). Later, with the growth of business during World War II and the 1940’s, companies begun to be seen as institutions with social responsibilities and a broader discussion of such responsibilities began taking place (Heald 1970 ). Some early examples of the debate of the social responsibilities of corporations can be found in The Functions of the Executive by Barnard ( 1938 ) and the Social Control of Business by Clark ( 1939 ).

1950’s and 1960’s: the early days of the modern era of social responsibility

It was not until the early 1950’s that the notion of specifically defining what those responsibilities were was first addressed in the literature and can be understood as the beginning of the modern definitional construct of Corporate Social Responsibility. In fact, it was during the 1950’s and 1960’s that the academic research and theoretical focus of CSR concentrated on the social level of analysis (Lee 2008 ) providing it with practical implications.

The period after World War II and the 1950’s can be considered as a time of adaptation and changing attitudes towards the discussion of corporate social responsibility, but also a time where there were few corporate actions going beyond philanthropic activities (Carroll 2008 ). Perhaps the most notable example of the changing attitude towards corporate behavior came from Bowen ( 1953 ), who believed that the large corporations of the time concentrated great power and that their actions had a tangible impact on society, and as such, there was a need for changing their decision making to include considerations of their impact.

As a result of his belief, Bowen ( 1953 ) set forth the idea of defining a specific set of principles for corporations to fulfill their social responsibilities. For him, the businessman ’s Footnote 2 decisions and actions affect their stakeholders, employees, and customers having a direct impact on the quality of life of society as a whole (Bowen 1953 ). With this in mind, Bowen defined the social responsibilities of business executives as “the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society” (Bowen 1953 , p. 6). As Carroll ( 2008 ) explains, it seems that Bowen ( 1953 ) was ahead of his time for his new approach to management which aimed at improving the business response to its social impact and by his contributions to the definition of corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, the relevance of Bowen’s approach relies on the fact that this was the first academic work focused specifically on the doctrine of social responsibility, making Bowen the “Father of Corporate Social Responsibility” (Carroll 1999 ).

After Bowen, other authors were concerned with corporate behavior and its response to the social context of the time. For example, in the book Corporation Giving in a Free Society published in 1956, Eells ( 1956 ) argued that the large corporations of the time were not living up to their responsibility in a time of generalized inflation. In a similar way, with the book A moral philosophy for management published in 1959, Selekman ( 1959 ) explored the evolution of the moral responsibility of corporations as a response to the labor expectations of the time.

These early explorations of CSR as a definitional construct, along with the social context of the time, gave way to a growing interest of scholars to define what CSR was and what it meant (Carroll 2008 ). Naturally, it is understandable that the interest in CSR during 1960’s was influenced by growing awareness in society and social movements of the time. However, it is necessary to point out that the effect of this growing interest was perhaps more visible in the USA, which is why some examples of the following sections might seem to center on this particular country.

Some of society’s main concerns during this period revolved around rapid population growth, pollution, and resource depletion (Du Pisani 2006 ) and were accompanied with social movements with respect to the environment and human and labor rights (Carroll 1999 ). At the same time, books such as The Silent Spring by Carson ( 1962 ) and The Population Bomb by Ehrlich ( 1968 ) begun raising questions with regards to the limits of economic growth and the impact that society and corporations were having on the environment.

During the 1960’s there was also a new social context marked by a growing protest culture that revolved mainly around civil rights and anti-war protests. In the case of the USA, the protests transformed from being student-led sit-ins, walk-outs and rallies, to more radical political activism which, in most cases, saw business corporations as an integral part of the “establishment” they wanted to change (Waterhouse 2017 ). These protests put pressure on companies that, in the protestors’ view, represented the “establishment” (i.e. banks and financial institutions as well large scale corporations) but had a strong focus on those with direct links to war. An example is the case of the Dow Chemical Company which produced napalm used in the Vietnam War and as a result faced constant protests and accusations (Waterhouse 2017 ).

Accordingly, during the 1960’s scholars approached CSR as a response to the problems and desires of the new modern society. A notable example of this period was Keith Davis ( 1960 ), who explained that the important social, economic and political changes taking place represented a pressure for businessmen to re-examine their role in society and their social responsibility. Davis ( 1960 ) argued that businessmen have a relevant obligation towards society in terms of economic and human values, and asserted that, to a certain extent, social responsibility could be linked to economic returns for the firm (Carroll 1999 ; Davis 1960 ). The significance of Davis’ ideas is that he indicated that the “social responsibilities of businessmen need to be commensurate with their social power” (p. 71) and that the avoidance of such would lead to a decrease of the firm’s social power (Davis 1960 ).

Other influential contributors of the time were Frederick ( 1960 ), McGuire ( 1963 ) and Walton ( 1967 ). Frederick ( 1960 ) saw the first half of the twentieth century as an intellectual and institutional transformation that changed the economic and social thinking and brought with it an increased economic power to large scale corporations. To balance the growing power of businessmen, Frederick ( 1960 ) proposed a new theory of business responsibility based on five requirements: 1) to have a criteria of value (in this case for economic production and distribution), 2) to be based on the latest concepts of management and administration, 3) to acknowledge the historical and cultural traditions behind the current social context, 4) to recognize that the behavior of an individual businessmen is a function of its role within society and its social context, and, 5) to recognize that responsible business behavior does not happen automatically but on the contrary, it is the result of deliberate and conscious efforts; then McGuire ( 1963 ), who reviewed the development of business institutions and observed changes in the scale and type of corporations, changes in public policies, and regulatory controls for businesses as well as changes in the social and economic conditions of the time. As a response to these changes, McGuire ( 1963 ) argued that the firm’s responsibility goes beyond its legal and economic obligations, and that corporations should take an interest in politics, the social welfare of the community, and the education and happiness of its employees; and Walton ( 1967 ), who explored the ideological changes taking place during the 1950’s and 60’s which were reflected in public policies, some of which saw corporations as potential contributors to the improvement of the social and economic conditions of the time (see: Walton 1967 ; Walton 1982 ). Accordingly, he provided a definition of social responsibility with which he acknowledged the relevance of the relationship between corporations and society.

It is relevant to point out that even when some scholars begun applying a wider scope to the social responsibilities of corporations, there were others who were skeptical of the notion of CSR. Notably, Milton Friedman, a renowned economist and later a Nobel laurate in economics (1976), gave in 1962 a particular perspective of the role of corporations in a free capitalist system in which firms should limit to the pursuit of economic benefits (see: Friedman 1962 ). Friedman would further explore this notion in the article The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits published in (Friedman 1970 ) in which he sees CSR activities as an inappropriate use of company’s resources that would result in the unjustifiable spending of money for the general social interest.

Even when the social context of the 1960’s was, to some extent, reflected in the academic approach to CSR, its practical implementation remained mostly with a philanthropic character (Carroll 2008 ). Nonetheless, by the end of the decade the overall social context was reflected in the form of a strong pressure on corporations to behave according to the social expectations of the time, most of which were vividly expressed in protests and environmental and antiwar campaigns (Waterhouse 2017 ).

The 1970’s: CSR and management

The antiwar sentiment, the overall social context, and a growing sense of awareness in society during the late 1960’s translated into a low level of confidence in business to fulfill the needs and wants of the public (Waterhouse 2017 ). In fact, the low level of confidence in the business sector reached a significant point when in 1969 a major oil spill in the coast of Santa Barbara, California led to massive protests across the USA and eventually resulted in the creation of the first Earth Day celebrated in 1970. During the first Earth Day, 20 million people across the USA joined protests to demand a clean and sustainable environment and to fight against pollution, which was caused mainly by corporations (e.g. oil spills, toxic dumps, polluting factories and power plants) (Earth Day 2018 ). The first Earth Day influenced the political agenda of the USA in such a significant manner that it played a role in pushing forward the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the end of 1970 (Earth Day 2018 ) and translated into a new regulatory framework that would later influence corporate behavior and create additional responsibilities for corporations.

It is equally important to mention that in the year 1970 there was a recession in the USA that was marked by a high inflation and very low growth followed by a long energy crisis (Waterhouse 2017 ). As a response to this context, and as a result of the social movements of the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the federal government of the USA made significant advances with regards to social and environmental regulations. The most notable examples were the creation of the EPA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), all of which addressed and formalized to some extent, the responsibilities of businesses with regards to the social concerns of the time (Carroll 2015 ).

Similarly, two relevant contributions from the early 1970’s that responded to the social expectations of the time came from the Committee for Economic Development (CED) of the USA, first with the publication of A New Rationale for Corporate Social Policy which explored to what extent it is justified for corporations to get involved in social problems (Baumol 1970 ) and then with the publication of the Social Responsibilities of Business Corporations which explored the new expectations that society begun placing on the business sector (Committee for Economic Development 1971 ). These publications are of relevance because they advanced the public debate around CSR by acknowledging that “business functions by public consent, and its basic purpose is to serve constructively the needs of society – to the satisfaction of society” (Committee for Economic Development 1971 , p. 11).

As Carroll ( 1999 ) and Lee ( 2008 ) point out, these publications reflect a new rationale with regards to the roles and responsibilities of corporations. Furthermore, the Committee for Economic Development ( 1971 ) acknowledged that the social contract between business and society was evolving in substantial and important ways and specifically noted that: “Business is being asked to assume broader responsibilities to society than ever before and to serve a wider range of human values. Business enterprises, in effect, are being asked to contribute more to the quality of American life than just supplying quantities of goods and services. Inasmuch as business exists to serve society, its future will depend on the quality of management’s response to the changing expectations of the public” (Committee for Economic Development 1971 , p. 16).

