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Corporate Social Responsibility: Three Key Approaches
Author(s) -
Windsor Duane
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00584.x
Subject(s) - corporate social responsibility , law and economics , stakeholder , citizenship , politics , economics , public relations , interpretation (philosophy) , social responsibility , discretion , sociology , political science , law , computer science , programming language
Corporate social responsibility remains an embryonic and contestable concept. This paper assesses three key approaches and offers a perspective gauging little prospect of theoretical synthesis. Ethical responsibility theory advocates strong corporate self‐restraint and altruism duties and expansive public policy strengthening stakeholder rights. Economic responsibility theory advocates market wealth creation subject only to minimalist public policy and perhaps customary business ethics. These two viewpoints embed competing moral frameworks and political philosophies. Any theoretical synthesis must discover some subset of ethical principles yielding corporate competitive advantage. Corporate citizenship language invokes a political metaphor providing neither true intermediate positioning nor theoretical synthesis. Two conflicting interpretations abandon responsibility language without adopting the economic viewpoint. An instrumental citizenship interpretation expands philanthropy as a strategic lever for increasing corporate reputation and market opportunities while retaining managerial discretion. An ideal citizenship interpretation restates ethical responsibility into voluntarism language intended to influence managerial discretion concerning universal human rights.