corporate social responsibility management issues regarding business planning

Making the most of corporate social responsibility

Too often, executives have viewed corporate social responsibility (CSR) as just another source of pressure or passing fad. But as customers, employees, and suppliers—and, indeed, society more broadly—place increasing importance on CSR, some leaders have started to look at it as a creative opportunity to fundamentally strengthen their businesses while contributing to society at the same time. They view CSR as central to their overall strategies, helping them to creatively address key business issues.

The big challenge for executives is how to develop an approach that can truly deliver on these lofty ambitions—and, as of yet, few have found the way. However, some innovative companies have managed to overcome this hurdle, with smart partnering emerging as one way to create value for both the business and society simultaneously. Smart partnering focuses on key areas of impact between business and society and develops creative solutions that draw on the complementary capabilities of both to address major challenges that affect each partner. In this article, we build on lessons from smart partnering to provide a practical way forward for leaders to assess the true opportunities of CSR.

Mapping the CSR space

There is no single accepted definition of CSR, which leads to plenty of confusion about what constitutes a CSR activity. We can begin to develop a working definition of CSR by thinking about its dual objectives—benefiting business and society—and the range of potential benefits in each case (Exhibit 1).

Corporate social responsibility: The landscape

Many businesses pursue CSR activities that can best be termed pet projects, as they reflect the personal interests of individual senior executives. While these activities may be presented with much noise and fanfare, they usually offer minimal benefits to either business or society. In the middle are efforts that can make both sides feel good but that generate limited and often one-sided benefits. With philanthropy, for example, corporate donations confer the majority of benefits on society (with potential but often questionable reputational benefits to the business). Similarly, in what’s best referred to as propaganda, CSR activities are focused primarily on building a company’s reputation with little real benefit to society. Some cynics suggest that this form of CSR is at best a form of advertising—and potentially dangerous if it exposes a gap between the company’s words and actions.

None of these approaches realize the opportunities for significant shared value creation that have been achieved through smart partnering. In such ventures, the focus of the business moves beyond avoiding risks or enhancing reputation and toward improving its core value creation ability by addressing major strategic issues or challenges. For society, the focus shifts from maintaining minimum standards or seeking funding to improving employment, the overall quality of life, and living standards. The key is for each party to tap into the resources and expertise of the other, finding creative solutions to critical social and businesses challenges.

Addressing rural distribution challenges in India

More than 70 percent of India’s population resides in rural villages scattered over large geographic areas with very low per capita consumption rates. For multinationals, the cost of reaching and serving these rural markets is significant, as typical urban distribution approaches do not work. Hindustan Unilever Limited’s Project Shakti overcame these challenges by actively understanding critical societal and organizational needs. HUL partnered with three self-help groups, whose members were appointed as Shakti entrepreneurs in chosen villages. These entrepreneurs were women, since a key aim for the partnership was to help the rural female population develop independence and self-esteem. The entrepreneurs received extensive training and borrowed money from their self-help groups to purchase HUL products, which they then sold in their villages. By 2008, Shakti provided employment for 42,000 women entrepreneurs covering nearly 130,000 villages and 3 million households every month. In the same year, HUL sales through the project approached $100 million. Dalip Sehgal, then executive director of New Ventures at HUL, noted: “Shakti is a quintessential win-win initiative and overcame challenges on a number of fronts. It is a sales and distribution initiative that delivers growth, a communication initiative that builds brands, a micro-enterprise initiative that creates livelihoods, a social initiative that improves the standard of life, and catalyzes affluence in rural India. What makes Shakti uniquely scalable and sustainable is the fact that it contributes not only to HUL but also to the community it is a part of.” 1 1. V. Kasturi Rangan and Rohithari Rajan, “Unilever in India: Hindustan Lever’s Project Shakti,” Harvard Business School case 9-505-056, June 27, 2007.

So how does this work? The examples in the two accompanying sidebars (see “Addressing rural distribution challenges in India” and “Ensuring sustainable supplies of critical raw materials”) illustrate smart partnering initiatives at Unilever. Both address long-term strategic challenges facing the company and help to build creative partnerships that accrue significant benefits to both sides.

Initial questions for any leader should be, “Where have you focused CSR activities in the past?” and, more important, “Where should you focus them for the future?” All organizations have to balance limited resources and effort, so the challenge is how best to deploy yours to maximize the benefits to your business (and your shareholders and stakeholders), as well as to society. Start by mapping your current portfolio of CSR initiatives on the framework shown in Exhibit 1 and ask: What are the objectives of our current initiatives? What benefits are being created, and who realizes these? Which of these initiatives helps us to address our key strategic challenges and opportunities?

Ensuring sustainable supplies of critical raw materials

Unilever’s Lipton unit is the world’s largest buyer of tea. In 1999, Unilever Tea Kenya started a pilot program in Kericho, in southwestern Kenya, to apply company sustainability principles to the production of tea. The initiative focused on improving productivity, sustainability, and environmental management, as well as energy and habitat conservation. For Unilever, growing pressure on natural resources means that securing high-quality supplies of critical raw materials in the long term is of paramount strategic importance.

The Kericho initiative had a direct impact on the company’s ability to control the supply of tea not just today but also into the future, while simultaneously enhancing Unilever’s corporate reputation with both consumers and employees. Company leadership felt that higher short-term costs were far outweighed by the long-term strategic edge Unilever gained for its raw-materials supplies and brands. In 2008, as a signal of its commitment, Unilever expanded the scope of its sustainable-agriculture program, pursuing certification from the Rainforest Alliance for all Lipton tea farms by 2015.

For society, the initiative increased farmer revenue through a 10 to 15 percent premium paid above market prices. Additionally, it focused on topics of significant concern for governments and farmers alike, including improving farmer skills, environmental protection, and sustainable production methods (such as developing a self-sufficient ecosystem), as well as enhancing local associated jobs. All these factors contributed to strengthened rural income, skills, and living standards.

Focusing CSR choices: Guiding principles

Companies are likely to have activities scattered across the map, but that’s not where they have to stay—nor is it how the benefits of CSR are maximized. Many companies start with pet projects, philanthropy, or propaganda because these activities are quick and easy to decide on and implement. The question is how to move toward CSR strategies that focus on truly cocreating value for the business and society. The accompanying examples suggest three principles for moving toward this goal.

• Concentrate your CSR efforts. Management time and resources are limited, so the greatest opportunities will come from areas where the business significantly interacts with—and thus can have the greatest impact on—society. These are areas where the business not only can gain a deeper understanding of the mutual dependencies but also in which the highest potential for mutual benefit exists.
• Build a deep understanding of the benefits. Even after selecting your chosen areas of opportunity, finding the potential for mutual value creation is not always straightforward. The key is finding symmetry between the two sides and being open enough to understand issues both from a business and a societal perspective.
• Find the right partners. These will be those that benefit from your core business activities and capabilities—and that you can benefit from in turn. Partnering is difficult, but when both sides see win–win potential there is greater motivation to realize the substantial benefits. Relationships—particularly long-term ones that are built on a realistic understanding of the true strengths on both sides—have a greater opportunity of being successful and sustainable.

Applying these principles to choosing the appropriate CSR opportunities prompts additional questions—namely: What are the one or two critical areas in our business where we interface with and have an impact on society and where significant opportunities exist for both sides if we can creatively adjust the relationship? What are the core long-term needs for us and for society that can be addressed as a result? What resources or capabilities do we need, and what do we have to offer in realizing the opportunities?

Building the business case

In smart partnering, mutual benefit is not only a reasonable objective, it is also required to ensure long-term success. But this commitment must be grounded in value-creation potential, just like any other strategic initiative. Each is an investment that should be evaluated with the same rigor in prioritization, planning, resourcing, and monitoring.

Now you need to define the array of potential benefits for both the business and for society. This will not always be easy, but a clear business case and story is important if you are to get the company, its shareholders, and its stakeholders on board.

You can assess the benefits across the following three dimensions:

• Time frame. Be clear on both the short-term immediate objectives and the long-term benefits. In smart partnering, the time frame is important, as initiatives can be complex and take time to realize their full potential.
• Nature of benefits. Some benefits will be tangible, such as revenue from gaining access to a new market. Others will be equally significant, but intangible, such as developing a new capability or enhancing employee morale.
• Benefit split. Be clear about how benefits are to be shared between the business and society. If they are one-sided, be careful you are not moving into the philanthropy or propaganda arena. Remember that if the aim is to create more value from partnering than you could do apart, then benefits must be shared appropriately.

Exhibit 2 outlines two contrasting benefit arrays for the Unilever examples discussed in the accompanying sidebars. With Project Shakti, the short-term tangible benefits are extremely clear and powerful, while in the case of Kericho the long-term intangible benefits are strategically critical for both the business and the communities in which it operates. Remember that it is not essential to have benefits in every section of the matrix. However, if you are struggling with any of the dimensions—for example, there are no long-term or tangible benefits or if most of the benefits are one-sided—go back and ask if this is a real partnering opportunity where significant mutual value creation is possible.

Plotting the benefits

As you develop a clear array of benefits, a business case, and a story to communicate to all stakeholders, ask: Do we have a clear understanding of the entire array of benefits and the associated business case, on which we can focus, assess, and manage the potential CSR activity? Does the activity focus on fundamental value creation opportunities where we can really partner with society to realize simultaneous benefits? Are the opportunities significant, scalable, and supportive of our overall strategic priorities?

Implementing CSR with consistency and determination

Partnering, as we all know, can be challenging. It requires planning and hard work to assess potential mutual benefits, establish trust, and build and manage the activities, internally as well as externally. But is it worth it? Companies at the forefront of such partnering suggest the answer is a resounding yes, but an additional two principles need to be followed to ensure success:

Go in with a long-term commitment. Having a positive impact on societal issues such as living standards is not a “quick fix” project. Leaders who want to partner therefore need to have a long-term mind-set backed up by solid promises and measurable commitments and actions. Your initiative must demonstrate added value to both shareholders and stakeholders over time.

Engage the entire workforce and lead by example. Your workforce can be one of your greatest assets and beneficiaries when it comes to CSR activities. Increasingly, employees are choosing to work for organizations whose values resonate with their own. Attracting and retaining talent will be a growing challenge in the future, so activities that build on core values and inspire employees are key. Unilever, along with other leaders in smart partnering, actively engages its employees in such initiatives, seeing improved motivation, loyalty, and ability to attract and retain talent as a result. Engaging the workforce starts at the top. Leaders must be prepared to make a personal commitment if the activities are to realize their full potential.

This is the tough bit of the process: taking action, rather than speaking about it, and keeping up the momentum even when targets are far in the future. As you plan the implementation of your chosen initiatives and follow through, ask: Can we build the commitment we need across the organization to make this happen—and are we as leaders willing to lead by example? Have we planned effectively to ensure that implementation is successful, with resources, milestones, measurement, and accountability? How can we manage the initiative, focusing on the total array of benefits sought, not just the short-term financials?

What’s a leader to do?

When it comes to CSR, there are no easy answers on what to do or how to do it. A company’s interactions and interdependencies with society are many and complex. However, it is clear that approaching CSR as a feel-good or quick-fix exercise runs the risk of missing huge opportunities for both the business and society. Taking a step-by-step approach and following the principles outlined here offers leaders a way to identify and drive mutual value creation. But it will demand a shift in mind-set: the smart partnering view is that CSR is about doing good business and creatively addressing significant issues that face business and society, not simply feeling good. And smart partnering is not for the faint of heart. It requires greater focus, work, and long-term commitment than do many standard CSR pet projects, philanthropic activities, and propaganda campaigns, but the rewards are potentially much greater for both sides.

Continuing the conversation—Authors’ response to reader comments

In January 2010, the authors reviewed our readers’ comments on their original article and weighed in on the conversation with new insights and suggestions.

Many thanks to those who read and considered the ideas in our article “Making the most of corporate social responsibility”—and particularly to those who shared their thoughts and experiences on smart partnering. As many rightly pointed out, there has been a groundswell of interest in CSR, as well as a growing number of powerful examples of smart partnering. This momentum reflects an improved understanding of the potential benefits to companies and the increasing maturity of social organizations. Both see the potential for mutually creating value.

Our aim was to advance the debate on how to make CSR an integral part of core strategic thinking rather than a feel-good add-on to it. Where should we take this conversation? Many of the responses came from academics or from executives responsible for CSR activities in their firms. While this is natural, it raises the question of how best to engage (or help these executives to engage) senior business leaders who make strategic choices and set the direction of companies—particularly the next generation of leaders, who face more pressing global and societal issues than ever before.

Three challenges

Our work, that of others in this field, and the input of McKinsey Quarterly readers suggest that there are three basic challenges to making smart partnering a strategic imperative and opportunity for companies. They also suggest ways to overcome those challenges.

1. Get CSR on the strategy table

For CSR to achieve its potential, it must focus on key areas of interaction between a firm and its environment and address value creation activities at the center of the strategic agenda. The challenge is to get innovative CSR thinking on the table when business strategies are being explored and decided. How can we make CSR approaches an integral part of the strategic toolbox for business unit leaders?

First, the potential benefits of CSR, notably smart partnering, need to be demonstrated in practice if mainstream senior business leaders are to recognize the significant opportunities it offers. That is why sharing your and our examples is so important. Next, key CSR executives must be part of core strategy processes. Ultimately, CSR must cease to be a separate function and become part of the skill set of all business leaders as an innovative way to solve critical problems.

2. Stretch your strategic ambition for CSR

Several readers spoke of favorably received CSR activities within their organizations in the realms of philanthropy and partnering. As we suggested, the starting point in any CSR strategy should be to outline the CSR activities a company already undertakes and to be clear on their intent and fit within the overall portfolio. Where CSR activities are primarily philanthropic in nature, they can create a strong base for building a company’s reputation and engaging employees. Philanthropy also has other obvious advantages: it is relatively easy to undertake, can often be set off against tax, and requires less effort and commitment across the organization.

The questions with this approach are: What benefits are being left on the table, both for society and the business? What opportunities are being missed? The challenge is to stretch strategic ambitions for CSR and to move actively toward smart partnering, where the biggest opportunities are to be found. Stretching means going beyond common practice. While it is extremely encouraging to see a growing recognition of the benefits of CSR for building employee engagement, this is only the tip of the iceberg. In the examples we described, the benefits matrices set out much broader ambitions and arrays of benefits (short and long term, tangible and intangible) for both society and core business strategies. How can you stretch your company’s ambitions in a similar way? Whom do you need to involve, particularly among mainstream business leaders, to gain new perspectives and challenge conventional wisdom?

3. Reinforce your core values, internally and externally

When corporate visions and strategies are described, there is often a reference to core values, which shape individual behavior and expectations about how we work and interact together. But we often limit discussions about values to internal behavior and actions. As several readers noted, shouldn’t senior executives also be held accountable for how companies live core values in their interactions with all stakeholders?

Businesses have an impact on societies, and vice versa, so there is a need to recognize the mutual responsibilities that this entails. Within societies, trust in businesses is low, public scrutiny of firms is constant, customer choice criteria include the reputations and values of suppliers, and the next generation of leaders will choose employers whose values match their own. For businesses, one potential challenge is whether the way they operate externally—not just internally—will ultimately have an impact on their “license to operate.” Many companies that approach CSR strategically recognize this symbiosis and build on strong values, living them internally and externally.

Clearly, we do not advocate smart-partnering initiatives solely because they reinforce a company’s core values; this is heading into the realm of propaganda. But as you consider the benefits of a potential initiative, do explicitly consider its impact on your corporate values. If you cannot see a direct link to them, think about how you could create one—for example, reinforcing values through employee involvement or building additional external relationships based on the initiative.