The Club of Rome, formed in 1968 by a group of researchers that included scientists, economists and business leaders from 25 different countries, published in 1972 the report The Limits to Growth (World Watch Institute n.d. ), a study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which questioned the viability of continued growth and its ecological footprint (The Club of Rome 2018 ). The report became of relevance for the international community because it brought the attention towards the impact of population growth, resource depletion and pollution, and pointed out the need of responsible business practices and new regulatory frameworks.

The 1970’s saw the creation of some of today’s most renowned companies with respect to social responsibility. Such is the case of the Body Shop, which was created in 1976 in the United Kingdom and Ben & Jerry’s founded in 1978 in the USA. Whether as a response to the new social expectations, a new regulatory framework, or due to a first-mover strategy, these are two notable examples of companies that begun formalizing and integrating policies that addressed the social and public issues of the time, and as a result the 1970’s entered into what Carroll ( 2015 , p. 88) called an era of “managing corporate social responsibility”. This meant that the term Corporate Social Responsibility became increasingly popular which resulted in its use under many different contexts and to such an extent that its meaning became unclear, and as a consequence it meant something different for everybody (Sethi 1975 ; Votaw 1973 ).

For instance, for Preston and Post ( 1975 ), corporations have a public responsibility that is limited by clear boundaries, meaning that anything outside is not an obligation for the firm and explained that going beyond those limits offers no clear direction for achieving the company’s main goals and can translate into an inefficient re-orientation of activities. In fact, Preston and Post stated that companies are not responsible for improving social conditions or addressing social problems and argued that a firm’s responsibility extends only to the direct consequences of their decisions and activities in which they engage (Preston and Post 1975 ). A different perception came from Sethi ( 1975 ), for whom social responsibility entails that corporate behavior should be coherent with the social norms, values and expectations, and as a result it should be prescriptive.

The unrestricted use of the term Corporate Social Responsibility during the 1970’s created an uncertainty with regards to its definition. This lasted until 1979, when Carroll proposed what is arguably the first unified definition of Corporate Social Responsibility stating that: “The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time” (Carroll 1979 , p. 500). Even when Carroll’s ( 1979 ) approach to social responsibility corresponded to the discussion on corporate behavior of the time, and was mainly driven by the social movements of the 1960’s and the new legislations in the USA, its relevance relies on the fact that his definition builds on from the work of other scholars (including the CED) to provide a clear and concise conceptualization that could be applicable under any context, which was not the case of previous definitions of CSR (see previous definitions from: Davis 1973 ; Frederick 1960 ; M. Friedman 1962 ; McGuire 1963 ; Walton 1967 ). Another relevant contribution of Carroll’s understanding of CSR is that it does not see the economic and social objectives as incompatible trade-offs but rather as an integral part of the business framework of total social responsibility (Lee 2008 ).

During the 1970’s, the understanding of CSR was influenced by social movements and new legislations. This was reflected in the academic publications which provided companies with an approach that looked into how to comply with the new responsibilities that have been given to them by the new legislations that now covered environmental aspects as well as product safety, and labor rights (Carroll 2008 ). This gave way to the 1980’s where the discussion revolved on the ways for implementing CSR.

The 1980’s: the operationalization of CSR

During the 1970’s, there were a growing number of legislations that attended the social concerns of the time and gave a broader set of responsibilities to corporations. By contrast, during the 1980’s the Reagan and Thatcher administrations brought a new line of thought into politics with a strong focus on reducing the pressure on corporations and aiming to reduce the high levels of inflation that the USA and the United Kingdom (UK) were facing (see: Feldstein 2013 ; Wankel 2008 ). For Reagan and Thatcher, the growth and strength of the economies of their countries depended on their ability to maintain a free market environment with as little as possible state intervention (Pillay 2015 ). To do so, Reagan’s main economic goals focused on reducing the regulations on the private sector complemented with tax reductions (Feldstein 2013 ).

With governments reducing their role in regulating corporate behavior, managers were faced with a need to answer to different interest groups that still expected corporations to fulfill the social expectations of the time. Notably, the reduced regulatory framework led scholars to look into business ethics and the operationalization of CSR as a response to groups such as shareholders, employees and consumers, and the term stakeholder became common (Carroll 2008 ; Wankel 2008 ). However, scholars also begun looking into alternative or complementary concepts to CSR, some of which include corporate social performance, corporate social responsiveness, and stakeholder theory and management (Carroll 2008 ). For the purpose of this paper we will continue to focus our attention on the development of CSR as a definitional construct.

In 1980, Thomas M. Jones ( 1980 ) was arguably the first author to consider CSR as a decision making process that influence corporate behavior. Jones’ ( 1980 ) contribution gave way to a new area of debate around CSR which focused more on its operationalization than on the concept itself. This translated into the creation of new frameworks, models, and methods aimed at evaluating CSR from an operational perspective. Some notable examples of the 1980’s came from Tuzzolino and Armandi ( 1981 ), who presented a need-hierarchy framework through which the company’s socially responsible performance can be assessed based on five criteria (profitability, organizational safety, affiliation and industry context, market position and competitiveness, and self-actualization); Strand ( 1983 ), who proposed a systems model to represent the link between an organization and its social responsibility, responsiveness and responses and who identified internal and external effects of company’s behavior; Cochran and Wood ( 1984 ), who used the combined Moskowitz list Footnote 3 , a reputation index, to explore the relation between CSR and financial performance; and Wartick and Cochran ( 1985 ) who reorganized Carroll’s understanding of CSR (1979) into a framework of principles, processes, and social policies.

Perhaps the best way to understand the operationalization approach to CSR during the 1980’s is by keeping in mind that during this time there were new societal concerns. Notably, these concerns can be observed in a series of events that reflected the approach of the international community towards sustainable development and to a certain extent, to corporate behavior. The most relevant include: the creation of the European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General (1981), the establishment of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland (1983), the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1986), the publication of the report Our Common Future presented by the Brundtland Commission which provided a definition of sustainable development (1987), the United Nations (UN) adoption of the Montreal Protocol (1987), and the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (1988).

Even when these events did not relate directly to CSR, and hence did not influence directly the evolution of the concept, they reflected a growing sense of awareness of the international community with regards to environmental protection and sustainable development, and indirectly to corporate behavior. In fact, for Carroll ( 2008 ), the most relevant societal concerns and expectations of corporate behavior during the 1980’s revolved around “environmental pollution, employment discrimination, consumer abuses, employee health and safety, quality of work life, deterioration of urban life, and questionable/abusiveness practices of multinational corporations” (p. 36). As Carroll ( 2008 ) explained, this context gave way for scholars to begin looking into alternative themes, and during the 1980’s the concepts of business ethics and stakeholder management became part of the business vocabulary being part of a wider discussion around the corporate behavior of the time.

The 1990’s: globalization and CSR

During the 1990’s, significant international events influenced the international perspective towards social responsibility and the approach to sustainable development. The most relevant include: the creation of the European Environment Agency (1990), the UN summit on the Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro which led to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the adoption of Agenda 21 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (1992), and the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (1997). The creation of these international bodies and the adoption of international agreements represented international efforts for setting higher standards with regards to climate-related issues and, indirectly to corporate behavior (see: Union of Concerned Scientists 2017 ).

The 1990’s were no exception to the growing interest in CSR, and in fact, it was during this decade that the concept gained international appeal, perhaps as the result of the international approach to sustainable development of the time in combination to the globalization process taking place. As Carroll ( 2015 ) explained, during the 1990’s the globalization process increased the operations of multinational corporations which now faced diverse business environments abroad, some of them with weak regulatory frameworks. For these global corporations it meant new opportunities that came along with a rising global competition for new markets, an increased reputational risk due to a growth in global visibility, and conflicting pressures, demands, and expectations from the home and the host countries (Carroll 2015 ).

Many multinational corporations understood that being socially responsible had the potential to be a safe pathway to balance the challenges and opportunities of the globalization process they were experiencing and as a result, the institutionalization of CSR became stronger (Carroll 2015 ). The most notable example of the institutionalization of CSR was the foundation in 1992 of the association Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) which initially included 51 companies with the vision of a becoming a “force for positive social change - a force that would preserve and restore natural resources, ensure human dignity and fairness, and operate transparently” (Business for Social Responsibility 2018 , para. 2).

The European Commission (EC) also played a relevant role in encouraging the implementation of CSR and begun promoting it as early as 1995 when 20 business leaders adopted the European Business Declaration against Social Exclusion in response to the EC’s call to combat social exclusion and unemployment (CSR Europe n.d. ). This resulted 1 year later, in the launch of the European Business Network for Social Cohesion (later renamed CSR Europe) which gathered business leaders with the aim of enhancing CSR within their organizations (CSR Europe n.d. ).

Even when the institutionalization of CSR grew stronger in the 1990’s, the concept itself didn’t evolve as much (Carroll 1999 ). Nevertheless, there are three contributions to CSR that are relevant to point out: Donna J. Wood ( 1991 ), driven by what she saw as a need for a systematical integration of conceptual aspects into a unified theory, built on the models of Carroll ( 1979 ) and Wartick and Cochran ( 1985 ) to create a model of Corporate Social Performance (CSP). Wood ( 1991 ) defined three dimensions of CSP: first, the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility, which include legitimacy (institutional level), public responsibility (organizational level), and managerial discretion (individual level). Second, she defined the processes of corporate social responsiveness as environmental assessment, stakeholder management, and issues management. Third, she specified the outcomes of corporate behavior as social impacts, social programs, and social policies. As a result, Wood’s model (1991) was broader and more comprehensive than the ones presented earlier by Carroll ( 1979 ) and Wartick and Cochran ( 1985 ), and its relevance relies on its contextualization of aspects of CSR within the business-social interaction by emphasizing explicitly the outcomes and performance of firms (Carroll 1999 ).

