Exploring Performance Based Practice of CSR in Sustaining the Relationship between Business and Society: A Literature Review

Abstract

The evolution of thought in sustainable development theory often implies that societal contribution of businessesin the form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) leads to sustainable development in the relationship betweenbusiness and society. However, most of the propositions made by CSR scholars have been described as beingnormative and prescriptive in nature. The implication of this is that the process through which outcomes aregenerated from the implementation of CSR lacks adequate exploration and has remained relatively unknown. Toexplore the problem noted above, a literature review was carried out. The need for a paradigm shift fromresponsiveness paradigm to a performance based paradigm in the practice of CSR was observed. A performancebased paradigm entails the generation of expected outcomes from the implementation of CSR through creatingvalue alignment between business’ values and stakeholders’ values. From the literature review, threerecommendations were generated. They include the need for a shift towards a performance based paradigm ofCSR, need for the exploration of the interactive process in the relationship between business and society, and theneed for more empirical based studies with focus on the interactive process of CSR as a means of predictingCSR outcomes.