Moving forward

What’s your next step? First, engage with key senior business leaders to identify two or three critical interactions with society. Then for each, map out what you have to offer in capabilities, knowledge, resources, relationships, and so on that would make a difference in addressing the challenges you have identified, both for your business and society. Consider what ideal partners could offer to complement the things you bring to these challenges. For the Unilever–Kericho example in our original article, a critical interaction with society involved raw materials (in particular, tea). Mapping the possible complementary strengths of a partnership could produce a kind of balance sheet.

Use the balance sheets you have developed as a starting point in identifying issues and discussing them with key internal stakeholders and potential external partners. In a world of burgeoning technology, we may even one day see some type of CSR “dating agency” where potential partners could share their balance sheets. As discussions progress, a balance sheet can also help you and your partners construct the benefits array and business case for your smart-partnering initiative.

In this sort of process, experienced CSR executives can really start to move CSR onto the strategic agenda by engaging executives on real business challenges. That means helping these executives to identify the opportunities, share concrete examples, think more broadly about solutions, and move forward.

Smart partnering is good business. Our readers’ experiences and ideas confirm that momentum is building toward a time when CSR will be absorbed into core strategy and business activities rather than treated as an orphan in need of a special label. With your help, this momentum will build. Share your experiences, shape your activity portfolios, develop your balance sheets and benefits matrices, and challenge the business community to keep changing mind-sets for the better.

Thomas Malnight is a professor of strategy and general management at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Tracey Keys is a program manager. Kees van der Graaf is Executive-in-Residence at IMD, following his retirement from the board of Unilever, where he was also president of the European business.

Explore a career with us

Related articles.

Valuing social responsibility programs

Valuing corporate social responsibility

Rebuilding corporate reputations

• Search Search Please fill out this field.

What Is CSR?

• Understanding CSR

Types of CSR

Company examples, the bottom line.

• Sustainable Investing
• Socially Responsible Investing

What Is CSR? Corporate Social Responsibility Explained

Katrina Ávila Munichiello is an experienced editor, writer, fact-checker, and proofreader with more than fourteen years of experience working with print and online publications.

• Guide to Socially Responsible Investments (SRI)
• Why Social Responsibility Matters to Business
• Investing in Unethical Stocks: The Pros and Cons for Trader
• Socially Responsible Investing vs. Sin Stocks
• Racial Justice Investing
• Top 5 Impact Investing Firms
• Socially Responsible Mutual Funds
• The Rise of the Socially Responsible ETF
• Demand for ESG Investments Soars Emerging From COVID-19 Pandemic
• A Guide to Faith-Based Investing
• Socially Responsible Investment for Gender Empowerment
• History of Impact Investing
• Impact Investing vs. Venture Philanthropy
• How ESG, SRI, and Impact Funds Differ
• Ethical Investing
• Social Responsibility
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) CURRENT ARTICLE
• Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Criteria
• Conscious Capitalism
• Social Impact Statement
• Social Impact Bond (SIB)
• Impact Investing

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. 

By practicing corporate social responsibility, also called corporate citizenship , companies are aware of how they impact aspects of society, including economic, social, and environmental. Engaging in CSR means a company operates in ways that enhance society and the environment instead of contributing negatively to them.

Key Takeaways

• Corporate social responsibility is a business model by which companies make a concerted effort to operate in ways that enhance rather than degrade society and the environment.
• CSR can help improve society and promote a positive brand image for companies.
• CSR includes four categories: environmental impacts, ethical responsibility, philanthropic endeavors, and financial responsibilities.

Investopedia / Zoe Hansen

Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Through corporate social responsibility programs , philanthropy, and volunteer efforts, businesses can benefit society while boosting their brands. A socially responsible company is accountable to itself and its shareholders. CSR is commonly a strategy employed by large corporations. The more visible and successful a corporation is, the more responsibility it has to set standards of ethical behavior for its peers, competition, and industry .

Small and midsize businesses also create social responsibility programs, although their initiatives are rarely as well-publicized as those of larger corporations.

• Environmental responsibility: Corporate social responsibility is rooted in preserving the environment. A company can pursue environmental stewardship by reducing pollution and emissions in manufacturing, recycling materials, replenishing natural resources like trees, or creating product lines consistent with CSR.
• Ethical responsibility: Corporate social responsibility includes acting fairly and ethically. Instances of ethical responsibility include fair treatment of all customers regardless of age, race, culture, or sexual orientation, favorable pay and benefits for employees, vendor use across demographics, full disclosures, and transparency for investors.
• Philanthropic responsibility: CSR requires a company to contribute to society, whether a company donates profit to charities, enters into transactions only with suppliers or vendors that align with the company philanthropically, supports employee philanthropic endeavors, or sponsors fundraising events.
• Financial responsibility: A company might make plans to be more environmentally, ethically, and philanthropically focused, however, it must back these plans through financial investments in programs, donations, or product research including research and development for products that encourage sustainability, creating a diverse workforce, or implementing DEI, social awareness, or environmental initiatives.

Volunteering

Some corporate social responsibility models replace financial responsibility with a sense of volunteerism. Otherwise, most models still include environmental, ethical, and philanthropic as types of CSR.

Benefits of CSR

According to a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, consumers are more likely to act favorably toward a company that has acted to benefit its customers. As a company engages in CSR, it is more likely to receive favorable brand recognition . Additionally, workers are more likely to stay with a company they believe in. This reduces employee turnover, disgruntled workers, and the total cost of a new employee .

For companies looking to outperform the market, enacting CSR strategies may improve how investors view the company's value. The Boston Consulting Group found that companies considered leaders in environmental, social, or governance matters had an 11% valuation premium over their competitors.

CSR practices help companies mitigate risk by avoiding troubling situations. This includes preventing adverse activities such as discrimination against employee groups, disregard for natural resources, unethical use of company funds, and activity that leads to lawsuits, and litigation .

CSR programs can raise morale in the workplace.  

In its 2022 Environmental and Social Impact Report, Starbucks ( SBUX ) highlights taking care of its workforce and the planet among its CSR priorities through stock grants and additional medical, family, and educational benefits. The company's goals include achieving 50% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and waste by 2030.

Home Depot ( HD ) has invested more than 1 million hours per year in training to help front-line employees advance in their careers, aims to produce or procure 100% renewable energy to operate its facilities by 2030, and has plans to spend $5 billion per year with diverse suppliers by 2025.

General Motors won the Sustainability Leadership Award from the Business Intelligence Group in 2022. The automaker provided $60 million in grants to more than 400 U.S. nonprofits focusing on social issues, and it has agreements in place to use 100% renewable electricity at its U.S. sites by 2025.

Why Should a Company Implement CSR Strategies?

Many companies view CSR as an integral part of their brand image, believing customers will be more likely to do business with brands they perceive to be more ethical. In this sense, CSR activities can be an important component of corporate public relations. At the same time, some company founders are also motivated to engage in CSR due to their convictions.

What Is ISO 26000?

In 2010, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released ISO 26000, a set of voluntary standards to help companies implement corporate social responsibility. Unlike other ISO standards, ISO 26000 provides guidance rather than requirements because the nature of CSR is more qualitative than quantitative, and its standards cannot be certified. ISO 26000 clarifies social responsibility and helps organizations translate CSR principles into practical actions.

What Are the Benefits of CSR?

CSR initiatives strive to have a positive impact on the world through direct benefits to society, nature and the community in which a business operations. In addition, a company may experience internal benefits through the initiatives. Knowing their company is promoting good causes, employee satisfaction may increase and retention of staff may be strengthened. In addition, members of society may be more likely to choose to transact with companies that are attempting to make a more conscious positive impact beyond the scope of its business.

What Companies Have the Best CSR?

Since 1999, Corporate Responsibility Magazine has ranked the top 100 Best Corporate Citizens each year among the 1,000 largest U.S. public companies. Rankings are based on employee relations, environmental impact, human rights, governance, and financial decisions. In 2023, the top-ranked companies include Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company, Accenture, and Hasbro.

Companies striving to measure success beyond bottom-line financial results may adopt CSR strategies that target environmental, ethical, philanthropic, and fiscal responsibility that extend beyond the products they sell.

Society for Consumer Psychology. " Good Guys Can Finish First: How Brand Reputation Affects Extension Evaluations ."

Boston Consulting Group. " Your Supply Chain Needs a Sustainability Strategy ."

Frontiers in Psychology. " Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Engagement: Enabling Employees to Employ More of Their Whole Selves at Work ."

Starbucks. " 2022 Starbucks Global Environmental and Social Impact Report ," Pages 6 and 32.

Home Depot. " ESG Report (2022) ," Pages 9-10.

General Motors. " 2022 Sustainability Report ," Pages 6-7.

International Organization for Standardization. " ISO 26000, Social Responsibility ."

3BL Media. " 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2023 ."

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy

Published: 22 December 2023 Contributors: Amanda McGrath, Alexandra Jonker

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the idea that businesses should operate according to principles and policies that make a positive impact on society and the environment.

Through CSR, companies make decisions driven by financial gain and profitability, and the impact of their actions on their communities and the world at large. CSR goes beyond legal obligations: by voluntarily adopting ethical, sustainable and responsible business practices, companies seek to deliver benefits to consumers, shareholders, employees and society.

Learn about the processes used to manage environmental performance data and the steps required to account for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Register for the playbook on smarter asset management

Often, a company’s business model and practices are built around financial goals. However, CSR programs encourage business leaders to consider corporate citizenship or the larger impact of the business on society when making decisions. Corporate social responsibility helps companies ensure that their operations are ethical, safe and delivering positive impact wherever possible. Through CSR initiatives, companies work to limit environmental impact, contribute to solving societal problems (such as poverty and inequality) and ensure their brand identity reflects their values.

The theory of the “ triple bottom line ” can help organizations as they pursue corporate social responsibility. As a financial framework, the triple bottom line refers to the idea that a company’s business model should revolve around the three P’s: people, planet and profit. By maximizing all three, a company aims to make a positive impact on the world and remove barriers to growth.

Corporate social responsibility initiatives generally fall into four categories: environmental, ethical, philanthropic and economic. Each type of CSR contributes to a company’s overall CSR strategy.

More companies are assessing their overall environmental impact and engaging in CSR efforts that aim to protect natural resources and minimize any contribution to climate change. CSR encourages sustainability in business through eco-friendly practices, such as by reducing energy consumption, using renewable resources and minimizing waste.

Environmental responsibility hinges on eliminating negative impacts of business operations (primarily through limiting pollution-causing activities) as well as offsetting them through actions such as planting trees and engaging in programs that support biodiversity.

CSR initiatives often focus on social impact and human rights concerns, such as ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions and proper treatment of employees and suppliers. They also encourage accountability both internally and externally. Ethical CSR may include abiding by fair labor practices, ending workplace discrimination and ensuring supply chain transparency.

CSR practices include donating money, resources or time to positive causes and organizations, such as local and national charities, educational programs, disaster relief and more. Businesses who adopt philanthropic CSR engage with the communities where they operate, offering support through volunteer work, sponsoring local events, making contributions to local nonprofits or supporting skills training programs.

Corporate social responsibility involves ensuring that money is not a company’s sole motivator. To demonstrate this, companies enact policies and procedures to make sure their choices align with values, even if the alternatives may save money or boost profitability. Economic CSR also includes efforts to support the economic development and growth of the communities in which a business operates—for example, supporting job training and job creation efforts and forging local partnerships.

The benefits of CSR include:

CSR can have a positive impact on an organization’s brand identity as well as its bottom line. Some CSR efforts, such as improving energy efficiency, can reduce operating costs and might lead to savings in the end. Consumers increasingly prefer brands that share their values, and CSR policies offer ways for organizations to demonstrate those values, building trust and loyalty to fuel a competitive advantage.

CSR can also help attract top talent and drive employee engagement and retention, as more workers seek employers whose values align with their own. Additionally, a proactive approach to ethical and social issues has the potential to prevent legal problems, fines and reputational damage.

CSR initiatives can help people become more responsible consumers, making it easier for them to access products and services that align with their values and educating them on issues of sustainability and ethical consumption. It can encourage companies to prioritize and invest in testing, quality control and safety measures. CSR can also minimize the likelihood of defective or harmful products reaching consumers.

CSR can have a positive impact on the overall health of the planet, as it encourages environmental responsibility and sustainable practices. CSR initiatives can help companies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or pursue net-zero emissions goals that are key to slowing climate change. They might also help conserve natural resources, reduce pollution and limit disruption of ecosystems. Additionally, a focus on CSR can support investment in research and development of eco-friendly products and practices.

Corporate social responsibility can help support local communities and address societal issues, such as poverty, inequality and environmental concerns. CSR initiatives can fuel economic growth by creating jobs. They can also shape public opinion as companies leading the way inspire others to follow suit, creating a positive ripple effect. A focus on ethical behavior at the corporate level reinforces a broader norm of ethical behavior across other parts of society.

Consumers are increasingly seeking products and services from socially responsible companies. Meanwhile, many investors are prioritizing companies whose values are clear and aligned with their own. To meet these demands, businesses are integrating CSR into their operations. In addition, global expansion and the increasingly interconnected nature of supply chains pushes companies to comply with a growing web of regulatory environments and to better confront the impact of their business on communities around the world.

With increased awareness of environmental issues, labor practices and ethical concerns, combined with better research and communication, CSR is now more central to business strategies. Some companies even have dedicated CSR departments.

Examples of CSR include:

• Donating a percentage of profits to environmental or social causes
• Committing to using recycled and eco-friendly materials
• Sourcing fair-trade materials and ingredients
• Engaging in social activism or fundraising on behalf of social causes
• Using technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) to drive energy efficiency and reduce carbon footprints
• Creating programs for the ethical use and disposal of products, such as electronics recycling programs
• Instituting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that support efforts to diversify and grow the workforce in new ways
• Supporting programs that replenish the natural resources, such as water or timber, used for production
• Turning to renewable energy sources and other strategies that help in the pursuit of net-zero or carbon-neutral goals
• Establishing employee well-being programs that support their physical and mental health

Corporate social responsibility is the overall ethos that drives a company to adopt policies and practices that support sustainability, societal and other ethical ends. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is about the ways in which their impact is measured or quantified. While both CSR and ESG are about reflecting the company’s values, CSR is typically seen as more of an internal framework, while ESG frameworks are often used externally as a way of demonstrating real-world impact.

Because the parameters of corporate social responsibility are continually evolving, there is no single standard by which CSR initiatives are measured or governed. Companies that embrace CSR are guided by local and international laws, including environmental regulations, labor rules and consumer protection standards.

Some efforts are also held to industry-specific standards; for example, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides reporting standards for sustainability. Organizations like the United Nations have introduced global guidance, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which encourage businesses to adopt sustainable practices.

Many companies that embrace CSR will also engage in CSR reporting , through which they document performance of non-financial metrics and provide transparency on social and environmental impact. CSR reporting is typically voluntary; however, some jurisdictions mandate that large organizations disclose social and environmental performance, so that investors and consumers can assess CSR efforts.

Some organizations have designated corporate social responsibility teams that oversee a company's CSR activities. People on these teams plan and run the social and environmental programs that align with the company's values and goals. They work with company leadership to devise the overall CSR strategy and engage stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors and community partners, to help them succeed. They also typically track and report on their progress by using metrics and other methods of assessment, deal with compliance and regulatory issues and manage communication about the company’s CSR efforts both internally and externally.

Simplify the capture, consolidation, management, analysis and reporting of your environmental, social and governance (ESG) data.

