Corporate Social Responsibility

Riano, JD; Yakovleva, N

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71062-4_26-1

Corporate Social Responsibility

Lookup NU author(s): Julian Riano Cruz, Dr Natalia Yakovleva ORCiD

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of a book chapter that has been published in its final definitive form by Springer, 2019.

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Abstract

Corporate social responsibility is a responsibility of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations for their impact on stakeholders, natural environment, and wider society; it focuses on accountability and transparency of corporate actions that include social, ethical, environmental, and economic efforts, which are often voluntary and placed within and outside of market and commercial transactions. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development defines corporate social responsibility as the “continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce, their families as well as of the local community and society at large” (WBCSD 2000, p. 10). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) views corporate social responsibility as the “Business contribution to sustainable development.” Consequently, corporate behavior must not only ensure returns to shareholders, wages to employees, and products and services to consumers, but they must respond to the societal and environmental concerns and values (OECD 2001, p. 13). Finally, the CEC (2002, p. 5) defines: CSR is behaviour by business over and above legal requirements, voluntarily adopted. Business need to integrate the economic, social and environmental impact in their operations. CSR is not an optional “add-on” to business core activities, but about the way in which businesses are managed.