The CSR Newsletters are a freely-available resource generated as a dynamic complement to the textbook, Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation.

To sign-up to receive the CSR Newsletters regularly during the fall and spring academic semesters, e-mail author David Chandler at david.chandler@ucdenver.edu.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Strategic CSR - Is CSR dead?

The article in the url link below responds to a recent report on CSR by the EU with the provocative title “Corporate responsibility is not quite dead”:

“Many will regard the [European] Commission's endorsement as a sure sign that CSR's time has past. Its report, written by academics from Insead and other European business schools, certainly contains a fair amount of nonsense, including the "finding" that managers become more socially responsible if they meditate.”

Wading through the attention-getting hyperbole in the front half of the article, however, leads to a more interesting discussion of when CSR is and is not business common sense and how, increasingly, it is hard to tell the two apart:

“Profit, in good times and bad, is where any discussion of companies' responsibilities should start. Without profit, there is no future for shareholders, employees or customers. But engaging with the community in the pursuit of profit has its place: indeed, it is essential. … Wal-Mart persuaded a toy supplier to reduce its packaging. This resulted in the company using 497 fewer freight containers a year and saving Dollars 2.4m. You can call that cost-cutting or you can call it sustainability.”

Have a good weekend
Dave

Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther

Corporate responsibility is not quite dead.
By MICHAEL SKAPINKER
783 words
12 February 2008
Financial Times
London Ed1
Page 15
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7990a3ec-d8a9-11dc-8b22-0000779fd2ac.html