CSR reporting is the practice of reporting an organization’s performance of non-financial metrics, providing transparency on the organization’s impact on society and the environment.

Net zero is the point at which greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere are balanced by an equivalent amount removed from the atmosphere.

The goal of the CRSD is to provide transparency that will help stakeholders better evaluate EU companies’ sustainability performance as well as the related business impacts and risks.

The triple bottom line (TBL) is a sustainability framework that revolves around the three P’s: people, planet and profit.

Sustainability in business refers to a company's strategy and actions to eliminate the adverse environmental and social impacts caused by business operations.

Decarbonization is a method of climate change mitigation that reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as removes them from the atmosphere.

Simplify the capture, consolidation, management, analysis and reporting of your environmental, social and governance (ESG) data with IBM Envizi ESG Suite.

Solutions With Innovative Future Technology

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Challenges and Resolutions

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has gained increasing popularity in recent years. It refers to the idea that businesses have a responsibility to contribute to the well-being of society and the environment, beyond simply maximizing profits for their shareholders.

While many companies have embraced CSR and have made significant strides in this area, there are still a number of challenges that need to be addressed. In this article, we will explore some of these challenges and offer some potential solutions.

What are the Challenges Faced in CSR Implementation?

• One of the biggest challenges businesses face when it comes to CSR is the lack of a clear framework for implementing and measuring CSR initiatives . Unlike other business activities, such as finance or marketing, there is no established framework for CSR that businesses can follow. This means that businesses often have to develop their own CSR strategies and metrics, which can be time-consuming and costly. Furthermore, it can be challenging to measure the effectiveness of CSR initiatives, as the impact of such initiatives is often long-term and difficult to quantify.
• Another challenge with CSR is the lack of transparency and accountability. In order for CSR to be effective, it is important for companies to be open and honest about their efforts. This means disclosing information about their environmental and social impacts and the steps they take to address any negative impacts. However, many companies are not transparent about their CSR efforts, which can undermine trust and lead to skepticism about their commitment to social and environmental responsibility. To overcome this challenge, companies can implement robust CSR management systems  that provide detailed information about their CSR activities and impacts. They can also engage with stakeholders, such as investors, employees, and customers, to solicit feedback and input on their CSR efforts.

• A third challenge is a difficulty of balancing short-term economic considerations with the need to implement sustainable, long-term CSR initiatives. In today’s fast-paced business environment, companies are under constant pressure to generate profits and deliver value to shareholders. As a result, many companies may be hesitant to invest in CSR programs that may not provide an immediate financial return.

What are the Solutions Can Companies Take in CSR Initiatives?

Despite these challenges, there are a number of potential solutions that companies can consider in order to overcome these obstacles and effectively integrate CSR into their operations.

• One approach is to develop a clear and comprehensive definition of CSR that is aligned with the expectations and priorities of key stakeholders. This definition should be based on a robust set of principles and should be regularly reviewed and updated in order to ensure that it remains relevant and effective.
• Another important step is to establish standardized reporting and disclosure mechanisms for CSR activities . This can help to ensure that companies are providing consistent and comparable information about their CSR performance, and can help to facilitate benchmarking and benchmarking and peer review.

3. To address these challenges, it is important for businesses to work together and develop clear guidelines and regulations for CSR initiatives. This can help to ensure that all businesses are operating in a consistent and responsible manner, and can help to create a more coordinated and effective approach to CSR. In addition, businesses should also invest in research and development to find cost-effective and efficient ways of implementing CSR initiatives. This can help to reduce the potential financial implications of these initiatives and can make it easier for businesses to justify the costs of implementing CSR initiatives.

Conclusion:

Overall, the challenges of implementing CSR initiatives can be daunting, but with a clear plan and a commitment to working together, businesses can overcome these challenges and operate in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. By taking these steps, businesses can not only improve their own operations but also make a positive difference in their communities and the world at large.

She is a Product Manager of M&E software for CSR & Land focusing on helping organizations all over the world manage and monitor all their activities with more ease and transparency.  Sucheta is responsible for helping in better Monitoring & Evaluation of CSR and Land with Technology.

Sucheta Karmakar

You May Also Like

What are The Challenges and Resolutions in CSR Initiatives?

The Role of Technology in CSR Monitoring and Evaluation

Geo-Targeting Goodness: The Synergy Between GIS and Corporate Social Responsibility

Dr.Dilip Kumar Chakraborty Vice President Eastern India Regional Chapter, Digital Education and Skills Council

Digital education and Skills Council Social Development Organization ,a Sec 8 company under Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Govt. of India (having Global network) is going to organise a seminar/ workshop/ Industry Academia meet shortly . Date is yet to be announced. We propose to invite CSR Representatives from different companies/industries.service sectors to attend the event and share their views on CSR . Please send contact nos and email with name of the Company. Hope to get a good response.Thanks

The text is well structured. On top of the listed challenges, I would like to add: lack of government management in the infrastructures topics as well as in the education and health initiatives.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Submissions & Reviews
• Publishing & Journals
• Scholarships
• Best Practices
• News & Updates
• Resources Home
• Submittable 101
• Bias & Inclusivity Resources
• Customer Stories
• Get our newsletter
• Request a Demo

7 Best Practices for Creating an Impactful CSR Strategy

Updated: 05/28/2024

Once upon a time, businesses could focus on profitability above all else. 

Not any more: modern companies are expected to care about making the world better. They’re expected to serve their communities, listen to their customers, take public stances (and action) on important issues, value and support employees, work for sustainability, and respond to current events. 

CSR (corporate social responsibility) programs are one way businesses are meeting this mandate. And standout programs addressing social and environmental issues are most often the result of thoughtful CSR strategies. 

Whether you’re new to CSR or looking to refine existing initiatives, understanding the ins and outs of CSR strategy is a prerequisite for creating successful programs with lasting impacts. The new “business as usual” demands smart social responsibility—are you ready to meet the challenge?

What is CSR strategy? Why have a CSR strategy? Best practices for creating a CSR strategy

What is CSR strategy? 

CSR strategy is the comprehensive plan companies and funders use to design, execute, and analyze their corporate social responsibility initiatives. It includes specific focus areas, program design, promotion and communication approaches, and evaluation procedures. 

Most companies with thriving CSR initiatives use strategy to build and monitor their programs; a few of these companies also share their strategy publicly. Nestle is a great example, offering detailed insight into their brand’s approach (called “Creating Shared Value”) that includes long-term goals for serving individuals, families, communities, and the planet, as well as measurement procedures and transparent performance and reporting .  

Some companies also release an annual corporate responsibility report which is another useful way for you to see what a CSR strategy can look like. Google’s 2020 Environment Report includes priorities, company mission, performance targets, and detailed analysis in five key focus areas. 

Why have a CSR strategy?

In the world of CSR, it’s especially prudent to look before you leap. 

This is because successful CSR initiatives are intricate, complex, and require demonstrable impact. They’re also public-facing (and potentially brand-damaging when done poorly). And they offer a host of business benefits you might miss out on by failing to plan. 

A well-crafted CSR strategy can help you:

Keep everything organized

Great CSR initiatives involve lots of people, multiple goals, tons of data, and countless responsibilities. Your CSR strategy is an opportunity to get everything in order and prepare to stay on top of all the details. 

Improve impacts

According to Deloitte’s third annual global survey of more than 2,000 C-suite executives at companies with societal impact goals, the presence of comprehensive strategy directly correlated with greater success (measured by innovation, growth, and employee acquisition). 

Protect your brand reputation 

Launching a corporate responsibility initiative without proper foresight is a big risk—that’s because your CSR program will be a public-facing endeavor with multiple stakeholders and partners who expect follow-through. Strategic planning can reduce the possibility that your company will gain a reputation for big talk and no action, which can ultimately harm your bottom line.

Take full advantage of CSR program benefits

CSR has a host of potential benefits for your company. A successful corporate responsibility initiative will benefit your community and serve your employees. It will also improve your brand image, attracting new talent and increasing customer loyalty. Ultimately, these outcomes can contribute to revenue and drive your company’s growth. In order to reap the full business benefits of CSR, you’ll want a strategy that’s brand-aligned, well-researched, responsive, partnership-driven (at all levels), and constantly evolving in pursuit of positive impacts everyone can feel good about.

Best practices for creating a CSR Strategy

Understanding the role and value of a CSR strategy is an important first step. 

Now, how do you create and develop a CSR strategy that gets results? There are seven key tactics for strategic planning that will help improve the outcomes of your business’s CSR activities.

1. Link to company values

Whereas CSR was once seen as a peripheral approach to boosting business performance and legitimacy, today’s best CSR initiatives are squarely brand-aligned and central to operational strategy. 

Connecting CSR to business strategy is increasingly a corporate best practice, as evidenced by the 181 CEO’s from brands like Amazon, Citigroup, and Ford who signed Business Roundtable’s latest Statement of Purpose , indicating a commitment to “ to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders. ”

What it looks like to align your CSR strategy with your brand, core competencies, and operational strategy, will be different for every company.

WarnerMedia’s Access Writers Program is a great example of a CSR initiative that clearly links back to company values: WarnerMedia is a media corporation focused on diverse entertainment whose latest program seeks to improve the access marginalized community members have to professional opportunities in television. 

2. Get insights from your various stakeholders

You’ll want to develop a strategic plan for CSR inspired by what your customers, employees, and community members care about. You might also seek inspiration from what’s worked for other brands already. Here’s how:

Poll your customers

The creation of a CSR strategy is a great excuse to connect with your customer base. Build a short, easy to access poll to collect the following information:

• Which environmental and social issues matter most to your customers?

Design your poll in alignment with your brand. For example, if you sell custom T-shirts, are customers most interested in your sustainability, supply chain, dedication to labor and human rights, or donations to kids in need? Focused questions will lead to more actionable results.

• What do customers know about your current giving and initiatives?  

If you have run programs in the past or currently engage in CSR, how well did you communicate about them? Are your initiatives known for success?

• What associations do customers have with your brand? 

This is a great opportunity to collect data about your business’s image, which you can try to influence in your new CSR strategy.

To help boost participation, consider offering an incentive to customers who complete your poll, such as a discount or entry into a drawing. 

Collect employee feedback 

Your CSR strategy doesn’t move without your employees. Start by determining your employees’ preferences and using that information to help build your overall strategy. 

A survey is a great tool to collect this important information, combining multiple-choice and open-ended questions. 

As an example, for your T-shirt company, you might have employees select between three brand-aligned volunteer opportunities followed by an opportunity for open feedback. This approach will you help you get the targeted data you need and also help employees feel heard and valued. 

Assess community needs

What “community” looks like is unique for every business. Taking time to research and consider what your community needs is a great first step towards building the partnerships your CSR program will need to succeed. 

Community Tool Box offers great suggestions for understanding community needs and resources, with methods that can be combined, depending on the extent of data you’re looking to connect. 

3. Borrow great strategy

Your CSR strategy doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Spend time exploring where other businesses have succeeded in their sustainability, charitable giving, and employee engagement, for example. Don’t worry about being derivative: your strategy will necessarily be unique because your brand is unique and so are the people you care about and listen to.

One way to find brands doing the best CSR is via reports like “ America’s Most Responsible Companies ” from Newsweek and Statista—and congratulations to HP , Cisco , and Dell for top success in three focus areas: environment, social, and corporate governance. 

Harvard Business School’s Baker Library offers a comprehensive list of social responsibility ratings and reports for companies. Of particular interest is Fortune’s “ Change the World ” list—you’ll find PayPal and Zoom in the top 10 for 2020. 

Many companies have aligned their CSR activities in some way with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include issues like poverty, hunger, education, gender equality, and action around climate change. Chevron’s corporate sustainability program , for example, clearly lays out how the company is addressing every SDG, and Target includes an SDG index in their 2020 corporate social responsibility report .

4. Establish internal buy-in

You’ll need your team’s support, enthusiasm, and dedication to make your social responsibility program thrive. Engage employees early in the strategy process by being responsive and inclusive.

Respond to team values

Once you’ve assessed what your employees care about most and where they want the company to focus, put this data to work. 

It probably won’t be possible to incorporate everyone’s feedback in your strategy, but at the very least, share your findings with the group. Your team will enjoy learning about what their colleagues value.

Use the information you’ve collected to identify top areas of interest and common suggestions for your CSR strategy. Try to actively pursue at least one employee-sourced initiative every quarter or fiscal year, with formal plans for addressing additional issues in the future. 

Involve employees in strategy-building

Research shows that shared leadership and employee-empowerment have a number of benefits , including increased team effectiveness, a stronger sense of community, improved employee perceptions of management, higher levels of employee satisfaction, and less burnout. 

That data combined with evidence that corporate social responsibility boosts employee motivation and increases employee engagement makes sharing the planning of your program with staff a natural win-win.

Whether you establish an employee-led committee or include employee representatives in planning sessions, be sure employees are actively engaged and aligned with your CSR visions and values, missions and goals, and on-the-ground initiatives. 

5. Build external partnerships

There’s already good work going on in the communities you’re looking to empower. Seek out the organizations and individuals doing this work early in your CSR strategy development process. 

Many businesses are already reaping the value of partnership-driven CSR. This list from Donorbox offers examples of 14 major brands, including Adidas, IKEA, Apple, and BMW, that have partnered with community nonprofit organizations to better meet their CSR goals.  

Community organizations will have the knowledge and experience to put your brand’s funding, sponsorship, or employee volunteerism, for example, to the best use. As philanthropic leader Edgar Viallanueva recently advised, “ You shouldn’t feel that you need to recreate what’s already in place. Find organizations that have established relationships with grassroots communities and trust them to get the money to the right people. These bridge organizations often have the relationships and trust, but lack sufficient capital.”

Approach community partnerships with humility and take a learning stance—what do partner organizations need most and how can your business help? In addition to deep listening, be sure you’re establishing authentic relationships with partners. Sustainable and equitable partnerships (as opposed to shallow partnerships for the sake of PR) require that community members hold actual decision-making power, especially regarding campaigns that will directly affect them. 

6. Be clear and transparent

Once you’ve tackled brand-alignment, stakeholders’ concerns (including customers, employees, and community members), and partner-driven strategy, it’s time to distill this wealth of information into a clear communication plan.

Get specific about goals and outcomes

Your CSR strategy should be as clear and specific as possible for a few reasons:

• A clear strategy helps keep everyone on the same page
• The more focused your goals are, the easier it will be to assess if you’ve met them 
• Clarity reflects positively on your brand’s commitment to corporate social responsibility, demonstrating rigor and care

Aim for precise language, numbered goals (each communicated in a single sentence if possible), key strategies and initiatives for meeting each goal, and measurement tactics for assessing progress towards each goal. Be sure to include your mission, vision, and partners.

Campbell’s Soup provides a great example of clarity and synthesis in its corporate responsibility strategy—especially this goals chart which lists target objectives alongside current progress displayed numerically and graphically.

Make a communications plan

Your CSR strategy shouldn’t be a secret. Think through how you’ll share this information internally and externally to foster enthusiasm, boost stakeholder engagement, and enhance accountability.

Your CSR strategy should include your plan for regularly and publicly discussing your CSR initiatives—via your website, social media, newsletters, email updates, reports, and even press releases. 

Sharing high-level corporate strategy publicly can help generate interest in your CSR programs. It also indicates transparency and accountability—you’re sharing your plan because you intend to follow through and be accountable.

Use the same principles for sharing your strategy that you will to talk about your active and completed CSR campaigns, including these considerations adapted from the EMG group :

• Objectives: What do you want to accomplish with your CSR communication plan?
• Audience: Who will you communicate with? 
• Subjects and key messages: What will you tell your audience about?
• Timescales: When will you communicate about CSR?
• Channels: Where will you communicate with your audience?
• Feedback: How will your audience be able to engage with you?

