More than ever, corporations are expected to practice “citizenship” by engaging in various community or social philanthropy programs. These corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs have broad appeal among business scholars, business executives, and the public. After first setting some theoretical boundaries for CSR as it relates to the legal and strategic management fields, the authors examine how CSR (both its implementation and expectations) can lead to unintended results, compromising the distinct roles business and government play in market-driven, democratic systems.
In speaking to an audience at Stanford University's business school, Timberland CEO Jeffrey Schwartz prefaced his talk by asserting that selling boots and other merchandise to meet Wall Street profit expectations was absolutely necessary. He went on to say that, based on any number of quantitative measurements, Timberland was the number one public company in the industry. Nonetheless, Schwartz pointed out, while profits are necessary to sustain a business, they are not sufficient comprehensive corporate goals. In the talk, entitled “Doing Well and Doing Good” (Kantola Productions, 2004), Schwartz explained his notion of engaged citizenship, including the social good of voting (97% of Timberland employees vote) and the evils of urban poverty (in San Francisco alone, there are 150,000 hungry people). In his role as CEO of Timberland and as a private citizen, Jeffrey Schwartz is sincere in his affirmation of social responsibility as vital for the enlightened corporation. Though not all with the same passion as Schwartz, other corporate executives have adopted the new Zeitgeist of corporate social responsibility.
The corporate social responsibility (CSR) bandwagon has more than just corporate executives on board. Consider the number of books and articles devoted to this topic over the last several years. A subject search on Amazon.com yields nearly 400 results! Most of the books paint a positive picture of CSR, with titles such as Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause. Academic scholars have been even more prolific. Beginning in the late 1970s, business schools, with the help of accrediting bodies, successfully established the field of business ethics. While the original business ethics discipline devolved from philosophy, over the years it has grown to encompass the whole CSR bundle to the extent that “virtually nothing that society at large would like to achieve is beyond the scope of business ethics” ( Wilcke, 2004, p. 197). In fact, some current academic business journals are devoted to corporate ethics, business ethics, or corporate responsibility; dozens of other business journals, including this one, now invite articles on this topic.
