Corporate responsibility and sustainability tackle the relationship between business and society. However, the two fields of study have converged to become deeply entangled and blurred so that researchers from both research traditions now speak to the same business risks and opportunities. A field’s development is shaped by the clarity of its constructs and underlying assumptions; however, such clarity has eroded in responsibility and sustainability research. By tracing the development of these fields, we show that responsibility and sustainability were historically distinctive. Responsibility research took a normative position, railing against the amorality of business; sustainability research took a systems perspective, sounding the alarm of business-driven failures in natural systems. The convergence in responsibility and sustainability has not only confused constructs but has also vacated vast tracts of unexplored territory that can inform the relationship between business and society.

This perspectives article seeks to comment and reflect on my 1999 BAS article titled “Corporate Social Responsibility: Evolution of a Definitional Construct,” and subsequent writings addressing these same topics. First, perspectives on the 1950-1999 period are offered. Second, reflections on the 2000-2020 period are presented. Finally, thoughts about the future and the new normal for CSR are set forth. Hopefully, the observations presented will stimulate further thinking on this important concept. And, it will be interesting to all of us to see where the dust settles when the pandemic ends and organizations have had a chance to re-imagine or reset their missions, goals, and processes with respect to CSR.

Are corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives providing the societal good that they promise? After decades of CSR studies, we do not have an answer. In this review, we analyze progression of the CSR literature toward assessing the performance of CSR initiatives, identify factors that have limited the literature’s progress, and suggest a new approach to the study of CSR that can overcome these limits.

Among critics of corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is growing concern that CSR is largely ineffective as a corrective to the shortcomings of capitalism, namely, the negative effects of business on society and the undersupply of public goods. At the same time, researchers suggest that despite the shortcomings of CSR, it is possible to make it more effective in a stepwise manner. To explain the frequent failures of current CSR practices and to explore the possibilities of remedying them, I examine the close relationship between CSR, the persistent expansion of capitalism, and the pressure that capitalism puts on companies to legitimize their business operations. My analysis shows that the failure of CSR to serve as a corrective to the problematic effects of capitalism is, in fact, an inevitable consequence of the problematic dynamics of the capitalist system. On this basis, I suggest that capitalism limits the possibilities of making CSR more effective, argue for change on the systemic level of capitalism, and explore the ways in which CSR research can contribute to this political endeavor.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is failing at the very time it is emerging as a new discipline. This has implications not only for CSR itself, but also other disciplines wanting to understand the role of the private sector in the global political economy. This article highlights some of the evidence for this failure, but more significantly shows how it is rooted in an orthodoxy that the discipline has created but is unable to examine. As a result, CSR treats as ideationally and historically neutral particular concepts and practices that define what business’s relationship with wider society can mean. The article uses the perspectives of different social science disciplines to reveal the structural dimensions to CSR and some of their consequences. It proposes an alternative analytical framework for use by CSR and as an entry point for international relations and other disciplines wanting to understand the ways in which business shapes and responds to globalisation and influences the possibilities of contemporary society and governance.

Corporate social responsibility has become an important topic for both academics and practitioners. CSR typically stands for corporate responses to ethical, environmental and social issues. Whilst extant research has predominately focused on CSR in relation to external stakeholders and taking a macro-institutional and/or functionalist perspective, we provide a critical engagement with the interactions between CSR, employees and management control within organizations. Qualitative data gathered at two management consultancy firms demonstrate how CSR discourses and practices serve to construct an idealized image of a socially, ecologically and ethically responsible corporate self. In this way, CSR works as a form of aspirational control that ties employees’ aspirational identities and ethical conscience to the organization. The article discusses the implications of CSR concerning cynical distancing, ethical sealing and the space for politics and critique in corporations.

Climate change represents the grandest of challenges facing humanity. In the space of two centuries of industrial development, human civilization has changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, with devastating consequences. Business organizations are central to this challenge, in that they support the production of escalating greenhouse gas emissions but also offer innovative ways to decarbonize our economies. In this paper, we examine how businesses respond to climate change. Here the authors Wright and Nyberg develop a grounded model that explains how the revolutionary import of grand challenges is converted into the mundane and comfortable concerns of “business as usual.” We find that critique is the major driver of this process by continuously revealing the tensions between the demands of the grand challenge and business imperatives. Our paper contributes to the literature on business and the natural environment by identifying how and why corporate environmental initiatives deteriorate over time. More specifically, we highlight the policy limitations of a reliance on business and market responses to the climate crisis.