7. Learn, respond, and improve

In the world of CSR, there is always room for improvement, because CSR is about people and people are dynamic. Our needs change and so does the world we live in. 

Accordingly, your CSR strategy won’t be complete without a plan for learning, adjustment, and growth—or as Global Giving puts it, the opportunity to “Listen, Act, Learn. Repeat.” 

Plan for reporting and feedback 

Data and feedback collection should be an essential part of your CSR strategy. Don’t wait for an initiative to finish to consider how you’ll assess outcomes—planning ahead will help ensure your whole strategy is aligned with what you hope to achieve and how you’ll demonstrate progress.

You also shouldn’t wait until the end of a campaign to begin your learning process. Establish a timeline for collecting information at regular intervals throughout your initiative.

There are plenty of ways to collect data and feedback, including interviews, surveys and questionnaires, observational data, focus groups, public forums, oral histories, or some combination of these. Plan to use the tools that make the most sense for your CSR initiative. 

Whichever method you choose, be sure your strategy involves connecting with all relevant groups and stakeholders. What results did you achieve among community members and where could you improve? How did employees feel about your CSR program and what suggestions do they have going forward? Were customers interested in your campaign? 

Your plan for measuring CSR performance should include how you’ll collect information and from whom, how you’ll assess the data, how you’ll share your findings, and how you’ll incorporate suggestions for improvement.

Be responsive to learning and to the moment

Your CSR strategy shouldn’t be iron-clad. It should evolve in response to new insight and data. Think of your strategy as a working, living document that can and should continue to improve, even mid-campaign, as necessary. 

Ready to meet the moment with smart CSR?

Submittable’s social impact platform can help you manage initiatives and amplify impact, easily.

As an example, the events of 2020 forced businesses to reconsider their existing CSR programs. Many companies chose to pivot in response to COVID-19 and movements for racial justice. The publicity around these shifts, including critiques of hollow brand statements , underscored the importance for socially responsible companies of clearly linking action (via CSR) to rhetoric.  

According to Mark Horowitz, CEO of Moving Worlds, global events have resulted in a tipping point for CSR , wherein business leaders are making bigger promises without changing operations to support their proposals. More than ever, he argues, companies must respond to the moment and take real action: “The next 10 months will define the CSR space for the next 10 years … CSR leaders within companies have the opportunity to right the position of corporations in society.” 

While it’s vital to stay responsive, be wary of altering key goals and measurement tactics before you’ve had time to accurately assess them. Not only do you open your company up to critique for empty promises, but change doesn’t happen overnight and long-term objectives require longer-term measurement. 

As Neil Buddy Shah, Managing Director at GiveWell, shared in a recent panel on impact data , you risk good ideas failing when organizations run an impact evaluation that is too rigorous too early.

Time for action: Bring your CSR strategy to life

A thoughtful CSR strategy requires time, thought, and teamwork to build. Make the best use of your efforts with tools that help transform your vision into action and results, faster.

CSR software can connect your business to important causes while dramatically reducing the time it takes to oversee your corporate giving program. Manage corporate grants and scholarships, coordinate employee volunteers and giving programs, facilitate community sponsorships, and much more. We’d love to walk you through the platform— sign up for a free demo today. 

Rachel Mindell is a Special Projects Editor at Submittable. She also writes and teaches poetry. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Review together. From anywhere.

Try the trusted submission management platform to collect and review anything, with anyone, from anywhere.

Watch a demo

About Submittable

Submittable powers you with tools to launch, manage, measure and grow your social impact programs, locally and globally. From grants and scholarships to awards and CSR programs, we partner with you so you can start making a difference, fast. The start-to-finish platform makes your workflow smarter and more efficient, leading to better decisions and bigger impact. Easily report on success, and learn for the future—Submittable is flexible and powerful enough to grow alongside your programs.

Submittable is used by more than 11 thousand organizations, from major foundations and corporations to governments, higher education, and more, and has accepted nearly 20 million applications to date.

HOW IT WORKS

Corporate social responsibility (CSR): A one-stop guide

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

What is corporate social responsibility (CSR)? As with most business concepts, corporate social responsibility has several definitions, but these broadly coalesce around some core themes. Investopedia ’s definition of corporate social responsibility is “a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable — to itself, its stakeholders, and the public.” Harvard Business Review  sees CSR’s primary goal as “to align a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values.” At the same time, the European Commission  defines CSR as “the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society.” Diligent's corporate social responsibility definition: CSR is an organization's obligation to act ethically and to the benefit of the community it is a part of and depends on.

Why Have More Companies Become Concerned About Corporate Social Responsibility in Recent Years?

The importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has undoubtedly grown over the last decade. When looking at why CSR is increasingly important, one should consider the impact of CSR on all elements of corporate life. Alongside the altruistic drivers — the growing recognition of the importance of corporate social responsibility to society — organizations acknowledge the importance of corporate social responsibility in business. CSR’s impact on a brand’s image has been evident in recent years, with numerous examples of a company’s supply chain, employment practices and environmental performance having the potential to derail its reputation. So, what is driving this increased significance of corporate social responsibility? CSR encompasses many different strands: environmental governance, ethical concerns, community and employee relations – and the drivers can differ for each of these strands. For instance, pressure from the media and investors in recent years has brought environmental sustainability to the top of the board’s agenda . A more proactive approach to corporate social purpose  may have been driven by a desire to demonstrate a commitment to social purpose to shareholders and believe that this will impart a competitive edge. This can be cited as a key reason why companies engage in corporate social responsibility.

Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility

The growing public awareness of CSR issues has led to an expectation that the companies we spend money with are “doing the right thing” regarding their social citizenship. The value of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is demonstrated when businesses’ approaches mirror their customers’ priorities. All too often, though, there remains a mismatch between public preferences and corporate performance. The Telegraph reports that in 2019, while 59% of consumers expected companies to take a stand on climate and environmental issues, only 16% of business leaders cited CSR as their top three business concerns. When looking at the importance of corporate social responsibility, the other issue to consider is the breadth of CSR and whether, as a term and a concept, it’s specific enough to hone in on the core issues you should be considering. ESG — environmental, social and governance — is a term that is increasingly being used interchangeably with CSR. But strictly speaking, the two are different. Stakeholder intelligence experts Alva sum this up nicely, noting that: “Without CSR, there would be no ESG, but the two are far from interchangeable. While CSR aims to make a business accountable, ESG criteria make its efforts measurable.” In some cases, the potential breadth of issues covered under CSR and the lack of tangible ways to measure CSR efforts have meant that companies’ corporate social responsibility initiatives have failed to achieve their potential. The number of projects that potentially fall under the CSR banner can make it difficult to manage or quantify value. Enter ESG. While ESG encompasses CSR initiatives, it also provides a clear framework, with a growing number of regulatory imperatives — more of which below — around ESG performance and reporting . Will boards’ efforts in the future move away from CSR and towards ESG? We will have to wait and see.

History of Corporate Social Responsibility

Because it has attracted increasing attention in recent years, it might be assumed that corporate social responsibility is a relatively new concept – but the belief that corporations have a responsibility towards society is not new . In fact, it’s possible to trace the history of corporate social responsibility (CSR) back through several centuries, and corporate social responsibility as a phrase has been in use since the 1950s. It’s generally accepted, though, that the basis of what we understand by corporate social responsibility today was created in 1979 when Archie B. Carroll published his “CSR pyramid,” which breaks CSR down into four areas:

• Economic responsibility
• Legal responsibility
• Ethical responsibility
• Philanthropic responsibility

Carroll’s corporate social responsibility theory is that CSR and business are not mutually exclusive but that companies must address their commercial obligations before seeking to meet ethical or philanthropic ones.

CSR Timeline

1953 Howard R Bowen publishes Social Responsibilities of the Businessman, widely viewed as the first book to comprehensively cover business ethics and social responsibility. 1970 American economist Milton Friedman publishes an article titled The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits. The first Earth Day takes place. 1976 Founding members of the “Five Percent Club” – including Dayton Corporation (later Target) and General Mills – commit to using a proportion of their profits for philanthropy. 1984 R. Edward Freeman publishes Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach¸ often considered the point at which CSR became part of mainstream management theory. 1999 The first mainstream sustainable investment indices, The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), are launched. 2000 The United Nations Global Compact , a voluntary initiative based on CEO commitments to implement universal sustainability principles, is launched in front of 44 business CEOs and 20 heads of civil society organizations. 2000 The first full version of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines is released. 2002 The Johannesburg Stock Exchange becomes the world’s first exchange for requiring listed companies to report on sustainability. 2011 The United Nations issues its Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights , a global standard aimed at preventing and addressing human rights abuse risk linked to business activity. 2015 The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) is established to promote climate-related reporting in UK companies’ financial information. 2015 The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are launched, emphasizing the role of business in achieving the global development agenda. 2017 Gender pay gap reporting becomes mandatory for all companies with more than 250 employees in the UK.

Role and Purpose of CSR

CSR is increasingly becoming embedded in management thinking and corporate practice. This begs the question: what is the purpose of corporate social responsibility? Is it something that boards should adopt blindly, without questioning the role of corporate social responsibility within their business? In 2015, Harvard Business Review surveyed 142 managers from Harvard Business School’s CSR executive education program. This research found that “most companies practice a multifaceted version of CSR that runs the gamut from pure philanthropy to environmental sustainability to the active pursuit of shared value.” Therefore, the role and purpose of corporate social responsibility can be a broad concept. The scope of corporate social responsibility within your organization will depend somewhat on your business’s sector, objectives, and potential impact on the environment and society. For your business, a CSR priority may be engaging with your local community and providing practical help or financial support to local causes. Or – particularly if your industry is a historic pollutant – you may prioritize environmental performance, reduce your carbon footprint, and minimize your impact. Or you may choose to focus on an issue that’s relevant to your business; diversity, inclusion, ethical supply chains – and channel your efforts into that. The wide range of themes falling under the CSR umbrella means that you have no shortage of areas to focus your CSR activities.

Challenges Facing CSR

As with all business requirements, particularly those newly adopted or growing in complexity or focus, there are challenges inherent in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. While we’re moving indubitably towards a more CSR-focused business landscape, that doesn’t mean that the road towards CSR is without its bumps.

Key Challenges of Corporate Social Responsibility

1) the ability to deliver clear and transparent reporting.

Transparency around CSR-related matters is key – whether that’s your D&I strategy, your environmental approach or your human rights policy. Shareholders and stakeholders expect you to act on CSR issues and evidence your achievements candidly. In some cases, as with The UK FCA’s requirements around TCFD , this is mandated in your formal financial reporting. Increasing numbers of companies will face the challenge of delivering clear, comprehensive reporting on CSR (and wider ESG) objectives as pressure grows to document and communicate their performance.

2) A need To Define Clear Priorities and Goals

This is one of the key challenges facing corporate social responsibility strategies. Long before they can report on their successes, organizations need to identify what CSR means and how they will prioritize key actions. There are so many aspects of corporate social responsibility that this is very much an individual question for each business. There can be dissent over the focus of efforts, even within organizations.

3) Stakeholder Pressure

Sometimes, areas of focus are informed by pressure from investors and other stakeholders. Increasingly, a company’s position on CSR and ESG is a critical factor in investor decisions and customer choices. As reporting grows ever-more comprehensive, mandated and publicized, it will become easier for potential investors and buyers to make decisions based on CSR performance. Companies will face growing pressure to meet and report on their objectives.

4) Measurement of CSR Activity

When CSR began as a “nice to do,” there was less imperative to have clear and comparable measures of performance. Today, boards need not only track their performance against the CSR objectives they have set but to compare themselves to their peers and competitors. But accurate information on your own and others’ performance can be hard to pinpoint, especially in areas like executive pay, where companies can closely guard their data. Accessing centralized, consistent and reliable data can be a crucial challenge for companies wanting to measure and track their CSR efforts.

5) Making the Connection Between CSR, Value and Profitability

Businesses may adopt and expedite CSR strategies due to a genuine desire to improve their social purpose. Still, the ability to achieve “social capital” from their achievements cannot be overlooked. Communicating your ESG strategy to investors and other stakeholders, from the value of current initiatives to the potential of new opportunities, will help to realize the advantages of corporate social responsibility strategies. The effort and cost of monitoring performance across business functions, and the work involved in translating this into business metrics, can be a challenge if you are operating without an integrated approach across all your CSR and ESG programs.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Corporate Social Responsibility

It would be easy to imagine that there are only positives associated with CSR; advocates of corporate social responsibility argue that it only has upsides. But as with any business strategy, there are many aspects of corporate social responsibility. Each brings implications in terms of resource, cost and other considerations that companies should be alive to. There are arguments for and against corporate social responsibility adoption.

3 Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies

1) improved profitability and value.

This should be one of the most welcome advantages of corporate social responsibility from the business’s perspective. Reducing waste and increasing energy efficiency doesn’t just improve the environment and your CSR credentials; it should also deliver a reduction in your costs. Therefore, there are direct benefits to CSR adoption in addition to the obvious altruistic and reputational ones. As well as lower costs, there are opportunities for greater profits. Customers proactively support businesses that share positive CSR and ESG approaches — and are prepared to pay a premium for doing so. Research from Tilburg University in the Netherlands found that consumers are ready to pay an additional 10% for products they deem socially responsible; there are clear commercial benefits of a more socially responsible strategy. 2) Improved investor relations As your CSR performance becomes known, you should enjoy improved access to capital, as investors are increasingly confident in your business. Shareholder pressure around companies and corporate social responsibility increase constantly; the expectation that corporates will adopt socially responsible policies is well-documented. It stands to reason that if you’re ahead of the game here, you will have a more harmonious relationship with all your stakeholders.

3) Ease of compliance with CSR-focused regulatory requirements

As we mentioned above, CSR and ESG are increasingly in the spotlight regarding corporate reporting. Compliance with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures reporting requirements, for instance, will soon be mandatory in the UK and is encouraged elsewhere. A proactive CSR approach will give you a strong story to share and enable you to comply with requirements around CSR reporting. But it’s important not to downplay the challenges of implementing a CSR strategy.

4 Common Arguments Against Corporate Social Responsibility

1) the cost and challenges of implementation.

There’s no getting over that CSR costs money. CSR and wider ESG reporting require dedicated focus, demanding resources and budget. Risk-assessing your CSR approach takes time and can be a challenge. Many boards lack full oversight of the issues they need to consider — the risks faced, the board and senior team’s composition, any conflicts of interests. Once organizations identify their priorities, they need to operationalize their CSR goals, turning insights into a roadmap for action. While there are tools that can make this easier, businesses shouldn’t underestimate the time and money that an effective CSR strategy entails. For smaller organizations particularly, the resources needed can be a barrier to CSR.

2) The Fear of Opening the Organization To Scrutiny

There can also be a fear of “opening the doors” on CSR, inviting inspection of the company’s ethics, supply chain, environmental performance and philanthropy. CSR is a bit of a double-edged sword, in the sense that organizations need to promote their CSR activity to gain public approbation for it — but in doing so, open themselves up to criticism of their approach. Any communication of your achievements on corporate social responsibility emphasizes the work yet to be done. Companies may wonder whether the potential reputational damage from negative publicity around CSR is worth the work involved in devising and publicizing a corporate social responsibility strategy. Amplifying this, shareholders, stakeholders and consumers are increasingly alive to the concept of “greenwashing,” the practice of overstating environmental or other ethical credentials. An organization needs to ensure its CSR reporting is comprehensive, honest and frank about any shortcomings to avoid it being questioned and discredited.

