Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility in the Digital Age

Largely a post-WWII phenomenon, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown over the past half century in importance, significance and scholarship.

The idea that businesses have some responsibilities to society which span beyond making profits for their shareholders has been around for centuries (Carroll & Shabana, 2010, p. 85) however until the late 1970s CSR has been ‘derided as a joke, an oxymoron and a contradiction in terms by the investment and business community’ (Paul Lee, 2008, p. 53).

It is only after the 1990s that CSR’s perception by the business community, non-governmental organisations, consumers and governments has changed transforming it into an important concept in the management, marketing and communication literature (Carroll & Shabana, 2010; Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, 2010). In fact, it became so important that international organisations such as the United Nations or the World Bank endorse the practice, have issued their own guidelines for CSR and have fully and permanently staffed divisions solely focused on the research and promotion of the practice (Paul Lee, 2008). Similarly, at the beginning of the new millennium more than 90% of the Fortune 500 companies declared that they have embraced CSR and were therefore reporting on such activities in their annual reports. Human resource decisions, layoff programmes, plant closures, environmental performance and social issues are among the events and actions when CSR was studied (McWilliams, Siegel, & Wright, 2006).