Also in 1991, Carroll ( 1991 ) presented the “Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility” with the aim of providing a useful approach to CSR for the executives that needed to balance their commitments to the shareholders with their obligations to a wider set of stakeholders which originated from the new governmental bodies and regulations of the USA, mainly from the establishment of the EPA, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) (Carroll 1991 ). With the Pyramid of CSR, Carroll ( 1991 ) represented what he defined as the four main responsibilities of any company: 1) the economic responsibilities which are the foundation for the other levels of the pyramid; 2) the legal responsibilities of the firm; 3) the ethical responsibilities that shape the company’s behavior beyond the law-abiding duties, and; 4) the philanthropic responsibilities of the corporation with regards to its contribution to improve the quality of life of society. Besides the graphical representation of CSR in terms of responsibilities , Carroll ( 1991 ) asserted that a firm should be a good corporate citizen , a concept that he would develop further at the end of the 1990’s (see: Carroll 1998 ).

The third notable contribution of the 1990’s to the concept came from Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ), who aimed to find evidence to link CSR to a positive financial performance of the firm, and by doing so they were arguably the first to evaluate the benefits of the strategic implementation of CSR. For them, CSR can be used with a strategic approach with the aim of supporting the core business activities and as a result improve the company’s effectiveness in achieving its main objectives (Burke and Logsdon 1996 ).

Moreover, Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ) identified five dimensions of strategic CSR which, for them, are essential for achieving the business objectives as well as for value creation:1) centrality, which represents how close or fit is CSR to the company’s mission and objectives; 2) specificity, which represents the ability to gain specific benefits for the firm; 3) proactivity, in terms of being able to create policies in anticipation of social trends; 4) voluntarism, explained as the discretionary decision making process that is not influenced by external compliance requirements, and; 5) visibility, which refers to the relevance of the observable and recognizable CSR for internal and external stakeholders (Burke and Logsdon 1996 ). Furthermore, Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ) argued that the implementation of strategic CSR through these five dimensions would translate into strategic outcome in the form of value creation that can be identifiable and measurable, but limited to economic benefits for the firm.

Another key contribution to the debate around corporate behavior came from the concept of “The Triple Bottom Line”, first conceived by Elkington in 1994 as a sustainability framework that balances the company’s social, environmental and economic impact. Later, Elkington ( 1998 ) explained that the way to achieve an outstanding triple bottom line performance (social, environmental, and economic) is through effective and long-term partnerships between the private and public sectors, and also among stakeholders. The triple bottom line concept became popular in the late 1990’s as a practical approach to sustainability and it has remained relevant in the CSR discussion because it indicates that corporations need to have socially and environmental responsible behavior that can be positively balanced with its economic goals. Footnote 4

As mentioned before, the globalization process of the 1990’s increased the global reach of multinational corporations and capitalism expanded rapidly, which meant that corporations began having concerns with regards to competitiveness, reputation, global visibility and an expanded network of stakeholders (Carroll 2015 ). This gave way to alternative subjects such as stakeholder theory (see: Donaldson and Preston 1995 ; Freeman 1994 ), corporate social performance (see: Swanson 1995 ), and corporate citizenship (see: Carroll 1998 ). The introduction of new themes, even when almost all of them were consistent with, and built on the existing CSR definitions and understanding (Carroll 1999 ), created an uncertainty with regards to the definition of CSR to the extent that the concept ended up having “unclear boundaries and debatable legitimacy” (Lantos 2001 , p. 1). This meant that by the end of the 1990’s there was a lack of a globally accepted definition of CSR (Lantos 2001 ), which was accompanied by a social and institutional impetus for making companies become good corporate citizens (see: Carroll 1998 ).

2000’s: recognition and implementation of CSR

The decade of the 2000’s is divided in two sections due to the amount of relevant events around CSR. The first section is focused on the recognition and expansion of CSR and its implementation, while the second section is focused on the strategic approach to CSR provided by the academic publications of the time.

The debate around CSR has been brought forward several times by public figures. Footnote 5 Such was the case of President Reagan who, with the aim of stimulating the economy and generating economic growth in the 1980’s, called upon the private sector for more responsible business practices and emphasized that corporations should take a leading role in social responsibility (Carroll 2015 ). During the 1990’s, it was President Clinton who brought the attention towards the notion of corporate citizenship and social responsibility with the creation of the Ron Brown Corporate Citizenship Award for companies that were good corporate citizens (Carroll 1998 ).

However, it was not until 1999 that CSR gained global attention with the landmark speech of then Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who at the World Economic Forum said: “I propose that you, the business leaders gathered in Davos, and we, the United Nations, initiate a global compact of shared values and principles, which will give a human face to the global market” (United Nations Global Compact n.d. , para. 5). As a result, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) was launched on July 2000 gathering 44 global companies, 6 business associations, and 2 labor and 12 civil society organizations (United Nations Global Compact n.d. ). Notably, the idea behind the creation of the UNGC was to create an instrument that would fill the gaps in governance of the time in terms of human rights and social and environmental issues and to insert universal values into the markets (United Nations Global Compact n.d. ).

Perhaps the most notable achievement of the UNGC was the definition of ten principles that guide the corporate behavior of its members, who are expected to incorporate them into their strategies, policies and procedures with the aim of creating a corporate culture of integrity with long term aims (United Nations Global Compact n.d. ). Even when the UNGC was never directly linked to CSR, it can be understood that the ten principles, with their focus on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption, brought the global attention towards social responsibility.

It was also in the year 2000 when the United Nations adopted the Millennium Declaration with its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and set the international agenda for the following 15 years. Even when the MDGs and the debate around them was not directly linked to CSR, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) pointed it out as a framework for the UN – private sector cooperation with the aim of achieving its goals (Murata n.d. ) and as a result the global recognition of the concept became stronger.

The promotion of CSR as a distinct European strategy begun 1 year after the adoption of the MDGs and the creation of the UNGC, when the EC presented a Green Paper called Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility (2001) which derived from the new social expectations and concerns of the time, including the growing concern about the environmental impact of economic activities (Commission of the European Communities 2001 ). Notably, the Green Paper presented a European approach to CSR that aimed to reflect and be integrated in the broader context of international initiatives such as the UNGC (Commission of the European Communities 2001 ). This was the first step towards the European Strategy on CSR adopted in 2002 and since then, the EC has led a series of campaigns for promoting the European approach to CSR which derives from the understanding that CSR is: “the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society and outlines what an enterprise should do to meet that responsibility” (European Commission 2011 , para. 2).

Between 2001 and 2004 the EC held a series of conferences for discussing CSR (“What is CSR” in Brussels, “Why CSR” in Helsinki, and “How to promote and implement CSR” in Venice) which resulted in its adoption as a strategic element for the Plan of the General Direction of Business of the European Commission (Eberhard-Harribey 2006 ). Accordingly, in 2005 the EC launched the “European Roadmap for Businesses – Towards a Competitive and Sustainable Enterprise” that outlined the European objectives with regards to CSR for the following years (CSR Europe n.d. ). In practical terms, these events translated into a unified vision and understanding of CSR that would be promoted around European businesses.

In 2011, the EC published the renewed European Union (EU) strategy for CSR for the years 2011–2014 followed by a public consultation in 2014 with regards to its achievements, shortcomings, and future challenges. The 2014 consultation showed that 83% of the respondents believed that the EC should continue engaging in CSR policy and 80% thought that CSR played an important role for the sustainability of the EU economy (European Commission 2014a ). In 2015, the EC held a multi-stakeholder forum on CSR which concluded that the Commission should continue to play an important role in the promotion of CSR and help embed social responsibility into company’s strategies (European Commission 2015 ).

In 2015, CSR Europe launched the Enterprise 2020 Manifesto which aimed to set the direction of businesses in Europe and play a leading role in developing an inclusive sustainable economy (CSR Europe 2016 ) and can be understood as a response to the EU Strategy on CSR as well as to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The Manifesto is perhaps the most relevant contribution from CSR Europe in the second half of the 2010’s mainly because it has a strategic approach that aims to ensure value creation for its stakeholders through the 10,000 companies reached through its network (CSR Europe 2016 ). The Manifesto focuses on the generation of value on five key areas: 1) societal impact through the promotion of responsible and sustainable business practices; 2) membership engagement and satisfaction which is meant to guarantee the continuity in the work of CSR Europe to achieve its mission and societal impact; 3) financial stability; 4) employee engagement focused on the investment of individual development as well as organizational capacity, and; 5) environmental impact assessment to determine areas of improvement (CSR Europe 2016 ).

The global recognition of CSR has also been influenced by international certifications designed to address social responsibility. Such is the case of the ISO 26000 which history can be traced to 2002 when the Committee on Consumer Policy of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) proposed the creation of CSR guidelines to complement the quality and environmental management standards (ISO 9001 and ISO 14001) (ISO n.d.-a ). A working group led by Brazil and Sweden collaborated with stakeholders and National Standards Bodies for a period of 5 years (2005–2010) and came up with the approved ISO 26000 – Social Responsibility in September 2010 (ISO n.d.-a ).

The development of the ISO 26000 is of relevance for the CSR movement not only because it serves as a guideline for the way in which businesses can operate in a socially responsible way, but more so because it was developed by 450 experts of 99 countries and 40 international organizations and so far it has been adopted by more than 80 countries as a guideline for national standards (ISO n.d.-b , n.d.-c ).