3) Conflicting Priorities and Objectives

We talked above about the cost of implementing new corporate social responsibility approaches. Any company with shareholders has a fiduciary duty to those shareholders to maximize the company’s profits, and the CEOs of commercial enterprises tend to be tasked with improving the company’s financial performance. You could argue that corporate social responsibility and business objectives are diametrically opposed, that CSR conflicts with the fiduciary duty and CEO role by intentionally introducing costs into the business and reducing profits. Alongside the inherent costs of reporting, CSR can increase costs by requiring ethical supply chains, potentially putting companies that practice it at a commercial disadvantage. There is, then, an argument that CSR creates a conflict of interest between commercial and altruistic imperatives.

4) Limitations of CSR

As we mentioned above, CSR has limitations; its broad definition can make it difficult to put boundaries around what falls under the CSR remit. As a result, it can be hard to create a clear plan to tackle CSR: where do you focus? This can also make CSR achievements difficult to quantify. These limitations may, for some organizations, provide an excuse to avoid CSR altogether; it falls into the “too difficult” or “too vague” pile and is overlooked in favor of more tangible strategies. While it’s clear, then, that for boards, the benefits of pursuing a strategy of social responsibility and corporate citizenship are self-evident, there are considerations that need to be born in mind as well.

Corporate Social Responsibility Best Practices

For any organization aiming for good corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, there are some recognized best practices to follow. Corporate social responsibility practices might vary from business to business, but some best practices should be universal.

Identify Your Corporate Values and Purpose

There are currently few regulatory imperatives specifically related to CSR. As a result, organizations are fairly free to decide on their own path and priorities based on their own views on the merits of corporate social responsibility. A first step might be to set some priorities, ensuring that these are in line with the things that matter to your key stakeholders — investors, customers, employees and anyone impacted by your business operations. In some cases, priorities might be obvious; if your company is a historic polluter, objectives relating to greener performance seem sensible. For other businesses, there isn’t such a direct link between CSR issues and their operations; these organizations have a freer rein when it comes to choosing issues or causes to align with.

Allocate Corporate Social Responsibility Roles and Responsibilities

It’s important to make people answerable for your CSR strategy; this will create accountability and focus attention on your aims. It’s important to make people answerable for your CSR strategy; this will create accountability and focus attention on your aims.

Depending on your organization’s size, this might be a dedicated CSR team, or it might simply mean giving key members of your leadership team-specific CSR responsibilities. It’s essential that your board and senior executives have an overview of corporate social responsibility within the business, but equally vital that responsibility should disseminate throughout the organization. Employees at all levels should have ownership of your approach to CSR and know that they play a key part. Creating a group of “champions” who can drive the CSR message throughout the organization can help here – but ultimately, the buck should stop with specific individuals who are given responsibility for achieving your goals.

Take a Business-Wide Approach

Ad-hoc or unfocused activity, while well-intentioned, won’t cut it when it comes to your corporate approach to social responsibility. One of the merits of corporate social responsibility is exactly that; that it's corporate. You should focus on harnessing the scale of your organization to create an approach that delivers more than a series of disconnected initiatives.

Communicate Internally and Externally

Shouting about your approach is essential for CSR — both to engender internal buy-in and achieve the reputational benefits of tackling your social obligations. Communicate openly and honestly about your aims and, importantly, any room for improvement. Equally important: celebrate your successes — don’t be afraid to share any achievements. And be generous with your learnings; CSR, by its very nature, should be for the greater good. If you can join any sector or cross-industry CSR groups to share approaches taken and lessons learned, do.

Benchmark Your Performance

It’s important to measure and compare your performance on CSR both internally between departments and externally with other organizations. There are some external ratings — third-party ”risk scores,” particularly for the ESG elements of CSR — which investors use to assess a company’s initiatives. You will also want to put in place your own monitoring, something that can be a challenge if your CSR data isn’t on point.

Corporate Social Responsibility Plan/Strategy

We touched in the previous section on the need for strategic corporate social responsibility and  an organized, orderly approach  rather than one comprised of disparate initiatives. What should make up this corporate social responsibility plan? CSR plans should encompass all the best practice steps outlined above, adapting them as needed to fit your organization’s circumstances. Defining your values and purpose; creating a plan that fits with your business’s core competencies; identifying the issues of importance to your stakeholders; communicating your aims and progress, and measuring and reporting on the impact of your efforts — your plan will need to include all these elements. Pursuing a strategy of social responsibility and good corporate practice needs to deliver evidence in terms of its ROI. The issue of reporting on your CSR progress deserves more exploration, so we look at that in more detail in the next section.

What is a corporate social responsibility report? It’s a formal report that evaluates the impact of your company's operations on the external community and environment. The format of your corporate social responsibility reporting may vary depending on whether it’s being produced for internal use or external scrutiny. CSR reporting might include an assessment of your organization’s economic, environmental, and/or social impacts, depending on the company’s area of operations and areas of CSR focus. Any corporate social responsibility audit you carry out will provide data on your performance against your stated objectives. The reporting is valuable internally in enabling you to measure the effectiveness of your CSR strategy and identify future priorities, and externally, in presenting your CSR credentials, aims and achievements to the world. Increasingly, some elements of CSR reporting are mandated by regulation, as with the TCFD reporting requirements we detailed earlier. We are likely to see CSR and ESG reporting becoming more of a regulatory imperative and less of a “nice to have” over time.

Corporate Social Responsibility Policies

Your corporate social responsibility policy is where you set your stall out. Examples of corporate social responsibility policies will differ between organizations, but as a general rule of thumb, your CSR policy should include: Your purpose: your CSR objectives and values. The scope of your CSR strategy — what does it encompass? The elements of your approach and the way you plan to tackle them. This might include a description of the social or environmental issue you are focusing on and the steps you will take. You may want to differentiate your regulatory obligations and any measures you choose to take proactively.

Corporate Social Responsibility Regulations and Compliance

Although it’s sometimes believed that the concept of corporate social responsibility is imposed on corporations by law, generally, this isn’t the case. Instead, it’s external pressures and the organization’s own ethical standards that set expectations around CSR. Legislation and expectations around corporate social responsibility vary by jurisdiction. Still, there is a consensus that it should be self-policed, an approach proactively led by organizations themselves, rather than something prescribed by regulation. Corporate social responsibility compliance, therefore, is something self-imposed rather than externally mandated. Investopedia describes CSR as “a self-regulating business model.” Similarly, the European Commission agrees that “it should be company led,” arguing that “EU citizens rightly expect that companies understand their positive and negative impacts on society and the environment. And, therefore, prevent, manage and mitigate any negative impact that they may cause.” This expectation isn’t confined to Europe; Forbes , describing CSR in the US, says that while CSR ‘”is a form of soft law” and “not required by US statute or regulations,” it is nonetheless “seen as obligatory by most corporations because of consumer expectations and internal norms.” The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures encourages climate-focused reporting in companies’ financial filings, and in the UK, the financial regulator the FCA now requires that companies with premium listings on the London Stock Exchange include a statement in their annual financial report setting out whether their disclosures are consistent with TCFD recommendations and adding an explanation if they are not.

CSR Theories and Models

Many different theories underlie the development and concept of corporate social responsibility.

Milton Friedman

In 1970, American economist Milton Friedman published an essay, The Social Responsibility of Business Is To Increase Its Profits , in the New York Times. In it, Friedman set out his belief that profit must be a priority and a precursor to any social responsibility, stating that: “There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud." Friedman’s belief, also known as the shareholder theory of corporate social responsibility, underpins many theories around corporate social responsibility.

Carroll and the Corporate Social Responsibility Pyramid

In 1979, Archie Carroll devised a four-part model of CSR: the pyramid of corporate social responsibility. The four components of the pyramid of corporate social responsibility are economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility and philanthropic responsibility. True CSR, Carroll posits, requires satisfying all four parts consecutively, stating that “CSR encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic expectations placed on organizations by society at a given point in time.” Carroll believes that profit must come first; the base of the corporate social responsibility pyramid is concerned with economic success. Then comes the need to comply with relevant laws and regulations. The fourth layer of the pyramid is the need for an organization to meet its ethical duties. Then, after these three requirements are satisfied, a business can consider philanthropy.

Gray, Owens and Adams

In 1996, Carol Adams, Rob Gray and Dave Owen published Accounting & Accountability: Changes and Challenges in Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting. They present CSR approaches on a continuum, with “pristine capitalists” at one end and “deep ecologists” at the other, and all points in between representing the position of different stakeholders within an organization.

Benedict Sheehy

More recently, Sheehy, an associate professor at the University of Canberra, has become recognized as an expert on CSR, publishing research into the use of the law to “achieve long term environmental and social sustainability.” When determining their organization’s approach to CSR, boards may want to consider any or all of these theories to arrive at a CSR strategy that fulfills their corporate obligations as well as their social responsibilities.

Limitations in CSR Approaches

When boards consider how to tackle corporate social responsibility, there’s clearly much to think about. Among decisions on priorities and approaches, it’s important to consider both the importance of corporate social responsibility and its limits. We touched above on some of CSR’s limitations — particularly, the challenges of defining corporate social responsibility and finding tangible ways to measure any CSR strategy's success. The fact that social responsibility should be tailored to each business’s own activity and priorities is not only one of its strengths but can also be its weakness, making definitions and comparisons difficult. Today’s boards really need to consider ESG — which includes CSR within its auspices — rather than CSR alone. By tackling CSR within an ESG framework, it can be easier to set strategies, pinpoint specific actions, and prescribe success measures. But delivering on your ESG goals is not without its challenges. Data is the foundation on which your ESG approach is built , informing your objectives, providing the baseline for your achievements and enabling you to operationalize your ESG commitments. Many businesses, though, struggle to capture this data, leaving them in the dark when it comes to setting goals, monitoring progress and quantifying the impact of their initiatives. As a result, they are unable to capitalize on their ESG strategies’ ability to drive long-term growth and profitability. Diligent’s  ESG Solutions  are designed to help board members and executives establish clear ESG goals and operationalize them throughout the organization to ensure that every commitment leads to a measurable and enduring outcome. Take the next ESG step by creating a robust action plan to achieve and measure your goals.

Solutions Solutions

• Board Management
• Enterprise Risk Management
• Audit Management
• Market Intelligence

Resources Resources

• Research & Reports

Company Company

Your data matters.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Corporate social responsibility

• Business management
• Corporate governance
• Business structures

Collaborating with Congregations: Opportunities for Financial Services in the Inner City

• Larry Fondation
• Peter Tufano
• Patricia H. Walker
• From the July–August 1999 Issue

Gathering Green Data: Tools and Tips

• Andrew Winston
• December 03, 2009

The Drucker Forum: Three Messages for Managers

• Elizabeth Haas Edersheim
• December 09, 2009

Companies that Practice “Conscious Capitalism” Perform 10x Better

• Tony Schwartz
• April 04, 2013

A Question of Character

• Suzy Wetlaufer
• From the September–October 1999 Issue

Unifying Your Company Around a Moral Goal

• Ranjay Gulati
• November 22, 2023

Climate Change Is Going to Transform Where and How We Build

• John D. Macomber
• October 16, 2019

How PayPal Gets Employees Invested in Innovation

• Gerry Tsoukalas
• July 12, 2022

From Starbucks to Nike, Business Asks for Green Legislation

• Mindy S. Lubber
• December 05, 2008

Copenhagen: Why the U.S. Should Build a Green City

• Mark Johnson and Josh Suskewicz

Ethics in Practice

• Kenneth R. Andrews
• From the September–October 1989 Issue

What 1,000 CEOs Really Think About Climate Change and Inequality

• September 24, 2019

A Swedish Burger Chain Says "Minimize Me"

• June 30, 2011

Trump's Climate Rollback Will Hurt the Economy, Not Help It

• March 29, 2017

Philanthropy’s New Agenda: Creating Value

• Michael E. Porter
• Mark R. Kramer
• From the November–December 1999 Issue

Shareholders Are Pressing for Climate Risk Disclosures. That's Good for Everyone.

• Caroline Flammer
• Michael W. Toffel
• Kala Viswanathan
• April 22, 2021

The CEO of Sodexo on Building More-Sustainable Food Systems

• Sophie Bellon
• From the July–August 2024 Issue

Is Germany a Model for Managers?

• Kirsten S. Wever
• Christopher S. Allen
• From the September–October 1992 Issue

Bringing the Environment Down to Earth

• Forest L. Reinhardt

Is the End of GE Capital Good News for Ecomagination?

• April 22, 2015

BRAC and Aarong Commercial Brands

• John A. Quelch
• Nathalie Laidler
• August 01, 2003

Coal, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Oil, or Renewable: Which Type of Power Plant Should We Build?

• Gary Clendenen
• Paul W. Thurston
• Stephen Kidwell
• January 15, 2010

Microsoft's Unlimited Potential (B)

• V. Kasturi Rangan
• August 13, 2008

Against the Grain: Jim Teague in Tanzania (A)

• Karthik Ramanna
• March 28, 2012

Sensormatic Electronics Corp.--1995

• Krishna G. Palepu
• James Jinho Chang
• March 21, 1997

GROWING PAINS: Entrepreneurship in a State-Controlled Economy

• Yuliya V. Ivanova
• July 15, 2010

Abbott and the AIDS Crisis (B)

• Pat Werhane
• February 29, 2008
• Baleji S. Chakravarthy
• July 09, 1997

Cherkizovsky Group (B)

• Lynn Sharp Paine
• Harold F. Hogan Jr.
• February 10, 1999

Evolve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow

• Rosabeth Moss Kanter
• March 01, 2001

SunnyBee (B4): Digital Innovation

• Jennifer Ellis
• Ruben Mancha
• January 01, 2018

New Life: Scaling Up Social Enterprise Start-Ups

• Gilbert Wong
• Penelope Chan
• July 03, 2009

Note on Innovations in Philanthropy

• J. Gregory Dees
• Karen Jacobson
• December 01, 2000

Goldfinger: Charles W. Engelhard Jr. and Apartheid-era South Africa

• Geoffrey G. Jones
• Elliot R. Benton
• June 03, 2013

Navigating Emission Reductions through Competition or Collaboration? Maersk in Uncharted Waters

• Andrew Hoffman
• April 23, 2020

Danone: Adopting Integrated Reporting or Not? (B)

• Diane-Laure Arjalies
• Michelle Rodrigue
• Delphine Gibassier
• November 26, 2018

Fe y Alegria: One or Many?

• Rosa Amelia Gonzalez
• March 01, 2008

Integrated Packaging Corp.: Struggling to Do the Right Thing (C)

• Herman B. Leonard
• Orson Watson
• October 11, 2006

The Pebble Mine (B): Alaska's U.S. Senator

• Alan Krause
• Lisa Johnson
• April 04, 2016

University of Trent

• Regina E. Herzlinger
• June 01, 1977

The Connection Between Competitive Advantage and Social Issues

• January 01, 2011

How Shared Value Differs From Corporate Social Responsibility

Popular topics, partner center.

