Corporate Social Responsibility Literature Review

The concept of Corporate Social Management (CSR) is widely distributed with “numerous definitions” (Wright, Siegel & McWilliams, 2006). The concept of CSR is important and in the constantly changing and evolving world, as the consumer’s opinion and benefit is an ever increasingly major aspect to how a company is viewed and to the performance of a company. The effectiveness of devoting organisation resources to socially responsible corporate behaviour has to be investigated as managers could use CSR for their own “personal agendas and gains” (Wright, Siegel & McWilliams 2006) or for the objective of making the corporation socially responsible in the public eye. The scholarly journals in mention show different sides to CSR which could create a greater understanding, and ultimately, could sway the decision about social responsibility.

With the current situation of mass globalisation CSR is a massive topic amongst corporations. The journals throw a number of definitions around into what CSR actually could be perceived as. Jamali and Neville (2011) define CSR in their journal as a “concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interactions with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis,” where as CSR can also be seen as a “commitment to improve [societal] well-being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources” (Swean & Moan, 2010, p. 8) These two definitions obviously show bias amongst the writers of the journals in what they have perceived as Corporate Social Responsibility. This could be due to what they have found within their own research and shows that the concept is not fully determined and fully proven to benefit corporations. There are many other definitions out there, proving both contradictory and a need for further research still to determine the CSR that’ll give the most effective outcome in devoting resources to socially responsible corporate behaviour.

According to Lindgreen (2010) “individuals react to a company’s CSR activities by not just buying more products, but by enacting other stakeholder behaviours, such as seeking employment with the company and investing in the company.” This belief shows an effectiveness of devoting resources to CSR but further reading shows evidence that in most company’s their CSR activities focus on a company’s “involvement in various social causes, rather than on the social cause itself” (Lindgreen, 2010). The evidence suggesting that the company may be seeing past the moral side of the issue and solely focusing on the profitable side of it. However when coming down to the individual side of CSR and “although managers are constrained by their work environment they have to weigh the consequences of the choices the make” (Hockert & Morsing, 2008, p. 6). This action must also be carried on to the organisational level