Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a People Caring Concept

The Concept Of Csr

CSR is a concept that has a long history although researchers even now cannot agree on one definition. The origins of CSR lie in philanthropy, the oldest social initiative among American private enterprises (Godfrey, 2009). Since governments retreated partly or completely from directly providing public services in several areas (e.g., utilities, health care, education) (Whetten et al., 2002), corporate philanthropy was needed.

CSR has emerged as a concept in 1953 with Bowen's book “Social Responsibility of the businessman”. Bowen (1953, p.6) defines the social responsibilities of business at that time as “the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions or follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of society”. That is why Carroll (1999, p. 270) argues that “Bowen should be called the “Father of Corporate Social Responsibility””. From then onwards, CSR has evolved in the 1970s with the work of Davis (1973), Carroll (1979), and Wood (1991). Researchers have been investigating CSR for over three decades (Carroll, 1979; Margolis & Walsh, 2003; McWilliams & Siegel, 2000) and therefore, there has been a proliferation of definitions of CSR in the last 40 years.