Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility Society’s demands for individual and corporate social responsibility as an alternative response to market and distributive failures are becoming increasingly prominent. We first draw on recent developments in the “psychology and economics” of prosocial behavior to shed light on this trend, which reflects a complex interplay of genuine altruism, soc...

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not a new concept, but unfortunately has been defined in so many ways, it is often misinterpreted. In fact it has had 40 years to evolve from a somewhat infant concept to a successful managerial tool to build a company’s reputation in the global market arena. Corporate social responsibility has become corporate strategic responsibility — an imperative el...

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the hypothesis that companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to offset corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We find general support for the relationship that when companies do more “harm,” they also do more “good.” The empirical analysis is based on an extensive 15-year panel dataset that covers nearly 3,000 publicl...

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1255 R I. REASONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1257 R II. RISKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261 R III. MEANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

Much is expected of the modern corporation. Shareholders seeking to maximize their return on investment pay close attention to reported earnings and stock price appreciation. Unanticipated negative movements in these variables can give rise to shareholder agitation, amplified by hedge funds and activist pension funds. Although this is characteristic of the Anglo-American ‘market for corporate c...

Previous research into enforcement of law and corporate social responsibility mostly assumes that the vertical structure of the entities causing harm is exogenous. By outsourcing, the source of harm may avoid some liability and responsibility, while losing direct control over the evasive actions that cause harm. Here, we analyze the trade off between avoidance of liability and control over evas...

This paper examines the incentives of firms to invest in socially responsible product innovations. Our analysis connects the existence of socially responsible innovations to the presence of intrinsic and extrinsic social responsibility preferences. In addition to deriving economic value from the product, consumers have heterogeneous intrinsic needs to consume products that are socially responsi...

The ethics we find in companies contains the same elements as the ethics in the socio-economic context in which they operate. The aspirations and ethical levels of companies operating in certain countries differ substantially from those of companies operating in other areas, where the defence of the environment, social welfare, human rights, cooperation, assistance are expected and offered to a...