2000’s: strategic approach to CSR

Beyond the institutional and public influence in the implementation of CSR, the 2000’s saw relevant contributions to the concept through the academic literature. In the early years of the twenty-first century, Craig Smith ( 2001 ) explained that corporate policies had changed as a response to public interest and as a result this often had a positive social impact. This meant that the scope of social responsibility (from a business perspective) was now inclusive to a broader set of stakeholders and a new definition was set forward: “Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the obligations of the firm to its stakeholders – people affected by corporate policies and practices. These obligations go beyond legal requirements and the firm’s duties to its shareholders. Fulfillment of these obligations is intended to minimize any harm and maximize the long-run beneficial impact of the firm on society” (Smith 2001 , p. 142).

Smith’s definition of CSR (2001) gave hints of the need of making CSR part of a company’s strategic perspective in order to be able to fulfill its long term obligations towards society. This was reaffirmed by Lantos ( 2001 ) that same year, who pointed out that during the twenty-first century society would demand corporations to make social issues part of their strategies (see also: Carroll 1998 ).

In fact, Lantos ( 2001 ) built on from Smith’s definition of CSR and included strategic considerations to his own understanding of the concept concluding that: “CSR entails the obligation stemming from the implicit ‘social contract’ between business and society for firms to be responsive to society’s long-run needs and wants, optimizing the positive effects and minimizing the negative effects of its actions on society” (Lantos 2001 , p. 9). Accordingly, Lantos ( 2001 ) explained that CSR can become strategic when it is part of the company’s management plans for generating profits, which means that the company would take part in activities that can be understood as socially responsible only if they result in financial returns for the firm and not necessarily fulfilling a holistic approach such as the triple bottom line.

The way Lantos ( 2001 ) explained the boundaries of CSR was arguably the first time the term strategic was inherently linked to CSR. Since then, the literature on CSR begun including strategic traits to the concept and some academics (see: Husted and Allen 2007 ; Porter and Kramer 2006 ; Werther and Chandler 2005 ) begun using the term Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (SCSR). During the early 2000’s, Freeman ( 2001 ) and A. L. Friedman and Miles ( 2002 ) provided a new perspective to stakeholder theory which reinforced the belief that corporations should be managed in the benefit of a broader set of stakeholders. Freeman ( 2001 ) argued that corporations have a responsibility towards suppliers, consumers, employees, stockholders and the local community and as a result should be managed accordingly while A. L. Friedman and Miles ( 2002 ) defined that the relation between corporations and their stakeholders is dynamic and has different levels of influence on the firm. With this new perspective, Freeman ( 2001 ) and A. L. Friedman and Miles ( 2002 ) contributed to the CSR evolution by reinforcing the belief that corporations are responsible to a broader set of stakeholder than before.

Marrewijk ( 2003 ) presented an overview of the concepts of CSR and Corporate Sustainability in which he recognized this novel perspective towards CSR. Marrewijk ( 2003 ) explained this new societal approach to CSR as a strategic response to the new corporate challenges which, as he explained, are an outcome of the evolution of the roles and responsibilities of each sector of society [emphasis added]. For Marrewijk ( 2003 ), firms respond to their challenges by adopting different levels of integration of CSR into a company’s structure, a topic that is still discussed in the literature.

Accordingly, Marrewijk ( 2003 ) gave five interpretations to his concept of Corporate Sustainability, which he recognized as the contemporary understanding of CSR. These interpretations can be understood as the level of integration of CSR into the company’s policies and structure. The holistic interpretation provided by Marrewijk ( 2003 ) is perhaps the most relevant for the purpose of this paper because it represents the full integration of CSR motivated by the search for sustainability in the understanding that companies have a new role within society and consequently have to make strategic decisions to adapt to its social context.

The strategic response that companies make to their evolving social context was further explored by Werther and Chandler ( 2005 ) who, with their first work published together, focused on the implementation of strategic CSR as part of brand management in order to achieve and maintain legitimacy in a context of globalized brands. The relevance of their work relies on the emphasis placed on the shift of social responsibility by transforming “CSR from being a minimal commitment … to becoming a strategic necessity” (Werther and Chandler 2005 , p. 319).

Furthermore, Werther and Chandler ( 2005 ) claimed that an effective integration of SCSR must come from a “genuine commitment to change and self-analysis” (p. 322) and must be done with a top-down approach throughout the company’s operations for it to translate into a sustainable competitive advantage. Even when their approach to SCSR focused mainly on the competitiveness and legitimacy of companies, their main contribution comes from explicitly claiming CSR as a strategic necessity and thus making it indispensable for any corporation.

One year afterwards, Porter and Kramer ( 2006 ) built on the notion that companies can achieve a competitive advantage through SCSR and explained that corporations can address their competitive context through a strategic approach that results in the creation of shared value in terms of benefits for society while improving the firm’s competitiveness. For Porter and Kramer ( 2006 ), a company should first look inside out to map the social impact of its value chain and identify the positive and negative effect of its activities on society and then focus on the ones with the greatest strategic value. Then, the firm should look outside in to understand the influence of their social context on their productivity and on the execution of its business strategy (Porter and Kramer 2006 ). This way, corporations would be able to understand its interrelationship with their social environment and be able to adapt its business strategies (Porter and Kramer 2006 ).

The work of Porter and Kramer ( 2006 ) provided a new understanding of SCSR as a way to maximize the interdependence between business and society through a holistic approach to the company’s operations and offered an explanation of the advantages of using SCSR as a holistic business framework instead of a limited goal-oriented perspective. In fact, Porter and Kramer ( 2006 ) argued that if CSR is used without a holistic approach and only focused on certain objectives (e.g. CSR used as a tool for achieving the social license to operate, or for achieving and maintaining a reputational status, or for addressing stakeholder satisfaction) it limits the company’s potential to create social benefits while supporting their business goals.

The notion of creating value through SCSR was reinforced by Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) who performed a survey of Spain’s largest firms by number of employees with the aim of finding out the main strategic dimensions that companies consider essential for generating value through SCSR. To do so, Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) built on four of the five dimensions of strategic CSR established by Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ) to then provide their own definition of SCSR as the company’s ability to: “1) provide a coherent focus to a portfolio of firm resources and assets (centrality); 2) anticipate competitors in acquiring strategic factors (proactivity); 3) build reputation advantage through customer knowledge of firm behavior (visibility); 4) ensure that the added value created goes to the firm (appropriability)” (Husted and Allen 2007 , p. 596). It is important to highlight that Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) left out the concept of voluntarism proposed by Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ) from their definition of strategic CSR but pointed out its relevance as a key dimension in CSR for the creation of value.

Based on the five dimensions of CSR established by Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ), Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) surveyed 110 top managers of Spain’s largest companies and found out that visibility, appropriability, and voluntarism were considered the main strategic dimensions of CSR that can be linked to the creation of value (even when voluntarism is not part of their definition of SCSR). Their findings show that visibility, in terms of the presence of CSR on the media as well as a positive image of the company, can be linked to the creation of value through increased customer loyalty and the attraction of new customers, as well as developing new areas of opportunity for products and markets (Husted and Allen 2007 ). With regards to appropriability, the way in which the company manages to retain the value created, Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) pointed out that the surveyed companies designed their CSR policies with the aim of creating value, but such value seems to be limited to the economic benefits of the companies themselves and not necessarily for all their stakeholders. Finally, Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) acknowledged voluntarism, the strategic management of socially-oriented policies going beyond legal requirements, as a key aspect for the creation of value. Nevertheless, their findings show that the surveyed firms were not implementing CSR policies beyond the legal requirements which might be the consequence of the intangibility and immeasurability of such activities (Husted and Allen 2007 ).

Furthermore, the most relevant contributions provided by Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) to the concept of SCSR are twofold: first, SCSR generates new areas of opportunity through the constant drive for creating value, which in turns results in innovation. Second, implementing SCSR with the aim of creating value is inevitably linked to social demands. However, Husted and Allen ( 2007 ) pointed out that the surveyed companies looked into the generation of value with a perspective limited the economic benefits of the corporations themselves and not necessarily for all their stakeholders which raises the question if those companies were in fact implementing CSR with a holistic approach.

The belief of achieving competitive advantage and creating value through SCSR was further developed by Heslin and Ochoa ( 2008 ) who claimed that even when SCSR practices are most effective when they are tailor made, they still follow common principles. To prove their hypothesis, Heslin and Ochoa ( 2008 ) analyzed 21 exemplary CSR practices and observed that seven common principles guide the strategic CSR approach of the selected companies: cultivate the needed talent, develop new markets, protect labor welfare, reduce the environmental footprint, profit from by-products, involve customers, and green the supply chain.

The relevance of the principles proposed by Heslin and Ochoa ( 2008 ) comes from the belief that companies can improve their business opportunities while they provide benefits to the social context in which they operate. For instance, to cultivate the needed talent is explained as the need of companies to foster and retain qualified and skilled employees which result in better and more stable career opportunities (Heslin and Ochoa 2008 ). Likewise, the strategic relevance of the protection of labor welfare relies not only on the prevention of child labor but on the creation of innovative solutions for the company-specific social context Footnote 6 (Heslin and Ochoa 2008 ).

The exemplary SCSR practices presented by Heslin and Ochoa ( 2008 ) provide an insight of the potential benefits of SCSR for creating shared value, for the companies themselves, their stakeholders, and the social context in which the firms operate. Based on the work of Heslin and Ochoa ( 2008 ), it would seem that at least for some of the globally renowned companies, the belief of generating shared value became a driver for integrating global and complex issues into the company’s SCSR policies. Then, by the end of the 2000’s SCSR was understood as having the potential for generating shared value and for addressing social concerns.

2010’s: CSR and the creation of shared value

The concept of creating shared value was further developed by Porter and Kramer ( 2011 ) who explained it as a necessary step in the evolution of business and defined it as: “policies and operating practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates. Shared value creation focuses on identifying and expanding the connections between societal and economic progress” (Porter and Kramer 2011 , p. 2).

