Evolution Of Csr
EVOLUTION OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
What does it mean for a corporation to be socially responsible? Academics and practitioners have been striving to establish an agreed-upon definition of this concept for 30 years. In 1960, Keith Davis suggested that social responsibility refers to businesses'
"Decisions and actions taken for reasons at least partially beyond the firm’s direct economic or technical interest." Eells and Walton (1961) argued that CSR refers to the "problems that arise when corporate enterprise casts its shadow on the social scene, and the ethical principles that ought to govern the relationship between the corporation and society.”
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In 1971 the Committee for Economic Development used a "three concentric circles" approach to depicting CSR. The inner circle included basic economic functions— growth, products, jobs. The intermediate circle suggested that the economic functions must be exercised with a sensitive awareness of changing social values and priorities.
The outer circle outlined newly emerging and still amorphous responsibilities that business should assume to become more actively involved in improving the social environment.
The attention was shifted from social responsibility to social responsiveness by several other writers. Their basic argument was that the emphasis on responsibility focused exclusively on the notion of business obligation and motivation and that action or performance were being overlooked. The social responsiveness movement, therefore, emphasized corporate action, probation, and implementation of a social role. This was indeed a necessary reorientation.
The question still remained, however, of reconciling the firm’s economic orientation with its social orientation. A step in this direction was taken when a comprehensive definition of CSR was set forth. In this view, a four-part conceptualization of CSR included the idea that the corporation has not only economic and legal obligations, but...
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