Responsibility Beyond CSR

Abstract

In the space of a few years, corporate social/sustainable responsibility (CSR) has become a managerial buzzword and a major focus—if not an industry in itself—for managers, consultants, auditors, journalist, teachers, and students. But definitions of responsibility in CSR tend to be determined by the firm as a collective, or more simply representatives from the top management. And this raises a many questions, for example: in the age of CSR, how is responsibility experienced by managers as individuals? Does this responsibility differ from the responsibility of managers as representatives of a collective? If yes: how and why? While the same word responsibility is used to depict a wide array of definitions, the meaning of responsibility varies critically as one moves from collective, or corporate responsibility to individual responsibility. The formal processes of corporate responsibility differ from those of individual responsibility. The two are not symmetrical: they impact on one another but they operate on grounds that are different and even involve different trade-offs. Most corporations show a marked reluctance to engage with responsibility beyond a limited definition in terms of legal and economic liability. Notwithstanding, at the individual and societal levels, there is a growing demand for a fuller conceptualization of the responsibility for actions undertaken in the name of corporations, and other organizations. Responsibility is not only a matter to be determined by corporations. It is also—indeed it may be even only—a critical matter for the human being that is every manager, both in and out of work, and for society at large. Events, such as, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or the 2008 financial crisis, have largely contributed to placing responsibility at the forefront of managerial and societal demands on corporations. We believe that a discussion of the diversity of responsibility in organizational contexts merits emphasis in research, teaching, and civil society debates. The purpose of this special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics is therefore to explore the conditions for, and the possibility of, truly responsible management; the responsibility of managers both as individuals and as agents of the firm. In particular, our purpose is to illustrate the many ways in which managers experience their personal responsibility in the field, when confronted by realities which are, or are not, accommodated by the ethical code(s) of practice produced in some remote head office.