THE PROBLEM: CSR IS UNDER SIEGE.
Is CSR simply a management fad? Ask business leaders this question and many will answer yes. Scepticism toward CSR is increasing for two main reasons. Some question its practical legitimacy: is its economic impact positive? Others question its moral legitimacy: is it genuine or just another marketing tool? What underlies these attacks on CSR, and how can business leaders and researchers effectively respond to them?
This paper is inspired by two commonplace observations, which lead to the two overarching research questions I seek to answer.
The first observation is that CSR is under siege. While CSR has gained fame as a buzzword, it has lost credibility, as its economic impact is difficult to measure, opportunistic managers are incentivised to distort information they provide to the public concerning their companies' CSR, and corporate CSR programmes have been ineffective in delivering the benefits that CSR promised to society. This leads to the first overarching research question: what is the fundamental reason that CSR is under siege in contemporary capitalism?
While capitalism is widely considered the best instrument that humans have devised for producing and distributing wealth, business misbehaviour, bankruptcies, and scandals are regularly found in capitalist economies, and sustained inequality, environmental destruction, societal exclusion, business and political corruption, institutional collapse, and distortion of competition are chronic by-products of the capitalistic system The aim of “maximising shareholder value” has been criticised as not being competitive, sustainable,
