Genesis and theoretical foundations of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept rooted in the philanthropic and paternalistic traditions of American and European great bosses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If responsible practices go back so long, on both sides of the Atlantic, they have not been conceptualized in the same way. In Europe it is a "Hard Law" conception, companies are obliged to fulfill their responsibilities under coercion of legal sanctions for offenders. In the American context, it is a conception of "Soft Law" which is inspired by Protestant faith’s concepts. Companies voluntarily engage in responsible actions towards society. So, we can see charters, codes of conduct and ethics proliferation with almost no legal regulations established individually or within a sector branch. The first theorization of CSR dates back to the 1950s. Indeed, Howard Bowen's founding work "The Social Responsibilities of the Businessman" marked the entry of CSR as a field of study in academic research. Conceptualizations of the firm/society relationship have been attempts to find a compromise between the positive and negative externalities of firms on society. If the standard economics considers the first responsibility of a company is to make profit, the developments which followed took several directions, nevertheless the theory of the stakeholders had remained dominant by offering an analysis and discussion framework to both researchers and practitioners. This theory completed the first normative conceptual developments by proposing practical tools, with an operational scope, in order to allow issues, raised by CSR, integration in the strategic management of companies.

Keywords : Corporate Social Responsibility, stakeholders, economy, society.

JEL classification : M14

Paper type : Theoretical article