For Porter and Kramer ( 2011 ), the need for Creating Shared Value (CSV) is in part the result of the conventional narrow-viewed business strategies which usually don’t take into account the broad factors that influence their long term success. Notably, Porter and Kramer ( 2011 ) place CSR into this category seeing it as an outdated and limited concept that has emerged as a way for improving company’s reputation, and as a consequence, they claim that CSV should replace CSR.

Perhaps Porter and Kramer’s ( 2011 ) most relevant contribution comes from the claim that “the purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value” (p. 2) and by pointing out that the first step to do so is the identification of the societal needs as well as the benefits or harms that the business embodies through its products. Accordingly, Porter and Kramer ( 2011 ) established three ways for creating shared value: by reconceiving products and markets, by redefining productivity in the value chain, and by creating supportive industry clusters where the company operates.

Even when Porter and Kramer ( 2011 ) did not contribute directly to the concept of CSR, they called for a change in the business strategies which, in their opinion, should now focus on generating shared valued as a main objective. This perspective of the creation of shared value is evident on what Leila Trapp ( 2012 ) called the third generation of CSR, which she explained as the moment in which corporations reflect their concerns about social and global issues on their activities, even when some of those concerns might not be directly linked to their core business. Even when this might seem similar to the philanthropic responsibilities of companies, defined as the fourth level of the Pyramid of CSR proposed by Carroll ( 1991 ), it is in fact rooted on a different understanding of the roles of corporations within their social context.

For Carroll ( 1991 ), companies which engage on activities to improve the social context in which they operate are doing so with a philanthropic perspective that is discretionary and voluntary, and as a result, this perspective is less relevant than the other three categories proposed in the Pyramid of CSR. In contrast, Trapp ( 2012 ) built on the historical understanding of CSR proposed by Marrewijk ( 2003 ) to explain what she called the third generation of CSR as an outcome of the evolution of the roles and responsibilities of each sector of society in which the private, public and social sectors have become increasingly interdependent. Then, the third generation of CSR proposed by Trapp ( 2012 ) can be understood as the result of corporations acknowledging and assuming their new roles and responsibilities towards society.

Trapp ( 2012 ) exemplified the third generation of CSR through a case study of Vattenfall, the Swedish state-owned energy company that in 2008 launched a CSR-backed stakeholder engagement campaign focused on climate change mitigation. The case study showed that even when Vattenfall’s campaign addressed clear social and global issues (climate change), it still reflected typical business objectives (in this case creating an interest in the company’s environmental effort and creating a brand image linked to the fight to climate change that would be a first-mover competitive advantage) (Trapp 2012 ). With this, Trapp ( 2012 ) contributed to the concept of CSR by exemplifying the new roles and responsibilities that corporations are willing to take in order to generate shared value.

In the third edition of Chandler and Werther’s book Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (2013), the authors acknowledged the relevance of creating shared value, a constant in the previous editions, and highlighted its significance by modifying the subtitle of the book from Stakeholders in a Global Environment to the new version Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation . In fact, in the third edition of the book Chandler and Werther ( 2013 ) claim that SCSR has the potential for generating sustainable value and that the first step to do so is by identifying the social problems for which the company can create a market-based solution in an efficient and socially responsible way.

Later, in the fourth and most recent edition of the book, Chandler ( 2016 ) reflects on the evolution of CSR and its growing acceptance as central to the company’s strategic decision making as well as to their day-to-day operations. What is evident from this edition, is that Chandler ( 2016 ) understands the generation of sustainable value as one of the main objectives of SCSR. In fact, the subtitle of the fourth edition, Sustainable Value Creation , summarizes Chandler’s ( 2016 ) new perspective on SCSR in which “value creation cannot be avoided…[instead] it must be embraced” (p. xxvii). A key aspect to point out is that Chandler ( 2016 ) builds from the work of Porter and Kramer ( 2006 ) to conclude that “the firm creates the most value when it focuses on what it does best, which is defined by its core operations” (p. 250).

A key contribution from Chandler and Werther ( 2013 ) is their definition of SCSR which is the result of their exploration of CSR and their pragmatic approach to its effective implementation. Chandler and Werther ( 2013 ) defined SCSR as: “The incorporation of a holistic CSR perspective within a firm’s strategic planning and core operations so that the firm is managed in the interests of a broad set of stakeholders to achieve maximum economic and social value over the medium to long term.” (p. 65). In the fourth edition of the book, Chandler ( 2016 ) presents a slightly modified definition which reflects his new perspective on the generation of value: “The incorporation of a holistic CSR perspective within a firm’s strategic planning and core operations so that the firm is managed in the interests of a broad set of stakeholders to optimize value [emphasis added] over the medium to long term” (Chandler 2016 , p. 248).

Perhaps Chandler and Werther’s (2006; 2010; 2013) most valuable contribution comes from their particular perspective on the implementation of Strategic CSR, which in the fourth edition of the book written by Chandler ( 2016 ) builds from the previous publications to encompass five major components instead of the four proposed in previous editions: first, the complete incorporation of the CSR perspective into the company’s strategic planning process and their corporate culture; second, the understanding that all the company’s actions are directly related to the core operations; third, the belief that companies seek to understand and be responsive to their stakeholders’ needs, which means that the incorporation of a stakeholder perspective is a strategic necessity; fourth, the company passes from a short term perspective to a mid and long term planning and management process of the firm’s resources which is inclusive of its key stakeholders, and; fifth (the new component), firms aim to optimize the value created (Chandler 2016 ; Chandler and Werther 2013 ).

The new component of SCSR, the optimization of value , reinforces Chandler’s ( 2016 ) updated perspective in which the maximization of profit, or tradeoffs, is no longer an acceptable objective. Instead, companies should aim at optimizing value over the long term by focusing on their areas of expertise and by doing so there would be a reorientation of efforts towards the creation of shared value instead of profit maximization (Chandler 2016 ). To do so, an essential aspect of SCSR is the integration of the five components into a corporate framework that sets the parameters for the decision making process as well as their integration into the corporate culture with clear guiding values (Chandler 2016 ). This reflects Chandler’s ( 2016 ) belief that SCSR should be part of the day-to-day operations in order for it to be successful, a notion constantly highlighted by him through his articles and books. Then, the explicit call for the full immersion of SCSR into a company’s corporate culture, decision making process, and day-to-day operations is yet another relevant contribution from Chandler and Werther’s work (Chandler 2016 ; Chandler and Werther 2013 ).

In 2015, Carroll resumed his work on CSR with an overview of the evolution of the concept which complemented his literature review of 1999 and of 2010 (see: Carroll 1999 ; Carroll and Shabana 2010 ), but this time he looked at the competing and complementary concepts that have become part of the modern business vocabulary. Carroll ( 2015 ) reviewed the concepts of stakeholder engagement and management, business ethics, corporate citizenship, corporate sustainability, and the creation of shared value and concluded that all of them are interrelated and overlapping. Notably, Carroll ( 2015 ) pointed out that all of these concepts have been incorporated into CSR which is the reason why he defines it as the benchmark and central piece of the socially responsible business movement (see: Chandler and Werther 2013 ; Heslin and Ochoa 2008 ; Trapp 2012 ).

The year 2015 can be considered as the most relevant in the decade because the 15 years to follow after it will be marked by the Paris Agreement, the launch of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the adoption of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which represent a “shared vision of humanity and a social contract between the world’s leaders and the people” (Ban 2015 , para. 1). Even when the SDGs do not represent any commitments for the private sector, the countries that adopt them will have to create specific policies and regulations that will translate into pressure for firms to implement new business practices or to improve their current ones. This is particularly relevant considering that the SDGs cover a wide range of areas, from climate change to the eradication poverty and hunger, as well as the fostering of innovation and sustainable consumption. Beyond that, the SDGs are interconnected, which means that addressing one particular goal can involve tackling issues of another one (UNDP 2018 ).

Considering that the SDGs do not represent any commitments for the private sector, it is relevant to mention that the EU law, through the Directive 2014/95/EU, requires large companies of public interest (listed companies, banks, insurance companies, and other companies designated by national authorities as public-interest entities) to disclose non-financial and diversity information beginning on their 2018 reports and onwards (European Commission 2014b ; n.d. ). The Directive is of interest to this paper because it derives from the European Parlamient’s acknowledgement of the vital role of the divulgation of non-financial information within the EC’s promotion of CSR and as a result can be expected to have an impact on the expansion of CSR reporting within the EU as well as with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

This context presents an opportunity for CSR and SCSR to continue growing in terms of conceptualization and implementation, mainly because businesses can adopt it as a strategic framework with the objective of creating shared value (see: Chandler 2016 ). The expansion is particularly notable within the academic literature where it is possible to see that since 2010 the number of academic publications around CSR has increased considerably (see Table  1 ). As can be seen in Table 1 , in the case of Science Direct, the publications more than doubled from 1097 in the year 2010 to 2845 in 2017 (2.59 times) while in Web of Science they almost quadrupled passing from 479 to 1816 in the same years (3.79 times). In the case of ProQuest the publications increased considerably from 2010 to 2016 passing from 5715 to 8188, but decreased to 5670 in 2017. It is also important to notice that the years 2015 and 2016 had the highest amount of publications around CSR this far. It is also relevant to observe that the number of publications declined after 2015 for Science Direct and after 2016 for Proquest, while for Web of Science the amount kept growing.

