CSR in Management Sciences: Is It “a Road to Nowhere”?

Andrzej Janowski

doi:10.3390/economies9040198

Abstract

Over the years, the idea of corporate social responsibility has attracted the interest both of practitioners and researchers. While a discourse has occurred in the context of the meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), there is no extensive analysis of the latest contributions. To address this gap, three objectives have been formulated for the purpose of this paper: to analyse development trends in CSR definitions, to assess the applicability of scientific efforts in the above-mentioned area and to demonstrate future research opportunities and threats based on the state-of-the-art in CSR. An organized literature review and bibliometric methods have been proposed based on 55 articles published in the “Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Journal”, the top ranked periodical with the highest Impact Factor, from its beginnings to January 2021. This research provides a clear overview of the recent CSR trends that are present in the literature, by pinpointing those works that refer to significant characteristics and indicate future trajectories of CSR in a managerial practical context, particularly important for the effectiveness of future CSR-oriented organizational activities. This paper summarises the existing CSR-related knowledge and constitutes the first attempt to investigate the process of the creation and development of the corporate social responsibility concept from its origins to its contemporary multidimensionality.

Highlights

Over the years, the idea of corporate social responsibility has attracted the interest both of practitioners and researchers
The data analysis covered three dimensions, in line with the research questions (RQs): the first focused on finding if there is a common definition of CSR among scholars—contributors to the Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Journal
The second dimension was related to the question as to what trends are presented in articles published in the abovementioned journal in the context of CSR definitions

Summary

Introduction

The idea of corporate social responsibility has attracted the interest both of practitioners and researchers. In order to identify the origins of the CSR concept, it is reasonable to first define the etymology of the term “company” which, like many common concepts today, originates from Latin: this is a derivative of two concepts: cum and panis, and means sharing (breaking) bread; the original idea possessed strictly social connotations as a derivative of direct human relation construct This is important as it suggests the existence of organisational/corporate responsibility in the semantic area of the communities where they operate. It is worth mentioning that doctors were not allowed to demand excessively high sums for medical advice or treatment; as a result, payment for their services was on a level that was acceptable to the community; it seems reasonable to say that, in Africa, business served the community, while individual aspects were of secondary importance These circumstances had their impact on the scientific field, and social responsibility has been the subject of Academic Editor: Ralf Fendel. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations

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