Abstract
Both business history and management and organization scholarships have paid increasing attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, the two remain largely isolated from each other, leaving the historical processes leading to the institutionalization of CSR reporting undertheorized. We bridge the gap by coding and analyzing a digital archive of 263 multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) historical websites between 1997 and 2009. Combining in-depth case studies with quantitative summaries, we find that MNEs learned to define the CSR term and adjust their reporting behaviors gradually, from ad hoc mentioning of idiosyncratic themes to proliferating a whole package of themes. Accompanying this change was the rise and growth of global initiatives such as Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiatives. These findings not only illuminate a key period of the recent business history but also epitomize the dialectical relationship between business and society where business is both responsive to and responsible for societal changes.
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