The increase in the number of publications is not necessarily linked to the launch of the SDGs, but it shows that the concept has remained relevant after the year 2015, when the Paris Agreement called for a change from business as usual to new business frameworks. A key point to mention is that looking into the newest academic publications available since 2015 it is possible to see that most of these revolve around the implementation of CSR and its impact on specific areas of performance in some way related to the SDGs but do not necessarily contribute to the definitional construct or the evolution of the concept (for example see: Benites-Lazaro and Mello-Théry 2017 ; Chuang and Huang 2016 ; Kao et al. 2018 ).

The aim of this paper is to provide a distinctive historical perspective on the evolution of CSR as a conceptual paradigm through a literature review of the academic contributions to the concept as well as the most relevant factors that have shaped its understanding and definition. As the review shows, the development of the modern understanding of CSR as a definitional construct is long and varied and can be traced as far back to the 1930’s when the debate around the social responsibilities of the private sector begun. However, it was in the 1950’s when Bowen ( 1953 ) defined what those responsibilities were by explaining that the social responsibility of business executives was to make decisions according to the values of society and provided what was perhaps the first academic definition of CSR. During the 1960’s, the academic literature brought forward a new understanding of the concept in which it acknowledged the relevance of the relationship between corporations and society (see: Davis 1960 ; Frederick 1960 ; Walton 1967 ), yet, this perspective remained limited to concerns of employee satisfaction, management and the social welfare of the community and focused mainly on the generation of economic profit.

The 1970’s were influenced by the social momentum of the time in which there was a growing sense of awareness with regards to the environment and human and labor rights which led to higher social expectations of corporate behavior. As a result, a new rationale was brought forward by the Committee for Economic Development ( 1971 ) of the USA based on the premise that the social contract between business and society was evolving and that the private sector was expected to assume broader social responsibilities than before. As a consequence, CSR became increasingly popular during the 1970’s but remained discretionary and with a limited focus on aspects such as waste management, pollution and human and labor rights. Its growing popularity led to the unrestricted use of the term CSR under different contexts and by the end of the decade the concept became unclear and meant something different for everyone.

Perhaps the first unified definition of CSR was presented in 1979 by Carroll ( 1979 ), who placed specific responsibilities and expectations (economic, legal, ethical and discretionary) upon corporations and who understood the economic and social objectives of firms as an integral part of a business framework and not as incompatible aspects. This gave way to the debate around the operationalization of CSR during the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s which brought forward a new understanding of the concept as a decision making process (see: Jones 1980 ) and was accompanied by the proposal of models and frameworks for its implementation (see: Cochran and Wood 1984 ; Strand 1983 ; Tuzzolino and Armandi 1981 ). In 1991, Carroll ( 1991 ) presented the “Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility” to represent what he defined as the four main responsibilities of any company and explicitly placing specific responsibilities on corporations. It was also during this period when the adoption of international agreements on sustainable development reflected, to a certain extent, a growing a sense of awareness with respect to the impact of corporate behavior (e.g. the creation of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1983, the UN adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, the creation of the IPCC in 1988, the creation of the European Environmental Agency in 1990 and the UN summit on the Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro which translated into the adoption of the Agenda 21 and the UNFCCC in 1992). This represented a change in the understanding of CSR and as a result, international organizations and companies alike saw CSR as a way to balance the challenges and opportunities of the time and its institutionalization begun spreading globally.

In 1996, Burke and Logsdon ( 1996 ) argued that the strategic use of CSR can result in identifiable and measurable value creation in the form of economic benefits for the firm and presented an innovative perspective that gave way to the debate around the strategic implementation of CSR during the late 1990’s. It was also during this period that alternative subjects gained attention such as stakeholder theory, corporate social performance and corporate citizenship, and even when they were consistent with the prevailing CSR understanding, their use created an uncertainty with regards to the definition of CSR and by the end of the decade the concept lacked a globally accepted definition and unclear boundaries (as explained by Lantos 2001 ).

In the year 2000, the adoption of the MDGs and the creation of the UNGC gave a new dimension to the understanding of social responsibility in which broader responsibilities were placed on corporations, mainly in terms of human and labor rights, environment, anti-corruption and sustainable development. As a result, international institutions, such as the EC, saw in CSR a pathway for addressing the new corporate challenges, which translated into a wider recognition of the concept during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

The definitions of CSR of the 2000’s reflected the belief that corporations had a new role in society in which they need to be responsive to social expectations and should be motivated by the search for sustainability, which meant they would have to make strategic decisions to do so (see: Husted and Allen 2007 ; Porter and Kramer 2006 ; Werther and Chandler 2005 ). This opened the discussion around the benefits of strategic CSR and by the early 2010’s it was believed that companies can generate shared value while improving the firm’s competitiveness through a holistic implementation of SCSR.

In the decade of the 2010’s, the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015, reflected a new social contract in which corporations are expected to play a relevant role in the global efforts to achieve the SDGs. Since then, the literature around CSR has focused on its implementation and its impact on specific areas of performance which can be linked to a certain extent to the SDGs while the understanding of CSR has remained centered on its potential to generate shared value.

At this point in the paper, it is relevant to visualize the most significant academic contributions to the evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility as a conceptual paradigm. To do so, Fig.  1 provides a chronological timeline that highlights the publications that have played a relevant role in modifying the understanding and definition of CSR. It is important to notice that the figures are based on this literature review and do not attempt to represent all the contributions to the evolution of the academic understanding of CSR but only to provide a visual synthesis.

Evolution of the academic understanding of CSR. Source: Developed by the authors as a synthesis of the academic literature

As can be seen in Fig. 1 , the social responsibilities placed upon corporations have evolved from being merely acknowledged in the early publications to being explicitly defined. Perhaps more relevant is the fact that the discussion around what those responsibilities are still continues to this day. Another key aspect that can be visualized with Fig. 1 is that the understanding of CSR evolved from being a personal decision of businessmen in the 1950’s to be understood as decision making process in the 1980’s and to be perceived as a strategic necessity by the early 2000’s. Notably, the purpose of existence of corporations has also evolved from being limited to the generation of economic profits in the 1950’s and 60’s to the belief that business exists to serve society as pointed out in the 1970’s and to the belief in the 2010’s that the purpose of corporations should be to generate shared value.

With Figs.  2 and 3 it is possible to visualize the evolution of CSR from a holistic perspective. The relevance of these figures comes from placing the events that played a significant role in shaping the understanding of CSR within the evolutionary process of the concept, some of them linked to the sustainable development agenda. This graphic synthesis of the evolutionary process of CSR is helpful for observing that the CSR understanding has been influenced by academic publications, governmental decisions (such as the creation of legislations and entities), social movements, public figures, and international movements. More so, from this graphic representation it is possible to observe that the understanding of social responsibility is dynamic and responds to social expectations of corporate behavior.

Visual history of CSR (Part 1 of 2). Source: Developed by the authors based on this literature review. Note: the size of the circles is a subjective representation of the level of influence each aspect had on the evolution of CSR. Hence, a bigger circle represents a higher level of influence

Visual history of CSR (Part 2 of 2). Source: Developed by the authors based on this literature review. Note: the size of the circles is a subjective representation of the level of influence each aspect had on the evolution of CSR. Hence, a bigger circle represents a higher level of influence

The aim of this paper was to provide a distinctive historical perspective on the evolution of CSR which was fulfilled through an exhaustive literature review that shows that the definition and concept of Corporate Social Responsibility has evolved from being limited to the generation of profits to the belief that companies should focus on generating shared value. From the review, it would seem that the evolution of the concept can be linked not only to academic contributions, but also to society’s expectations of corporate behavior. Even when this is not entirely evident across the history of the concept, there are specific cases in which the understanding of CSR clearly reflects the social expectations of the time. A notable example is the publication of A New Rationale for Corporate Social Policy and the Social Responsibilities of Business Corporations by the Committee for Economic Development ( 1971 ) of the USA which were followed by the creation of governmental institutions as a clear response to the social momentum and social demands of corporate behavior of the time. Since then, the definitions and understanding of CSR evolved for the most part in a pragmatic way according to social expectations. For example, during the 1990’s society placed broader responsibilities upon corporations when the international community adopted international agreements with regards to sustainable development and as a response, the debate around CSR centered on its strategic implementation to address the social concerns of the time but still with a limited focus on the economic benefits of the firm. In a similar way, during the early 2000’s the debate around SCSR reflected the new roles and responsibilities placed on corporations by the international community which called on the private sector to play a role in addressing the MDGs and by 2006 it was believed that SCSR could help companies achieve a competitive advantage through the creation of shared value. This belief, of creating shared value through SCSR, is perhaps the most relevant example of how the understanding of CSR reflects the social expectations of the time. The way in which Porter and Kramer ( 2011 ) proposed the creation of shared value to become the main purpose of corporations seems to be fitting to the social expectations of corporate behavior of the 2010’s as well as by those set later by the SDGs adopted in 2015.

From this review it is possible to see ties between some of the events of the sustainable development agenda and the evolution of CSR. These ties are not evident along all the history of CSR, but can be clearly seen in two specific and relevant cases, both of them cases in which events influenced the understanding and evolution of CSR: 1) In the early 1970’s the federal government of the USA established the EPA, the CPSC, the EEOC and the OSHA through which it addressed and formalized to some extent, the social and environmental responsibilities of businesses in response to the social concerns of the time. Years later, Carroll ( 1991 ) presented the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility with the objective of providing business executives a pragmatic approach to their new obligations to a wider set of stakeholders, obligations that originated from the creation of the EPA, CPSC, EEOC and OSHA. It is then evident that one of the most significant contributions to the literature, Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR, was a direct response to the creation of governmental bodies and regulations, which responded to the social expectations of the time. 2) The promotion of CSR as a specific European strategy begun with the publishing in 2001 of the Green Paper called Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility which intended to reflect the broader context of international initiatives, particularly in line with the UNGC. Then, it is clear that the UNGC had a direct influence on the Green Paper which later became the basis for the European Strategy on CSR adopted in 2002 which in turn played a role in shaping the perception and implementation of CSR in Europe. Perhaps these two examples are isolated cases in which specific international events had a direct influence on the understanding and implementation of CSR, but they show that the evolution of CSR can be influenced by international events and not only by academic contributions.

