Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Moral Responsibility, and Systems Thinking: Is There a Difference and the Difference it Makes

A volume on leadership would be seriously incomplete without a contribution on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The essays on CSR in the present work offer insights that are important in this new century of corporate corruption and moral challenges. I shall take up the gauntlet by asking us to think more carefully about what we mean by the term, “corporate social responsibility.” There is today a vast and growing literature on CSR, illustrated most prominently by the new volume on CSR edited by Steve May, George Cheney and Juliet Roper published by Oxford University Press (2007). But just what do we mean by CSR? Is it sometimes a fig leaf to distract us from investigating corporate misconduct? Does the term serve as an umbrella term to cover a number of related corporate relationships and alliances? Or, is in fact the term referring to what I take to be the greatest challenge for companies today: the moral responsibility to create economic, environmental, social and moral value-addition in an age of distrust and disillusionment about business?