Era Of Corporate Social Responsibility

Since the second half of the 20th century, an extremely long discussion on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been arising.

Patrick Murphy (University of Michigan Business Review, 1978) defined four significant periods of CSR before and after 1950`s. In a simplified scheme, Murphy argued that the period up to the 1950s was the ‘philanthropic’ era in which companies donated to charities more than anything else. The period 1953–67 was classified as the ‘awareness’ era, in which there became more recognition of the overall responsibility of business and its involvement in community affairs. The period 1968–73 was termed the ‘issue’ era in which companies began focusing on specific issues such as urban decay, racial discrimination, and

In the 1960s, we began to see scholars striving to best state what CSR meant (Carroll, 2008) . Among scholars, who contributed to defining the corporate social responsibility on early stages, were C. Walton with his book Corporate Social Responsibilities (1967), which analyses the role of business organization in society, William C. Frederick with the article The Growing Concern over Business Responsibility (1960), which suggests new ideas how to judge your responsibility, as a businessman. Joseph McGuire`s Business and Society (1963) also significantly contributed to the studying

The conference “Partners for Progress” was held in November 2001 in Paris and it emphasized how is it important for business to accept responsible behavior, in regard to move towards sustainable local developments. “Businesses today face an ever-widening circle of obligations. Not only must they satisfy their customers and their employees, but also respond to broader environmental and social concerns. Consumers and investors, as well as other community stakeholders, have greater expectations of companies than ever before. They want firms to supply quality goods and services efficiently in a way that minimizes adverse social or environmental costs.” (Corporate Social Responsibility: Partners for Progress OECD, Paris 2001)

Bryan Horrigan underlines that CSR scholarship in the 21st century engages new debates and themes, while also making the transition from 20th century and sometimes even residual 18th and 19th century thinking and practices surrounding corporations. The true multi-disciplinary character of CSR, the reality that greater societal and global problems are addressed by CSR, and new insights into CSR`s deep complexity are all increasingly reflected in scholarly works devoted to the wide range of academic and work-related standpoints from which CSR must be assessed in its analysis and practice worldwide. (Horrigan,