Conclusions

The theoretical contributions of this paper to the literature on CSR begin by providing a distinct historical review of the evolution of the academic understanding of the concept along with the public and international events that played a role in shaping social expectations with regards to corporate behavior. A key contribution comes from the chronological timeline established through the paper with which it is possible to observe the way the concept evolved, an aspect that can be clearly visualized through the figures presented by the authors. As a literature review, the paper is limited to the academic publications that refer directly to CSR as well as to information regarding those events that have influenced to some extents the social expectations of corporate behavior. The findings show that there is a link between social expectations of corporate behavior and the way in which CSR is understood and implemented and opens room for future research. From this review it is possible to see that the literature on CSR seems to be lacking specific research with regards to how to address the core business activities through CSR and seems to point out a reason why CSR can be implemented only partially and even may raise questions about its potential benefits. Beyond that, this paper has practical contributions that can be used as the basis for exploring how CSR can address the latest social expectations of generating shared value as a main business objective, which can translate into practical implications if CSR is implemented with the objective of creating shared value, a topic that only few authors have discussed.

Future of CSR

The amount of recent publications revolving around CSR is vast and it seems that the probable future scenario for CSR presented by Archie B. Carroll in 2015 still prevails. In this scenario Carroll ( 2015 ) foresees an increase in: stakeholder engagement, prevalence and power of ethically sensitive consumers, the level of sophistication of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), employees as a CSR driving-force, along with increased CSR activity up, down, and across the global supply chain. With regards to the concept itself, Carroll ( 2015 ) expects CSR to continue its transactional path but to have a limited transformational evolution. While this scenario seems plausible and highly probable, perhaps it would be necessary to add to it that even when CSR is still relevant and its implementation keeps expanding, at least in the literature, there are competing frameworks and new concepts that might slow the global expansion and implementation of CSR and even shift the public interest towards new areas. Some of these concepts are Corporate Sustainability, Corporate Social Performance, Creation of Shared Value, Corporate Citizenship, Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Social and Governance Criteria, among others. However, it is relevant to highlight Archie B. Carroll’s ( 2015 ) work on the competing and complementary frameworks of CSR in which he concluded that all of them are interrelated and overlapping and pointed out that all of these concepts have already been incorporated into CSR, which is an aspect that is sometimes overlooked. Only time will tell if the institutionalization of CSR continues to expand or if the interest shifts towards other concepts.

The future of CSR will also have to take into consideration the latest technological advances and their role as part of new business frameworks and strategies. The adoption and adaptation to new digitalization processes and tools, as well as the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence into the business environment are relevant challenges not only for the CSR debate, but for corporations in general. In this sense, business frameworks will have to adapt and evolve in order to embrace the latest tools, but they will need to do so through an overarching and holistic framework that is based on the principles of social responsibility in a way that it combines the notions of sustainability, the generation of shared value, and the belief that companies can redefine their purpose to do what is best for the world .

Chaffee ( 2017 ) goes into detail to explain the evolution of corporations under the English Crown and also their evolution in the USA where they became subject of legislatures after the Revolutionary War but still kept relatively social functions.

During the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, business executives and corporate managers were commonly referred to as businessmen (see Carroll 1999 ) .

The Moskowitz list is a reputation index developed during the early 1970’s by Milton Moskowitz to rate the social performance of a number of firms.

As 2018 marks 25 years since the creation of the Triple Bottom Line, Elkington ( 2018 ) reviewed the concept in the Harvard Business Review in June 2018 and concluded that there is a need for a new radical approach to sustainability that can tackle the challenges of pace and scale needed. In the same article, Elkington ( 2018 ) points out to the B Corporations (commonly known as B Corps) as an example of firms that now approach business with a dedication to do what is “best for the world” (Elkington 2018 , para. 15).

The debate around the participation of corporations in global governance has brought forward the term Corporate Political Responsibility . For example, Tempels et al. ( 2017 ), build on from the concept of corporate citizenship to argue that corporations and governments share the responsibility to tackle societal problems. Furthermore, they see corporations as responsible for helping or pushing governments to fulfill its responsibilities towards society. Another perspective comes from Djelic and Etchanchu ( 2017 ), who contextualized the political role of CSR by exploring different historical periods to conclude that corporations have played relevant social and political roles. With their historical contextualization, they argue that there is no clear separation between the responsibilities of business and state, and as a result, they consider Friedman’s ( 1962 ) approach to the CSR to be a limited a perspective that “is far from describing a natural state of things” (Djelic and Etchanchu 2017 , p. 658)

To exemplify the principle of protection of labor welfare, Heslin and Ochoa ( 2008 ) briefly present the case of Levi Strauss which was faced with the legal and social challenges of employing children under the age of 15 in Bangladesh. A solution based merely on compliance and simplicity would have been to fire all those children, but as a result of analyzing the social context, Levi Strauss observed that these children were in most cases the only way of income for their families and hence the company decided to send them to school while still paying them their regular wages and providing them with a job after completing their education (Heslin and Ochoa, 2008 ).

Abbreviations

Business for Social Responsibility

Committee for Economic Development (USA)

Consumer Product Safety Commission (USA)

Corporate Social Responsibility

Creating shared value

European Commission

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (USA)

Environmental Protection Agency (USA)

European Union

Global Reporting Initiative

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

International Organization for Standardization

Millennium Development Goals

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (USA)

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility

Sustainable Development Goals

United Kingdom

United Nations

United Nations Development Programme

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

United Nations Global Compact

United States of America

Young Men’s Christian Association

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Acknowledgements

First, we want to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions which were fundamental for the final version of this article. We also want to thank the editors for their assistance throughout the review process.

We are grateful and acknowledge that this research was made possible by the support of the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT for its abbreviation in Spanish) which granted a 36 month scholarship to ML to conduct his PhD at the University of Iceland.

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The data that support the findings of Table 1 is available from the three online data bases consulted (Science Direct, ProQuest and Web of Science) according to the considerations mentioned for the creation of the table. The rest of the data generated or analyzed during this study is included in this published article.

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Mauricio Andrés Latapí Agudelo, Lára Jóhannsdóttir & Brynhildur Davídsdóttir

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This paper is derived from ML’s work towards a PhD in Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Iceland. As such, ML performed a literature review of the history and evolution of CSR. Dr. LJ being the main advisor for ML’s PhD and Dr. BD being the secondary advisor, contributed by guiding the direction of the article through comments, suggestions, information and literature and by contributing in the drafting and revising the work to achieve the academic quality required for a PhD at the University of Iceland. Dr. LJ has provided the overall review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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ML is a PhD student in the Environment and Natural Resources graduate program at the University of Iceland. His current research focuses on the impact of SCSR on the energy sector, in particular on the energy efficiency and environmental performance of energy companies.

Dr. LJ is a professor at the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Iceland. LJ has published in the areas of CSR, sustainable business models and environmental sustainability. Among her activities, LJ is a Fulbright Arctic Initiative Scholar.

Dr. BD is a professor of Environment and Natural Resources in the Faculties of Life and Environmental Sciences and Economics at the University of Iceland. BD has published in areas of sustainable energy, sustainable development and ecological economics. Among her occupations, BD is the book review editor for the journal Ecological Economics, Director of the University of Iceland Arctic Initiative and sits on the boards of several foundations, institutes and private companies.

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Recommended readings

After having done an exhaustive literature review on CSR and its evolution it has been a challenge to select which contributions should be left out of this paper. With this in mind, we would like to bring the attention of the reader towards the following publications: The Functions of the Executive by Barnard ( 1938 ) along with The Functions of the Executive at 75: An Invitation to Reconsider a Timeless Classic by Mahoney and Godfrey ( 2014 ); the Social Control of Business by Clark ( 1939 ); the Social responsibilities of business corporations published by the Committee for Economic Development ( 1971 ); the Green Paper: Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility published by the Commission of the European Communities ( 2001 ) which was the first step towards the European Strategy for CSR; Corporate Social Responsibility: A Theory of the Firm Perspective by McWilliams and Siegel ( 2001 ); the search for a definition of CSR by Dahlsrud ( 2008 ) with How corporate social responsibility is defined: an analysis of 37 definitions ; then The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility by Crane ( 2008 ) which provides a summary of CSR history and points out relevant contributions to the concept; the literature review and analysis of the institutional, organizational, and individual levels of CSR provided by Aguinis and Glavas ( 2012 ) with What We Know and Don’t Know About Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review and Research Agenda ; the case study of reporting initiatives from a CSR perspective presented by Avram and Avasilcai ( 2014 ) through their Business Performance Measurement in Relation to Corporate Social Responsibility: A conceptual Model Development ; the internal and external drivers behind SCSR rationale for the maritime transportation sector presented by Latapí ( 2017 ) in his unpublished master thesis; and, Capturing advances in CSR: Developed versus developing country perspectives by Jamali and Carroll ( 2017 ).

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Latapí Agudelo, M.A., Jóhannsdóttir, L. & Davídsdóttir, B. A literature review of the history and evolution of corporate social responsibility. Int J Corporate Soc Responsibility 4 , 1 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-018-0039-y

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• Corporate social responsibility
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Coca-Cola and Corporate Social Responsibility Essay

Introduction.