Advertisement

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Implementation: A Review and a Research Agenda Towards an Integrative Framework

• Review Paper
• Published: 02 February 2022
• Volume 183 , pages 105–121, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Tahniyath Fatima   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2383-3390 1 &
• Said Elbanna   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5891-8258 1  

104k Accesses

149 Citations

2 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

In spite of accruing concerted scholarly and managerial interest since the 1950s in corporate social responsibility (CSR), its implementation is still a growing topic as most of it remains academically unexplored. As CSR continues to establish a stronger foothold in organizational strategies, understanding its implementation is needed for both academia and industry. In an attempt to respond to this need, we carry out a systematic review of 122 empirical studies on CSR implementation to provide a status quo of the literature and inform future scholars. We develop a research agenda in the form of an integrated framework of CSR implementation that pronounces its multi-dimensional and multi-level nature and provides a snapshot of the current literature status of CSR implementation. Future research avenues relating to multi-level studies, theoretically supported research models, developing economy settings, and more are recommended. Practitioners can also benefit through utilizing the holistic framework to attain a bird’s eye view and proactively formulate and implement CSR strategies that can be facilitated by collaborations with CSR scholars and experts.

Similar content being viewed by others

Corporate Social Responsibility in Construction: A Critical Review on Research

From Ideas to Impacts: CSR in the Eyes of Top Managers in Poland

A Systematic Review on Corporate Social Responsibility Literature in the Middle East: Conceptual Gaps and Challenges

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Advocates of corporate social responsibility (hereafter referred to as CSR) propose devising and implementing CSR strategies as an opportunity for organizations. When CSR is looked at from a strategic perspective, it emanates from top management’s vision and values and is not considered an expense but a strategic initiative readily adopted by organizations to differentiate themselves from their competition (Beji et al., 2021 ; Porter & Kramer, 2006 ; Serra-Cantallops et al., 2018 ). The organization’s ulterior motive to receive something in return for going out of its way to do better for the direct and indirect stakeholders indicates extrinsic CSR practices, i.e., strategic CSR (Story & Neves, 2015 ). Currently, CSR is predominantly being viewed as a strategic issue (Zerbini, 2017 ), and such a strategic interest of organizations towards CSR needs to be addressed by scholars when we take into consideration the significant time and resources invested in implementing CSR strategically within the organization (Bansal et al., 2015 ). While CSR has been under the limelight in the academic as well as the industrial sectors since the 1950s, its implementation, however, had not received as much attention (Klettner et al., 2014 ). Furthermore, implementation of CSR like any other strategy implementation is of crucial importance to ensure the successful attainment of one’s goals. Accordingly, an increasing number of academicians, over the past decade, have started focusing on how CSR is implemented in organizations, thereby paving a way for future research (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Du & Vieira, 2012 ).

CSR implementation as indicated by Lindgreen, Swaen, et al. ( 2009 ) is a budding field of research and has seen profound growth since they called attention to it in the special issue of Journal of Business Ethics. Although, various empirical papers have proposed CSR implementation frameworks to assist practitioners in implementing and formulating CSR strategies (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Ingham & Havard, 2017 ; Lindgreen et al., 2011 ), none of the review studies exclusively looked at CSR implementation from a multi-level and a multi-dimensional perspective. In this study, we define CSR implementation as the process that an organization undertakes to increase the awareness levels of CSR issues and CSR strategies, embed CSR values within the organization, communicate CSR initiatives internally and externally, and evaluate the progress of CSR strategies. The very few scholars who have produced reviews on CSR implementation look at specific dimensions of CSR implementation such as communication (Crane & Glozer, 2016 ) or ways of CSR implementation such as CSR washing (Pope & Wæraas, 2016 ). Therefore, conducting a review such as ours at this stage would allow researchers to attain a better idea on the overall progress of research in CSR implementation literature and provide a clearer perspective on future prospects, thereby filling in an important knowledge gap. In regard to facilitating this main research objective, this review paper proposes an integrative framework for CSR implementation and answers the call for a two-stage systematic review on CSR implementation (Lattemann et al., 2009 ; Lindgreen & Swaen, 2010 ). Hence, through the integrative framework, we illustrate what has been done in CSR implementation literature and how can it be enhanced further.

This review study is guided by three developments: (1) the growing amount of time and efforts organizations are putting in towards implementing CSR, (2) an upsurge in organizations’ interests towards strategic CSR, and (3) recognition among CSR scholars of the need to understand how strategies are implemented (Elbanna et al., 2016 ). The structure of this review study is as follows: “ Defining CSR Implementation ” section begins with the theoretical development of the constructs under study and is followed by “ Review Methodology ” section on methodology that outlines the steps taken to initiate the systematic review and sets the stage for this review study. “ Trends in CSR Implementation Research ” section proceeds to discuss the trends discovered through descriptively analyzing the sampled studies. It also portrays the findings of reviewing the CSR implementation literature in six established categories, namely, level of analysis, research methods, theories being used, geographical focus, journal distribution with years of publication, and time lapse of CSR implementation topics. “ Thematic Analysis: An Integrative Framework of CSR Implementation ” section introduces an integrative CSR implementation framework that thematically distributes the CSR implementation literature and proposes a future research agenda. We conclude with “ Conclusion ” section that provides a summarized overview on theoretical and practical implications of this study.

Defining CSR Implementation

The first step of a systematic review entertains a repetitive process of defining, clarifying, and refining (Tranfield et al., 2003 ). As such, we scoured the CSR implementation literature to find any existing conceptual definitions that can support our review process. In our search for what it means to implement CSR, we found two empirical studies which developed CSR implementation frameworks. We used these studies as the foundation to build our own CSR implementation definition, which is supported with the theory of business citizenship as discussed later in this section. The first study was carried out by Maon et al. ( 2009 ), where a nine-stage integrative framework was developed, based on data collected from case studies and theoretically grounded on Lewin’s change model. The second study of Baumann-Pauly et al. ( 2013 ) regarded the process nature of CSR implementation construct, but generalized it into three separate dimensions; (1) commitment to CSR, (2) internal structures and procedures, and (3) external collaboration. Accordingly, these two frameworks were analyzed to procure specific lenses that can entail a better understanding of CSR implementation process. This phase contributed towards attaining richer and micro-level insights on CSR implementation. In addition, we theoretically based our dimensions of CSR implementation on the theory of business citizenship proposed by Logsdon and Wood ( 2002 ). This theory looks into the ethical, social, and political issues surrounding organizations. According to this theory, an organization can be viewed as a citizen such that there exists moral and structural ties among business organizations, humans, and social institutions where social control is exercised by the society on organizations, thereby protecting and enhancing public welfare and private interests.

As such, we identified four distinct dimensions of CSR implementation that concisely portray the CSR implementation process outlined in the two frameworks proposed by Maon et al. ( 2009 ) and Baumann-Pauly et al. ( 2013 ) and are based on the theory of business citizenship that views a corporation as a citizen, where the responsibilities associated with such citizenship towards society and environment come into play. According to Maon et al. ( 2009 ), CSR design and implementation constitute of nine steps. These are (1) raising CSR awareness, (2) assessing organizational purpose in a societal context, (3) establishing a CSR definition and vision, (4) assessing current status of CSR, (5) developing a CSR strategy, (6) implementing the CSR strategy, (7) communicating about CSR strategy, (8) evaluating CSR strategy, and (9) institutionalizing CSR policy. However, Baumann-Pauly et al. ( 2013 ) consider CSR implementation to comprise three dimensions, namely, commitment to CSR, embedding CSR, and external collaboration.

Of the nine steps proposed by Maon et al. ( 2009 ), we considered steps 1 (raising CSR awareness), 5 (embedding CSR), 6 (implementing CSR activities), 7 (communicating about CSR), and 8 (evaluating CSR) for inclusion in CSR implementation. It is worth noting that though step 5 dealt with formulating CSR strategy, a sub-part of this step (5.2) constituted of embedding CSR in the organization, which is also proposed as a CSR implementation dimension by Baumann-Pauly et al. ( 2013 ). Hence, we included step 5 in our typology of CSR implementation dimensions. Similarly, the commitment to CSR dimension proposed by Baumann-Pauly et al. ( 2013 ) takes into consideration the awareness that organizational members show towards CSR as included in step 1 of Maon et al. ( 2009 ). Although, CSR evaluation (step 8) is primarily not a constituent of strategy implementation process, scholars have begun to indicate its importance in the implementation process, where managers monitor strategy progress and take relevant steps for further improvements in CSR implementation (Graafland & Smid, 2019 ; Laguir et al., 2019 ; Rama et al., 2009 ). Steps 2, 3, and 4 are not considered in this study as they represent a part of CSR design, while step 9 identifies with post-implementation. Hence, the four dimensions relate to the need for an organization to accrue sufficient (1) CSR awareness which manifests itself in the form of organization’s commitment to CSR through (2) communicating and (3) embedding CSR , and placing systematic processes in place to (4) evaluate CSR . Overall, these dimensions entail interactions with various external stakeholders and are not restricted to interorganizational dynamics (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ).

CSR awareness includes the act of raising sensitivity of an organization and its members towards CSR issues, where it may be initiated by managers (top-down approach) or employees (bottom-up approach) for strategic or altruistic reasons and includes commitment to CSR through integrating it into policy documents (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Maon et al., 2009 ). Further, CSR communication is directed towards both internal and external stakeholders, where the means or nature of communication and its content need to be identified (Maon et al., 2009 ). The different ways of communication include meetings, corporate internal newsletters, and trainings for internal stakeholders such as employees and board members, while the social and environmental performance of an organization may be disclosed in the form of annual reports or CSR reports and advertisements to external stakeholders.

Embedding CSR entails instilling CSR values among organizational members using tools such as CSR policies, procedures, mission, and vision to reinforce a CSR compliant behavior in operational functions (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Maon et al., 2009 ). Lastly, CSR evaluation includes the measurement of how well the CSR objectives have been met, monitoring the progress of these CSR objectives, and exploring ways to improve CSR performance (Maon et al., 2009 ).

Review Methodology

We utilized a systematic literature approach to accomplish our research goal of surveying the literature on CSR implementation. Systematic reviews are commonly used to ensure transparency and replicability in the review process (Hossain, 2018 ). Given that it is imperative to outline the scope of one’s search prior to ensuing the data collection process (George et al., 2019 ; Tranfield et al., 2003 ), we restricted our range to any research study that exclusively focused on the concept of CSR implementation or its four dimensions, namely, CSR awareness, CSR communication, CSR embedding, and CSR evaluation. The concept of CSR has taken various titular forms in literature, where overlapping constructs like corporate sustainability, corporate social performance, and corporate citizenship have been proposed and are now interchangeably used by researchers (Albinger & Freeman, 2000 ; Evans & Davis, 2014 ; Matten & Crane, 2005 ; Pedersen et al., 2018 ; Wood, 1991 ). However, the terminology of CSR had been most widely used by researchers (Matten & Crane, 2005 ), and as such is adopted in this study. Furthermore, we do not include research examining the concept of sustainability or corporate sustainability as it is an overarching concept that incorporates two different topics of CSR and corporate responsibility (see Fig.  1 ). As such, CSR acts as an intermediary tool that examines the efforts of organizations aimed at balancing the triple bottom line (van Marrewijk, 2003 ).

Mapping of corporate sustainability, CSR, and corporate responsibility (adapted from van Marrewijk, 2003 )

Three databases, namely, EBSCO, Science Direct, and ABI/Inform (ProQuest), were searched with the following set of keywords: “CSR awareness,” “CSR implementation,” “CSR sensitiveness,” “commitment to CSR,” “CSR integration,” “initiating CSR,” “CSR issues,” “CSR communication,” “CSR disclosure,” “CSR report,” “CSR value,” “embedding CSR,” “CSR policies,” “CSR procedure,” “CSR vision,” “CSR mission,” “evaluating CSR,” and “monitoring CSR.” We also took into account different occurrences of the keywords such as “implementing CSR,” “sensitivity to CSR,” and “CSR policy.” Further, our inclusion criteria did not include any time restriction as this would have limited our analysis and inferences of understanding the literature conducted so far on CSR implementation. However, in order to ensure quality of our findings and development of a relevant agenda for future research, we included peer-reviewed journal articles that were published in journals with a rating of at least B and above as per the 2019 ABDC ranking and 3 and above for the 2021 AJG ranking (Hoque, 2014 ). Imposition of the above strict criteria led to collection of 168 research articles. These papers were further analyzed to assess if the focus of their study was related to our research objective. Thus, the selection of the studies was contingent on the main topic of the study in question being either CSR implementation or one of the four dimensions (CSR awareness, CSR communication, CSR embedding, and CSR evaluation). In applying this criteria, we were able to shortlist 140 research studies.

Of the total 140 identified studies, we analyzed the nature of their research and found 18 papers were theoretical in nature. One of the theoretical papers was an editorial and was excluded. The remaining 122 empirical studies Footnote 1 are considered for further review, while the 17 theoretical papers are used to supplement the analysis and findings attained from this systematic review. We now discuss the findings attained from conducting our two-staged narrative synthesis analysis that provides the reader with a descriptive and thematic outlook of CSR implementation literature. In utilizing a narrative synthesis approach, we are able to efficiently provide a narrative on the CSR implementation literature through the use of statistical data (Popay et al., 2006 ). The first stage detailed in Sect.  Trends in CSR Implementation Research analyzes the entire empirical literature descriptively (123 studies) and discusses the underlying trends on the basis of the (1) level of analysis, (2) research methods, (3) theories being used, (4) geographical focus, (5) journal distribution with years of publication, and (6) time lapse of CSR implementation topics. The second stage brings a more nuanced understanding of the empirical literature where the literature is analyzed with respect to a comprehensive outlook of CSR implementation in Sect.  Thematic Analysis: An Integrative Framework of CSR Implementation .

Trends in CSR Implementation Research

Upon analyzing the empirical literature on CSR implementation, we were able to make several inferences that would shed light on research gaps not yet covered in the CSR implementation literature. We followed established review studies in CSR literature (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012 ; Pisani et al., 2017 ) and focused on six aspects to attain a general purview of CSR implementation research conducted to date. First, with respect to the level of analysis , CSR implementation literature, unlike the general CSR literature, does not seem to suffer from lack of focus on individual-level research. However, majority of the empirical research conducted on CSR implementation is at the firm level (refer to Table 1 ). In addition to that, multi-level studies are quite rare with only 8 papers analyzing CSR implementation at multiple levels, e.g., a combination of individual, firm, institutional, industry, and country levels with a combination of at most three levels (Ettinger et al., 2021 ; Helmig et al., 2016 ; Lattemann et al., 2009 ; Lindgreen, Antioco, et al., 2009 a; Lu & Wang, 2021 ; Pomering & Dolnicar, 2009 ; Shen & Benson, 2016 ; Zamir & Saeed, 2020 ). In spite of acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of CSR implementation (Lindgreen, Swaen, et al., 2009 b), majority of the scholars have failed to conceptualize and operationalize CSR implementation at a multi-dimensional basis. Accordingly, future research needs to take into consideration the multi-dimensional nature of CSR implementation and conduct scientific research that is not limited to a single level of analysis. Other empirical studies looked at various levels of analyses such as advertisement level (Green & Peloza, 2015 ), project level (Rama et al., 2009 ), activity level (Jong & Meer, 2017 ), and interaction level (Muthuri et al., 2009 ).

Second, the CSR implementation literature uses a wide variety of research methods . 36% of the research studies used qualitative research methods, 53% used quantitative methods, and only 11% of the studies have used mixed methods. The use of qualitative methods can be explained by the exploratory nature of the studies, which accounted for 49% of the empirical research, while a majority of 51% studies were explanatory in nature. However, given the growing adoption of CSR by different organizations across industries and countries, scholars have delved into examining implementation of CSR from a more explanatory nature as the trend line shows in Fig.  2 . Further, scholars can utilize mixed method studies in future to attain an insightful and a holistic empirical understanding of their research topic. This would allow the research findings to have both theoretical and geographical validity.

