Learning Objectives
• Assess the strengths, weaknesses and practical implications of strategic CSR within the wider CSR field.
• Understand the different types of arguments – theoretical, empirical and normative – that can be used in support of a strategic understanding of CSR.
• Distinguish between different ways of arguing for the strategic value of CSR, including corporate social responsiveness and the business case, and to be able to reflect on their respective strengths and weaknesses and how they can be combined.
• Understand why and how it is useful to consider Porter and Kramer's notion of shared value not as a standalone concept, but one that should be combined with other perspectives in order to get a fuller picture of corporate responsibility.
The Strategic Turn in CSR
Since the early 2000s, the discourse on corporate social responsibility has taken what might be called a strategic turn. Not only ‘the usual CSR supporters’ but also some former believers in the neoclassical dictum that ‘the business of business is business’ have started to embrace the positive, productive, innovative, value-creating aspects of social responsibility. In the wake of insidious corporate scandals – ranging from Enron in 2001 to Volkswagen in 2015 – and, in particular, the events surrounding the global financial crisis of 2008 and beyond, the proposition that we can rely on the ‘invisible hand’ of the market to secure beneficial outcomes for society does not seem very comforting to many. In 2005 it was famously declared in a critical survey in The Economist that the advocates of CSR seemed to have won ‘the battle of ideas’ (Crook, 2005), and it has been suggested that we have reached a point where it is no longer a matter of whether but only of how companies are to engage in social responsibility (Smith, 2003). These conditions would seem to call for new, more accommodating economic approaches to CSR. It is in this context that strategic CSR has emerged.
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