Abstract
This article attempts the perilous tasks of reviewing corporate social responsibility. Reviewing those literatures is a notorious challenge because corporate social responsibility has developed inconsistently. Authors that insist a precise definition are often disappointed because corporate social responsibility is a relative concept. It has never assumed a stagnated role. To encaptivate this review, this article peruses corporate social responsibility from a contextual approach. It reviews the development of corporate social responsibility at every stage of its evolution by addressing three contextual conundrums. Firstly, it peruses the motivational construct at every stage of development. This provides a critical insight on why corporate social responsibility was fashioned as such by analysing them contextually. Secondly, this review examines stakeholder inclusiveness at each epoch of development. This again critically exposes the category of beneficiaries included in each stage of progress categorising the evolution of their beneficiaries. Lastly, this work examines the extent of instutionalisation of corporate social responsibility illustrating the pattern in which the concept received legal and social acclamation. By addressing these three scopes, this article hopes to protrude categorically the contextual influence on corporate social responsibility so that reader(s) might understand at a deeper level the contextual reasoning and deduction on how the concept is shaped and reshaped.
Highlights
This article attempts the perilous tasks of reviewing corporate social responsibility
This review examines five stages of corporate social responsibility (CSR) evolution namely (1) CSR awareness in 50s (2) proliferation of CSR in 60s (3) proactive CSR and the rise of responsiveness in the 70s (4) the diversion of themes in the 80s
It is an era of quasi and inchoate attempt to escape from religious orthodoxy where corporations become sober but remain directionless on how CSR is institutionalised within the business acumen
Summary
The word landmark refers to those classical writings and grounded theory which others proliferate (Bolderston, 2008) This is vital to keep the review focused and grounded where the original meaning and contexts of core literatures construed. Carroll Archie is a highly regarded contemporary scholar on CSR with more than 20,700 citations to date (ResearchGate, 2018) Using this as the grounded text, this article proceeds to examine those classical texts arising from those key scholars cited in Carroll’s work. Weber argued that the emergence of ascetic Protestantism radically revised the perceptions on savings, possession, career and wealth It springs boarded modern capitalism and magnified the new ‘religion’ of wealth accumulation. There are concerns over the paradoxical position of religion as an incredulous champion for CSR with a capitalist tint This is a robust objection and greatly weakens its altruistic values.
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