Trend of CSR implementation studies’ nature

Third, the theoretical underpinning of research on CSR implementation is still emergent, where a considerable proportion of the empirical literature, approximately 45%, was missing a theoretical foundation. Having a proper theory is quite essential to easily illustrate complex concepts (Frynas & Yamahaki, 2016 ), thereby indicating scope for future research to have richer theoretical support. Of the remaining 67 research studies that had theoretical support (54% of total empirical literature), a considerable proportion of research (42%) resorted to the use of multiple theories to substantiate their proposed frameworks. The most commonly used theory was stakeholder theory inclusive of its use in research studies with multiple theories (28%, 19 out of 67 papers) (e.g., Ettinger et al., 2018 ; Lindgreen et al., 2011 ; Park & Ghauri, 2015 ; Zheng et al., 2015 ). Lastly, as depicted in Fig.  3 , the remaining 31 research studies (46%) used a diverse range of theories from other disciplines like psychology (theory of planned behavior, balance theory, attribution theory, and social identity theory), communications (diffusion theory, inoculation theory), sociology (systems theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory), and biology (signaling theory).

Theoretical orientations in CSR implementation literature

Fourth, in terms of geographical locations being studied, majority of empirical studies were based on samples obtained from European (37%) and North American regions (22%) with only a small portion of research (16%) constituting samples from Asian countries. Further, only few studies examined other regions, such as Oceania (4%), United Kingdom (3%), Africa (1%), and South America (1%). However, the proportion of studies using samples from multiple regions was comparatively higher at around 16%. Hence, future research needs to study the less researched regions to better understand the role of context in CSR implementation. Further, given the emerging nature of cross-country research in CSR implementation (Lattemann et al., 2009 ), an additional scope exists for researchers to compare different regions in their future research.

Fifth, CSR implementation research, since the special issue in Journal of Business Ethics (Lindgreen, Swaen, et al., 2009 b) has been under the research limelight. The first empirical research conducted on CSR implementation in our collection of articles appeared in 2004, however, focus on CSR implementation has drastically improved since 2009 such that approximately 81% of CSR implementation literature has been published in 2010 and onwards. Moreover, Journal of Business Ethics is the highest contributing journal with a major share of 49% of the research studies. This was closely followed by Journal of Business Research (7%), Business Ethics: A European Review (5%), Business and Society (3%), and Business Strategy and the Environment (3%) while the remaining 32% was distributed among 28 journals. Interestingly, other top journals in the field of business ethics and CSR, such as Business Ethics Quarterly and Corporate Social Responsibility and Management were not reflected in our list of reviewed studies. This could be explained due to the absence of studies relevant to our research topic of CSR implementation and the inability of the journal to meet our selection criteria. While, other journals exclusively focusing on ethics and CSR constituted majority of the CSR implementation research, however, this topic seems relatively unexplored and under-published in general management and accounting focused journals.

Lastly, the ingrained analysis of empirical research concerning CSR implementation has shed the much needed light on how this research has changed over the years. For example, we find that while CSR communication has seen constant growth over the years, other dimensions of CSR implementation have experienced uneven growth and decline in research attention (see Fig.  4 ). The comparatively high focus placed on CSR communication brings into question the negligence of other crucial facets of CSR implementation such as CSR embedding and CSR evaluation. Overall, CSR implementation literature that covered either the entire process of CSR implementation in general or more than one dimension of CSR implementation has been gradually on the rise since 2009–2013. While the latest year indicates low publication rates, this may be attributed to the incompleteness of the time period. Upon learning from the insights gained in this descriptive analysis, we proposed a comprehensive framework to better portray the current status of CSR implementation literature and highlight more nuanced directions for future research.

CSR implementation trends over the years

Thematic Analysis: An Integrative Framework of CSR Implementation

The question that comes to mind at this moment in time is: What can we learn more about CSR implementation? We adapt an approach similar to that taken up by researchers who developed various integrative CSR implementation frameworks based on empirical data (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Maon et al., 2009 ; Yin & Jamali, 2016 ). However, our integrative framework is built upon the analytical insights attained from the selected 140 research studies and keeping in mind our purpose of aiding academicians and practitioners in understanding the complex multi-level nature of CSR implementation. Hence, this review tries to learn from the findings attained in descriptively analyzing the 122 empirical studies in the previous section and proposes directions for future research using a macroscopic lens with the aid of an integrative multi-level CSR implementation framework (see Fig.  5 ) that can have both research and practical implications.

An integrative multi-level CSR implementation framework

The remaining of this section will discuss the four components of our proposed framework: (1) CSR implementation, (2) CSR formulation, (3) CSR outcomes, and (4) CSR context. The main focus is placed on CSR implementation, as it is the main core of this review paper. We discuss the inherent complexity of the CSR implementation construct and how extant literature has conceptualized it, setting the stage to examine two distinct attributes of CSR implementation, namely, its multi-dimensional and multi-level nature. Given the capacity and scope of this study, which is centered on CSR implementation, we lightly touch on the other three components, namely, formulation, outcomes, and context to provide an overview on the whole CSR implementation framework. In discussing CSR formulation, we unravel its absence in studies that have examined CSR implementation and illustrate different ways that future scholars can incorporate it henceforth given the strong link that exists between strategy formulation and implementation. Additionally, the next sub-section on the effect of CSR implementation provides a snapshot on how the CSR implementation literature has heavily examined organizational outcomes, particularly, non-financial, and explains the potential of studying organizational performance comprehensively along with macro-level outcomes. We then conclude this section by extrapolating on the importance of identifying and accounting for contextual variables when studying CSR implementation that may inhibit or drive the implementation process and even potentially moderate the relationship of CSR implementation with CSR formulation and CSR outcomes.

CSR Implementation Construct

CSR implementation is characterized by complexity, where the organization has to deal with different stakeholders, internally and externally. Further, this complexity of CSR implementation is pronounced with its contextual nature across industries, countries, time, and pool of stakeholders (Kleine & Hauff, 2009 ). In spite of CSR implementation experiencing complexity in these varied manners, research studies have so far neglected this aspect (Dobele et al., 2014 ). For example, Luo et al. ( 2017 ) indicate how organizations vary in their CSR disclosure based on their linkages to the central government, highlighting the underlying institutional complexity. On the other hand, Marano and Kostova ( 2016 ) examine how various countries’ institutional forces affect the adoption of CSR practices by various multi-national corporations (MNCs) indicating the presence of transnational complexity (refer to Fig.  5 , link 1-3). Similarly, Polonsky and Jevons ( 2009 ) assert that global brands face three different kinds of complexity when implementing CSR, namely, social issue complexity, organizational complexity, and communication complexity. Communication complexity is the complexity that arises regarding the type of information that needs to be communicated, the consistency that needs to be maintained across the messages and in ensuring that the organizations are also walking the walk and not just talking the talk (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Brunton et al., 2017 ). Along these lines, a series of research articles have examined the concepts of CSR walk and CSR talk, where the former represents actual CSR implementation while the latter focuses on CSR communication (Graafland & Smid, 2019 ; Schoeneborn et al., 2020 ; Wickert et al., 2016 ). Further, Graafland and Smid ( 2019 ) found that the overall impact of CSR implementation on the society and environment is dampened in the presence of incongruency between CSR activities being communicated and CSR activities actually being implemented.

Adding to its complex nature, CSR implementation has escaped conceptualization by most of the studies under review (Klettner et al., 2014 ; Peloza et al., 2009 ; Risi & Wickert, 2017 ; Skouloudis & Evangelinos, 2014 ). On the other hand, researchers who did attempt to conceptualize the construct of CSR implementation either did so from a limited perspective of how CSR implementation occurred in the presence of stakeholder management (Osagie et al., 2016 ; Subramaniam et al., 2017 ), capacity development (Rama et al., 2009 ), social partnerships (Seitanidi & Crane, 2009 ), and employee participation (Bolton et al., 2011 ; Kim et al., 2010 ) or examined CSR implementation on the basis of the different types of CSR activities implemented by organizations (Khan et al., 2015 ; Quintana-García et al., 2018 ; Russo & Tencati, 2009 ). Although extant research has identified CSR implementation as a process comprising various stages (Farmaki, 2019 ), it falls short in operationalizing CSR implementation in a similar manner; rather, the studies were found to resort to using existing CSR scales for measuring CSR implementation (Helmig et al., 2016 ). Similar lack in exploring and discussing the process of CSR implementation was also observed among organizations (Klettner et al., 2014 ; Skouloudis & Evangelinos, 2014 ). Hence, as we acknowledge the existence of complexity in CSR implementation and the prevalent absence in conceptualizing CSR implementation, we need to understand the factors that contribute towards the aforesaid complexity of CSR implementation and how can we deal with these factors. To do so, we try to explain the inherent complexity of CSR implementation by exploring its multi-dimensional and multi-level facets that can assist future studies in better conceptualizing CSR implementation.

Multi-dimensional Nature

First and foremost, much of complexity in CSR implementation arises due to its multi-dimensional nature. Multi-dimensionality refers to information that is distributed over multiple dimensions due to its inability to align together in a single dimension such that the information is uniquely sorted into these various dimensions (Bucaro et al., 2020 ; Spalding & Murphy, 1996 ). Although extant research acknowledges the multi-dimensional nature of CSR implementation (Lindgreen, Swaen, et al., 2009 b), many have failed to conceptualize and operationalize it in such a manner, except for a few scholars. Primarily, these authors have assessed CSR implementation on the basis of the traditional classification of stakeholder theory, i.e., implementing CSR strategies directed towards society, environment, and employees (Muller & Kolk, 2009 ; Reimer et al., 2018 ; Shen & Benson, 2016 ) or as per the triple bottom line approach of economy, ecology, and society (Quintana-García et al., 2018 ; Stekelorum et al., 2019 ). However, the above conceptualizations of CSR implementation resonate with the conceptualization of the generic CSR concept itself, where CSR has been conceptualized in terms of stakeholders being targeted at or the nature of responsibility an organization holds towards its society such as economic, ethical, legal, and discretionary (Maignan & Ferrell, 2000 ; Turker, 2009 ). In the same vein, Frynas and Yamahaki ( 2016 ) suggest that CSR scholars need to diversify their usage of theories and restrict themselves from focusing only on the stakeholder view. Hence, researchers need to properly distinguish between the CSR strategy and its implementation.

Accordingly, our proposed conceptualization of CSR implementation can aid scholars and organizations in perceiving the multi-dimensional nature of CSR implementation by focusing on the four dimensions proposed in Sect.  2 . Future research can also test whether these four dimensions are practiced with equal fervor across and within organizations and industries (Walters & Anagnostopoulos, 2012 ). This will enable CSR implementation research to extend beyond CSR communication, which majority of identified empirical research in this study focused exclusively on with very little focus being placed on other CSR implementation dimensions or the construct as a whole. While CSR communication plays an important role in the implementation process, it, however, does not necessarily ensure that these practices are in fact carried out in reality (Arvidsson, 2010 ; Fassin, 2008 ).

CSR communication literature has seen a rich growth over the years (see Fig.  4 ) and as such has diversified into various sub-topics, with CSR disclosure or reporting being the most researched form of CSR communication, particularly in the accounting literature (Gödker & Mertins, 2018 ). Scholars have extensively examined the antecedents and outcomes of CSR disclosure on various fronts: individual, organizational, and country levels (Bucaro et al., 2020 ; DeTienne & Lewis, 2005 ; Lu & Wang, 2021 ; Tan et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ). Further, CSR communication has now diversified into the arena of social media where direct and frequent interactions with customers have heightened (Chu et al., 2020 ; Saxton et al., 2021 ). In addition to customers, CSR communication research seems to have predominantly focused on external stakeholders in general, including investors (Bucaro et al., 2020 ; Hockerts & Moir, 2004 ). Consequently, no research in our shortlisted set of studies examined CSR communication from an internal perspective. A study by Schaefer et al. ( 2019 ) does examine the impact of CSR advertisements on embedding CSR values in employees of an European energy provider, however, the CSR communication under assessment is targeted at external stakeholders. Given the strong inter-relations that exist among actions and communication of CSR activities, examining CSR communication from an interorganizational perspective can tap into the unexplored avenue of its effect on employee involvement in the CSR implementation process (Schoeneborn et al., 2020 ; Sendlhofer, 2020 ; Tourky et al., 2020 ).

Multi-level Nature

Second, while examining different dimensions of CSR implementation surely gives one the wholesome picture, one cannot ignore the multiple levels involved as the above four dimensions of CSR implementation are considered. However, as per our review only a small fraction of the empirical research on CSR implementation (6%) had conducted multi-level research. Hence, academicians have not managed to pay attention to the multiple levels that are in-built when implementing CSR. In referring to the concept of multi level, we propose that CSR implementation involves actors and characteristics at various levels in its environment such that employees, customers, and managers form individual level, while organizational characteristics such as firm size, age, ownership constitute organizational level, and so on. The conceptualization of CSR implementation in our study as discussed in Sect.  2 shows its inherent multi-level nature, where for instance, CSR values may be embedded in the form of CSR vision and mission at organizational level, while CSR awareness initiated by managers or employees occurs at individual level.

The multi-level studies under examination in this review examined CSR implementation at different levels, namely, country, institutional, industry, organizational, and individual. These studies examined (1) drivers of CSR implementation (refer Fig.  5 , link 1-3) like corporate governance and culture background (Lu & Wang, 2021 ), organizational location and distribution of country income (Zamir & Saeed, 2020 ), stakeholders and their pressures (Helmig et al., 2016 ; Pomering & Dolnicar, 2009 ), country governance, industry effect, and organizational characteristics (Lattemann et al., 2009 ); and (2) outcomes of CSR implementation including market performance (Helmig et al., 2016 ), customer attitudes (Ettinger et al., 2021 ), customer perceptions (Lindgreen, Antioco, et al., 2009 a), and employee work behavior (Shen & Benson, 2016 ). Hence, our integrative multi-level framework of CSR implementation considers the five levels discussed above as shown in Fig.  5 .

While researchers have used institutional-level interchangeably with country level due to institutionalized practices of governments or economies (Pisani et al., 2017 ), institutionalization can occur at an industry level as well (O'Connor & Shumate, 2010 ) indicating the need to distinguish institutional level of analysis. While country-level perspective pertains to factors such as government regulations and policies (Pisani et al., 2017 ), institutional-level factors, on the other hand, include institutionalized practices in the economy or corporations (O'Connor & Shumate, 2010 ). Conclusively, industry-level perspective consists of factors such as industry type (Lattemann et al., 2009 ), organizational-level perspective pertains to firm characteristics (Lattemann et al., 2009 ), and individual level refers to employees and managers (Graafland & Zhang, 2014 ; Helmig et al., 2016 ).

CSR Formulation: An Overlooked Antecedent of CSR Implementation

CSR strategy implementation is preceded by its formulation, which consists of decision making upon attaining and interpreting information (Khan, 2018 ). Given the integrative nature of this multi-level framework of CSR implementation, it becomes crucial to consider its critical antecedent, i.e., CSR formulation. Maon et al. ( 2009 ), in their CSR design and implementation framework, identified various steps involved in the formulation of CSR strategies; understanding organization’s societal purpose, identifying its stakeholders, defining CSR vision and mission, assessing current CSR practices, benchmarking with competition and developing the CSR strategy. Additionally, higher CSR orientation of board members also ensures higher proactivity in forming and implementing firm’s CSR strategy, as we identify through the links 1-2 and 1-3 in Fig.  5 (Shaukat et al., 2016 ). On the other hand, various researchers have focused on the sense making concept and linked it to how managers make sense of CSR (as opposed to having planned goals) and accordingly formulate CSR strategies, thereby dictating their implementation as depicted in links 1-2 and 2-3 in Fig.  5 (Hanke & Stark, 2009 ; Jiang et al., 2018 ; Khan, 2018 ). While the presence of stakeholders in CSR strategy formulation was found to positively influence CSR implementation (van Tulder et al., 2009 ), their real world presence in CSR formulation seems to be minimal (Trapp, 2014 ). Accordingly, future research can examine the barriers to stakeholder involvement in CSR formulation and propose ways in which organizations can enhance their involvement (link 1-2, Fig.  5 ). Moreover, scholars can also run comparative studies through collecting field data to test the difference in effectiveness of CSR implementation among organizations that involved stakeholders in formulating CSR versus organizations that had no stakeholder involvement.

