Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very controversial topic. A question that has been debated for the past few decades is; is it corporately viable to introduce social responsibility as a proposed addition to the work ethic of business organisations. As well as, if adopting the framework of corporate social responsibility would yield positive improvements for those organisations.

The purpose of this essay is to research the notion of CSR and uncover its true framework and outline what social responsibility truly means to corporate organisations, and whether it should be seriously considered to be a legitimate addition to the corporate framework of an organisation.

This will be done by outlining some of the basics through the explanation of some terms underpinning CSR and managerial involvement. An explanation of how CSR is an essential part of business language. This will then be followed by a breakdown of the complex framework that CSR is believed to have. The social expectations that consumers have of business, and ways those businesses can meet these expectations will be addressed. Then an outline of the role management plays in the incorporation of socially responsible attributes to a corporation will be expressed, evidence to suggest that ‘if this means that there a social contract that requires business to honour a moral bare minimum, then a business manager is duty-bound to obey it’ (Bowie 1991: 56-66). This essay shall also investigate some of the classical theories of CSR and its contribution to profit maximisation. Finally, some specific arguments that state that the introduction of social responsibility is not a good idea and how it has failed to create the ‘good society’ (Friedman 1970: 122-126) will be discussed.

Corporate social responsibility has undergone a definitional evolution over the past half century but has always and will always remain an essential part of business language. Definitions of CSR have became more specific; since the 70’s, with alternative emphases, being placed on issues such as the understanding of corporate citizenship (which is a key concept of CSR), and the stakeholder theory.

In early writings CSR was referred to more often as social responsibility (SR) rather than as CSR. Bowen (1953: 6) set forth an initial definition of the social responsibility: "It refers to 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". However, nowadays CSR is simply defined as ‘operating a business in a manner that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society demands of business’ (Gillis & Spring 2001: 23).

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