Considerations on Corporate Social Responsibility

This chapter considers some of the wider implications of corporate social responsibility. Traditionally the perspective of corporate social responsibility has dominated executive attention to stakeholders and subsequent corporate interpretation of normative social pressures. Indeed, displaying a clear commitment to corporate social responsibility can be one way of achieving or strengthening the social license to operate, with many companies positioning the social license to operate as part of their corporate social responsibility strategy. However, as the practice has established itself as an anticipated custom, corporate social responsibility has tended toward performance and the exhibition of symbolic rather than substantive actions.