Companies increasingly recognize their responsibilities before the public and the planet alike. Organizations with overarching international influence and access to vast resources especially focus their efforts on having a positive influence on the world around them. This philosophy is called corporate social responsibility. The exacerbation of many current pressing issues, including the effects of climate change and population inequality have made it a necessity for corporations to engage in socially-beneficial activities. This trend if further supported by the disillusionment with unrestrained capitalism and the rising recognition of the power many companies hold over regular individuals. In this effort, organizations attempt various types of campaigns or public actions, including those that benefit both the company in question or its local community.

A change in a company’s sourcing, transportation, staffing, or collaboration partners can also be considered a reflection of CSR. However, there are also cases where companies fail to properly implement principles of corporate social responsibility, for a variety of possible reasons. In such cases, it may be necessary to examine where the organization failed, and how its decisions can be changed to achieve better outcomes. For the purposes of this overview, a look at the Coca-Cola Company will be attempted. With its storied legacy, the Coca-Cola firm has had a fair share of attempts to implement effective corporate social responsibility measures, which still remain lacking. Despite its massive influence and an abundance of capital, the company finds itself in controversy regularly. Most of the attempts to improve Coca-Cola’s public standing were not successful, showing a capacity for improvement. The work will discuss the past failings of the organization, and propose a course of action that will better reflect the needs of today.

Coca-Cola – History and Present

The roots of Coca-Cola can be traced all the way back to Atlanta, Georgia, where it was sold as a medical drink at a pharmacy. Both the taste and the ingredients of the drink were a lot different from how Coca-Cola is made today, but its roots undeniably lie in being a health-conscious soft drink. With this humble beginning, the Coca-Cola Company slowly started changing, improving their flavor and expanding outward. Soon after, their influence could be felt all around the United States, and even beyond (Butler, 2019). Nowadays, the organization works in a wide range of nations all across the world, producing a number of different drinks and products. Their influence is undeniable, as the trademarked name remains among the most well-known and recognized brands of soda. Furthermore, the company is well-regarded for their Christmas-themed advertisements, which effectively incorporated the idea of holidays into the Coca-Cola brand. The international popularity and influence of the company can be seen as an overwhelming success story and a testament to the importance of effective advertising, production, and business making. According to the Coca-Cola website, concerns of sustainability and social justice have been ingrained into the organization’s culture for many decades (“Coca-Cola history,” n.d.). While this claim is difficult to demonstrate reliably, it displays a current commitment to social and environmental causes, an important starting step to CSR.

Coca-Cola’s Ethical Issues and Controversies

As with many other large and influential companies, Coca-Cola has a fair share of controversy to accompany its long history. Some of the issues that follow the brand were caused by deceptive advertising, while others concern unsavory business practices (Center for Ethical Organizational Cultures, n.d.). When remembering some of the controversial management stunts the company has employed, a failed attempt at combatting racism and acknowledging the issues of people of color is notable. In 2021, a Coca-Cola training sessions have become available to the public, sparking debates over their anti-white sentiments. Allegedly, the organization asked its employees to be “less white” in a presentation used to train workers (Desk, 2021). While the controversy was largely mocked by a more conservative audience, other critics also came forward to criticize the company’s practices.

The other, far more important controversy comes from Coca-Cola’s sustainability practices and water usage. In order to make their products, Coca-Cola needs large quantities of water. In order to fulfill this need cheaply and quickly, the company uses local sources to get the water. This practice often affects poor and struggling communities, where access to water is scarce ( How Pepsi and Coke make millions bottling tap water, as residents face shutoffs 2020). Therefore, the industrial use of water by a large company presents a big issue for many communities. This water-related problem has persisted for more than a decade, forcing Coca-Cola to accept accountability and issue public statements.

However, critics eagerly point out that the response of the company was vague, and the measures to prevent widespread water use were grossly exaggerated. One of the key components to Coca-Cola’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility action was the initiative of “For every drop we use, we give one back”, which was widely advertised as an accomplishment of the organization. Later reports, however, clearly shown that the organization was unable to meet this goal. The claims of returning water in equal measure were untrue, and the Coca-Cola Company made a false impression upon the public (MacDonald, 2018). Since that point, widespread doubt has been cast on most of the company’s actions, and activists have been demanding it do a more comprehensive job of addressing its harm to the environment.

What Needs to Change

There are many potential points of change for the Coca-Cola company, most of which stem from the need to reduce harm to the environment and local communities. Firstly, it is necessary to cease all acts of taking water from communities where it is scarce, instead choosing other regions to transport water from. While increasing potential costs, this measure will no longer put people in danger of not having an essential component of living available close to them. Alternatively, the company can attempt to properly fulfill its promises of fully returning water back to the community, but building trust for the claim that has been proven false in the past will be difficult. Furthermore, Coca-Cola needs to enhance its production and transportation channels in order to reduce carbon emissions.

The percentage of pollution attributed to transportation costs is often overlooked in public debates, and the organization can set a good example by engaging in sustainable transportation practices. Those can include using alternative fuel sources, changing logistical approaches and sourcing locations (Curoe, 2019). In terms of recycling and reusability, it is best if the company actively works toward its goal of recycling all of its plastic, or invests in other types of packaging materials instead (Kiygi-Calli, 2019). Corporate social responsibility also involves considerations of social justice, diversity and community development. According to reports, Coca-Cola engages in efforts of fighting hunger and malnutrition by giving struggling communities access to energy and vitamin drinks ( Our priority sustainability issues ; Wojcicki & Heyman, 2010). This action, however, does not work to address the root causes of malnutrition and poverty, many of which stem from corporate use of resources, unequal distribution of food, and income inequality. It would do the company better to actively challenge the inherent framework issues like malnutrition are based on, and do their part in reducing corporate impact on communities. It should be acknowledged that other ways for the company to assist communities have been proposed, such as building infrastructure, which the company has done (Carmichael & Moriarty, 2021). However, such actions are not enough to change the brand’s public image and influence.

Potential Impact of Change

After the change in the company’s CSR strategy will be implemented, many changes can be expected. The majority of them will be positive, although some drawbacks are also expected. As mentioned previously, improved corporate social responsibility leads to better sustainability. Through ensuring that no severe damage to the environment and the surrounding community is done, an organization can also guarantee itself a long-lasting local market, and the stability of the economy. Together with other socially-responsible organizations, the contribution to everyone’s wellbeing is a necessary part of a functioning market.

When Coca-Cola ceases to take water from struggling communities, those communities will be more capable of buying its products, and spending less of their income on other necessities. In addition, supplementary activities, such as changing company logistics and manufacturing processes can increase production efficiency, reduce the level of tensions between environmental agencies and the company. When abiding by the laws of manageable corporate development, the organization will be able to exist more harmoniously with its surroundings. Furthermore, it is important to recognize how monumental this change will be for the company’s publicity. As of now, Coca-Cola is struggling to maintain the image of a “good brand” amidst mounting controversy and pressure. A good brand image is able to support a company in many ways, including its CSR efforts (Ramesh et al., 2018). In order to successfully attract new audiences and retain existing ones, it is vital the Coca-Cola improves its reputation (Latif et al., 2020). By enacting positive change, it will show its capacity to recognize mistakes and emphasize the commitment to strive for excellence in the future. Additionally, many stories of corporate responsibility make great publicity material and advertisement ( Importance of PR in corporate social responsibility ). The only considerable downside to introducing CSR-related change is the financial burden of implementing it, which can be shouldered by an internationally famous and largely successful company. In addition, many of these costs will be offset by the organization’s future success. As research has shown, organizations attempting successful CSR strategies derive financial benefit from them (Shabbir & Wisdom, 2020). Therefore, there is an abundance of reasons to focus on corporate social responsibility.

In conclusion, it can be said that Coca-Cola has not been entirely successful in bringing forth its vision of sustainable corporate action. Despite many efforts and public claims, the actual effects of the organization’s work are much less impressive than they appear – an issue that must be addressed. In order to help the organization to properly combat social issues, and change its own approaches toward sustainability, it is necessary to more thoroughly challenge the intrinsic practices of the organization. Reforming the transportation and logistics considerations, more carefully choosing where the water and other resources are sourced. Truthfully and accurately reporting on sustainability issues, as well as promoting social equity are all necessary actions for the organization. As a result of these actions and changes to the company’s operating structure, it will be possible to derive many benefits – both for the economy and the organization itself.

Butler, D. (2019, December 18). History of Coca-Cola: Timeline and facts . TheStreet. Retrieved July 20, 2022.

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Center for Ethical Organizational Cultures. (n.d.). The Coca-Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Crises . Harbert College of Business.

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Curoe, M. (2019, April 29). Corporate Social Responsibility efforts in the logistics industry . Redwood Logistics. Retrieved July 20, 2022.

Desk, E. (2021, April 20). Explained: Why Coca-Cola is under fire for promoting ‘reverse racism’ and ‘anti-white’ rhetoric . The Indian Express.

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Latif, K. F., Pérez, A., & Sahibzada, U. F. (2020). Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and customer loyalty in the hotel industry: A cross-country study . International Journal of Hospitality Management , 89 , 102565.

MacDonald, C. (2018, May 31). How Coke spun the public on its water use . The Verge.

Our priority sustainability issues . The Coca-Cola Company. (n.d.). Retrieved July 20, 2022.

Ramesh, K., Saha, R., Goswami, S., Sekar, & Dahiya, R. (2018). Consumer’s response to CSR activities: Mediating role of Brand Image and brand attitude . Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management , 26 (2), 377–387.

Shabbir, M. S., & Wisdom, O. (2020). The relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, environmental investments and financial performance: Evidence from manufacturing companies . Environmental Science and Pollution Research , 27 (32), 39946–39957.

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