Sustainability standards are important governance tools for addressing social and environmental challenges. Yet, such tools are often criticized for being either too open-ended or too restrictive, thereby failing to contribute significantly to the development of sustainable practices. Both dimensions of the critique, however, miss the point. While all standards in principle combine elements of openness and closure, both of which are necessary to keep the sustainability agenda relevant and adaptive, sustainability standards often operate in contexts that favor closure. In this article, we draw on a research tradition that views communication as constitutive of organization to emphasize the significance of communicative mechanisms that stimulate organizational openness in the application of standards. With the notion of “license to critique,” we present a managerial philosophy designed to involve managers and employees, mobilize and develop their knowledge about sustainability and bring it forward for the benefit of both the organization and the environment.

ESG is both extremely important and nothing special. It's extremely important because it's critical to long‐term value, and so any academic or practitioner should take it seriously, not just those with “ESG” in their research interests or job title. Thus, ESG doesn't need a specialized term, as that implies it's niche—considering long‐term factors isn't ESG investing; it's investing. It's nothing special since it's no better or worse than other intangible assets that create long‐term financial and social returns, such as management quality, corporate culture, and innovative capability. Companies shouldn't be praised more for improving their ESG performance than these other intangibles; investor engagement on ESG factors shouldn't be put on a pedestal compared to engagement on other value drivers. We want great companies, not just companies that are great at ESG. (article by Alex Edmans)

But just as the ESG agenda and so-called stakeholder capitalism have begun to feel a backlash, the B Corp ecosystem is now under scrutiny. Many of the smaller companies who were early adopters of the standards are concerned about what they perceive as a focus on enlisting multinationals and trying to get them to be “less bad” rather than to be transformationally “good”. They have also raised questions about the credibility of B Lab, the certifying authority, setting in motion a battle for the heart and soul of the movement.

The Economy for the Common Good proposes a more ethical and sustainable society and organizations based on the common good concept. The study investigates entrepreneurs' reasons for joining the ECG movement and organizational changes introduced following the implementation of the ECG managerial system. Semistructured interviews were held with managers of nine Italian organizations belonging to the movement. Interviews were transcribed, and qualitative content analysis was performed using NVivo 12. Eleven nodes integrating 279 answer units were coded, addressing reasons for adhering, actions introduced, difficulties, overcoming strategies and enablers. The results suggest that ECG values and particularly Environmental Sustainability and Human Dignity are two main reasons to join the movement, that a Common Good Report is a valuable tool for the organizational analysis, that such analysis can be replicated with other ECG organizations, and that pursuing decent work conditions strengthens the adhesion to the ECG movement. The seven conceptual propositions highlight the congruence between the value structure of the organization and the values of the ECG, the congruence between the values held by proximal organizational stakeholders and the changes encouraged by ECG approach, and that rewards and recognition by the organizational stakeholders and society reinforce and maintain the adhesion path

An insightful critical blog by Alex Edmans pointing to an article about a linkage between profit and purpose. The article refers to a study of companies that ‘successfully achieved the dual goals of purpose and profit’. But as Alex points out, it never explains how the study measures either purpose or profit. Purpose is notoriously difficult to measure. Some studies measure whether a company has a purpose statement, but having a statement is meaningless; a company might say something but not deliver. Other studies measure whether companies think that purpose is important, which is again different from actual delivery. Others still measure quantitative outcomes, which miss qualitative elements: for example, demographic diversity bears almost no relation to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Find out more about how difficult it can be to understand whether publications offer credible insights or not, and whose interests they might serve.

We think that the climate challenge is so urgent that we should "Just Do It" - stop talking and start acting. But the trade-offs are real. There are social trade-offs between climate and economic development. There are financial trade-offs, as emitting companies earn higher, not lower, returns. My research (https://lnkd.in/e9QnXars) shows that this isn't due to markets correctly pricing in carbon risk, but companies getting away with emissions due to the lack of government action. These returns may ultimately go to pensioners and savers. (By Alex Edmans)