Furthermore, very few researchers consider the formulation of CSR as an antecedent or control for its effect in their research studies when studying CSR implementation (Baumann-Pauly et al., 2013 ; Maon et al., 2009 ). Instead several researchers have focused directly on examining various other antecedents of CSR implementation. Accordingly, one can examine if the mediation of CSR formulation can change the impact of certain antecedents like lack of top management commitment, lack of CSR knowledge and skills, and uncertain government regulations (Graafland & Zhang, 2014 ; Luo et al., 2019 ) on CSR implementation from negative to positive. Hence, linking CSR formulation with its implementation can provide a richer feedback as it gives deeper insights into the successful execution of the formulated strategy, where successful CSR implementation can be treated as a dependent variable.

The Impact of CSR Implementation

The outcomes in CSR research have prominently focused on organizational outcomes with special attention being given to financial performance, thereby ignoring the appropriate assessment of the success of a CSR strategy by looking at its non-financial performance indicators such as employees’ extra-role behavior, consumer’s perceptions, and social and environmental performance impact (Fatima & Elbanna, 2020 ). On the other end, CSR implementation, the subset of CSR research literature, has focused exclusively on the non-financial indicators including corporate reputation (Axjonow et al., 2018 ; Kim, 2019 ), consumer purchase intentions (Bartikowski & Berens, 2021 ; Groza et al., 2011 ), and various stakeholder satisfaction such as consumers (Cantrell et al., 2015 ) and employees (Brunton et al., 2017 ; Peloza et al., 2009 ). Comparatively, only four research papers by Helmig et al. ( 2016 ), Rhou et al. ( 2016 ), Pham and Tran ( 2020 ), and Platonova et al. ( 2018 ) have looked at financial indicators. Further, the measurement of CSR performance in CSR literature has been used interchangeably to reflect the construct of CSR (Beji et al., 2021 ; Ge & Li, 2021 ; Öberseder et al., 2014 ), thereby creating a conundrum when it comes to assessing the comprehensive impact of CSR implementation strategies. Consequently, CSR implementation research requires clarification in understanding the nature of its impact on organizational performance, where it may also act as a mediator between CSR formulation and CSR impact (Graafland & Smid, 2019 ).

Future research, hence, needs to consider both financial and non-financial indicators when examining the organizational performance outcome of CSR implementation. This can be achieved, for example, through adopting the sustainability balanced scorecard perspective when measuring organizational outcomes of CSR implementation (Elbanna et al., 2015 ; Fatima & Elbanna, 2020 ). In doing so, organizations can effectively assess the overall impact of CSR implementation on CSR performance constituting social, environmental, and financial performance. In addition to examining these micro-level and meso-level (industry level, institutional level) outcomes, future research can also explore how implementation of CSR strategies within organizations and industries can lead to a macro-level sustainability impact such as the country’s economic and sustainable development (Verk et al., 2021 ) through improvement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) index (a standard indicator of country’s sustainability performance developed by United Nations ( 2020 )) (refer to link 3-4, Fig.  5 ).

The Context Matters

Referring to the integrative multi-level framework shown in Fig.  5 , we can clearly see how various factors interact with each other at several levels during CSR formulation and implementation. This framework provides a multi-dimensional view of CSR implementation, examines the nature of interconnectivity among the antecedents and consequences of CSR implementation, and presents CSR implementation in a multi-level manner. While, we do not push for the scholarly need to examine and account for all the variables depicted in Fig.  5 , however, we do aim to bring forth the need for future scholars to consider the context of their study and account for the impact of certain variables that may confound their results when studying CSR implementation. The various perspectives under contextual variables relate to five different levels of analysis highlighted previously in Sect.  5.1.2 (individual, firm, industry, institutional, and country levels). The categorization of these various levels has been done based on the context as per the extant literature review on CSR implementation (Helmig et al., 2016 ; Lattemann et al., 2009 ; Lindgreen, Antioco, et al., 2009 a; Shen & Benson, 2016 ). For ease of understanding, each level is listed under a stand-alone perspective that portrays various items CSR implementation scholars can explore. For instance, items such as pressure from or involvement of stakeholders like customers, employees, managers, board members, etc., relate to individual-level characteristics.

As per our earlier discussion, CSR formulation has been neglected to a certain extent by CSR implementation scholars, where significant research scope also exists in understanding if certain situations or characteristics can impact the CSR formulation–CSR implementation relationship (link 2-1-3 in Fig.  5 ). For example, to what extent organizational size or industry type and stakeholder pressures (Helmig et al., 2016 ) strengthen or weaken this relationship? Our knowledge of extant theories such as institutional theory and stakeholder theory posit for the prevalence of a positive moderation effect. The institutional theory leads to the process of ‘isomorphism’ which can be defined as a process that constrains a unit in a particular set of environmental conditions to resonate with other units existing in similar situations (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983 ). As leading organizations in controversial industries such as oil and mining respond to concerns on their societal and environmental impact (Dobele et al., 2014 ; Du & Vieira, 2012 ), other organizations are complied to follow suit to maintain legitimacy, thereby eliciting the potential role of industry type in moderating the relationship between CSR formulation and implementation. Additionally, Miska et al. ( 2016 ) found that home country characteristics played a pivotal role in shaping the type of CSR strategy that MNCs engaged in. Thus, the effect of institutional level of indicators need to be accounted for when examining the link between CSR formulation and implementation.

Similarly, stakeholder theory emphasizes an organization’s relationships with other stakeholders consisting of employees, customers, suppliers, society, and others by stressing on the importance of satisfying relevant stakeholders (Jamali, 2008 ; Zerbini, 2017 ). As organizations in the current century face rising pressures from various stakeholders to depict socially responsible behavior (Erdiaw-Kwasie et al., 2017 ; Shahzad & Sharfman, 2017 ), they are bound by normative pressure as per institutional theory to comply with these stakeholder needs to establish a sense of legitimacy among their stakeholders. Thus, through building upon the interplay of these three theories, namely, institutional theory, legitimacy theory, and stakeholder theory, future research can probe into the following research question: Are larger organizations or manufacturing industries or higher stakeholder pressures more prone to having a stronger CSR formulation–implementation relationship, in comparison to smaller organizations or service industries or lower stakeholder pressures?

Figure  5 portrays various variables under each of the five perspectives or levels that can either act as drivers or inhibitors towards implementation of CSR. Scholars can accordingly utilize this framework to attain a holistic view and empirically examine how these contextual variables may impact CSR implementation strategies of their sample under study and control for the relevant contextual variables. For instance, CSR scholars have found top managerial characteristics played a significant role towards implementation (Rodríguez Bolívar et al., 2015 ). Scholars can further extend this finding to examine if top management characteristics have a differential impact on CSR implementation dimensions, where the type of leadership may have an effect on the nature of CSR values (strategic or normative) being embedded in the organization’s employees (link 2-1-3). The upper echelons theory which states that an organization is a function of its leaders’ beliefs and thoughts as these leaders make most of the important organizational strategic decisions (Quintana-García et al., 2018 ) finds support for the above proposed moderating impact. Ethical leadership style, for instance, can instill a sense of ethical behavior among employees (Hansen et al., 2016 ) through posing as social learning models and establishing a reward system for ethically appropriate behavior (Fatima, 2020 ).

Further, as per our findings from reviewing the CSR implementation literature, some industries have rarely been studied with respect to their CSR implementation strategies such as the sports and gaming industry (link 1-3). Accordingly, future research can actively collaborate with practitioners to conduct field studies and longitudinal studies, where practitioners can execute and examine CSR implementation, while CSR scholars can act as consultants and conduct quality research. Additionally, with the influx of COVID-19 pandemic, the topical nature of CSR implementation has heightened such that organizations are now actively focusing towards building their social performance to build a safe and healthy organizational work environment and image (Donthu & Gustafsson, 2020 ; He & Harris, 2020 ). This reaction of organizations also finds theoretical support in literature as per the environmental contingency theory that asserts the influence of environment on various characteristics of the organization, such as strategy, task uncertainty, size, and technology (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2013 , p. 98). Hence, scholars can effectively conduct prospective research as opposed to the retrospective research by studying the actions taken by organizations towards their CSR implementation strategies in response to such environmental changes in real time.

Considerable number of studies have managed to study the contextual nature of CSR implementation by examining the presence of mediating and moderating variables (Eberle et al., 2013 ; Ginder et al., 2021 ; Karaosmanoglu et al., 2016 ; Lecuyer et al., 2017 ; Skard & Thorbjørnsen, 2014 ; Vlachos et al., 2009 ). It is worthy to note that all of these research studies have examined mediators and moderators only at individual level and firm level, with an exception of Thorne et al. ( 2017 ) who carried out a cross-country comparison on CSR disclosures. Our framework indicates that multiple perspectives can have a moderating impact on the relationship between CSR implementation and outcomes (refer to link 3-1-4 in Fig.  5 ). For instance, referring to our earlier discussion of stakeholder and institutional theories, future researchers can also examine whether the presence of stakeholder pressures in the form of governmental regulations, active NGOs, and media positively strengthen the relationship between CSR implementation dimensions like CSR awareness, CSR embedding, CSR communication, and outcomes like organizational legitimacy, customer’s perceptions, and organizational performance (Du & Vieira, 2012 ; Pomering & Dolnicar, 2009 ; Rhou et al., 2016 ).

Moreover, given the relatively low level of research being conducted in developing regions such as South America, Asia, and Africa, future research can study whether uncertain regulations weaken the relationship between CSR embedding in suppliers and supplier loyalty or supplier compliance through weakening the coercive pressures felt by organizations in compliance with institutional theory (Boyd et al., 2007 ; Lim & Phillips, 2008 ). Further research ideas can also be attained through scrutinizing our proposed framework where CSR implementation researchers can expand their theoretical support from merely focusing on stakeholder and legitimacy theory to other theories such as structural contingency theory for industry perspective, leadership contingency theory for individual perspective, intergroup theory for CSR embedding, population ecology for institutional perspective, agency theory for the relationship between CSR formulation and CSR implementation in SMEs and so on.

While it is difficult to ensure that one research study covers various levels as depicted in the CSR implementation framework, it, however, becomes easier to realize the presence of multiple factors that may affect CSR implementation–outcomes relationship. With this knowledge at hand, academicians can account and control for the factors, when applicable. Similarly, practitioners can also utilize this framework to get an overarching purview of CSR implementation and better understand the various factors that may positively or adversely impact the different outcomes of CSR implementation, and accordingly, take the necessary proactive decisions.

Upon analyzing the empirical literature trends on CSR implementation in Sect.  4 , several suggestions for future research were made pertaining to the nature of research, level of analysis, theoretical support, and geographical expansion. Further insights were gained through the depiction of an integrative multi-level CSR implementation framework developed in the previous section of thematic analysis. In doing so, this research study has made several theoretical and practical implications, as discussed below.

In terms of theoretical implications, first, we found that scholars have placed a considerable amount of focus towards examining the factors impacting implementation of CSR (antecedents, mediators, and moderators) and the organizational-level consequences of CSR implementation. In comparison, fewer studies have looked at non-organizational consequences or carried out field studies or longitudinal case studies to examine the implementation of complete CSR strategies. Hence, one of the prime insights for future research involve attaining deeper insights into how organizations implement CSR with respect to CSR awareness, CSR embedding, CSR communication, and CSR evaluation. In doing so, researchers would be able to examine CSR implementation from multi-dimensional and multi-level perspectives.

Second, one of the prominent difficulties encountered by organizations when implementing CSR relates to prioritizing stakeholders’ interests (Lee, 2011 ; Porter & Kramer, 2006 ). Different organizations place importance on different stakeholders and as such, a universal solution to prioritize stakeholders becomes difficult. We attempt to resolve this dilemma by proposing a CSR implementation definition (outlined in Sect.  2 ) that indicates the process of CSR implementation as an integrated and a comprehensive process which entails coordinated involvement of all stakeholders at different degrees throughout the four dimensions of CSR implementation.

Third, enhancing from the above research agenda, scholars could also link how multiple dimensions of CSR implementation relate to each other. For instance, Pomering and Dolnicar ( 2009 ) examined whether CSR communication by organizations leads to higher CSR awareness of customers. Furthermore, within the field of CSR implementation, some of its dimensions have not been as heavily researched as the rest; CSR communication has been of prime focus for several academicians. However, only three studies were found to study CSR evaluation as a part of the implementation process (Cowper-Smith & de Grosbois, 2011 ; Schaefer et al., 2019 ; Vlachos et al., 2009 ). Evaluating CSR in the implementation phase resonates with assessing the extent to which CSR objectives are met. However, CSR evaluation has mostly focused on assessing CSR performance using secondary databases like Kinder, Lyndenberg, and Domini (Rhou et al., 2016 ). Thus, to examine CSR evaluation as a part of the implementation phase, researchers need to study other internal stakeholders in addition to employees, such as way of monitoring CSR strategies by both board members and top managements. Accordingly, examining other CSR implementation dimensions in detail, specifically perceiving them from a different lens would enrich the extant knowledge on CSR implementation.

Fourth, most of the CSR implementation–performance literature has looked at organizational and individual-level outcomes. Given the very nature of an organization is to ensure profitability, the prime focus has been placed by researchers in identifying how CSR implementation impacts organizational outcomes such as organizational reputation and CSR performance. Similarly, customers are deemed as the most important stakeholder given their direct impact on organization’s profitability, and thereby, its sustenance. Accordingly, most prior studies have examined the impact of CSR strategy implementation on customer perceptions and behaviors. However, a research gap exists with regard to studying the impact on other external stakeholders like suppliers’ loyalty and suppliers’ compliance. Moreover, the impact of organization’s CSR implementation has been restricted to micro-level and meso-level, where country-level impacts such as on economic improvement and increase in sustainability index have not yet been studied. Therefore, researchers need to examine meso-level and macro-level impacts of implementing CSR strategies. Understandably, the absence of studies examining macro-level outcomes of CSR maybe due to the exclusion of sustainability construct from our literature search which is more prominently linked with country-level outcomes like sustainable development goals. Future reviews can, as such, consider the prospect of examining implementation of sustainability strategies as opposed to the concept of CSR which was the focus in this review.

The restrictive journal criteria used in this systematic review pose a constricted presentation of the CSR implementation literature. However, we followed the standard journal selection criteria used widely across general business and management reviews. Further, we aimed to examine high-quality research on CSR implementation, thereby justifying our usage of a restricted journal criteria. In order to attain a more general view and to better understand the research trends of a vast literature of CSR implementation that includes research in established ethics and CSR focused journals like Journal of Cleaner Production and Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, future scholars can conduct bibliometric analysis or meta-analysis with a more relaxed journal criteria.

This research study also produces various implications for practitioners regarding CSR implementation. First, practitioners can make use of the proposed CSR implementation dimensions that stresses on its multi-level and multi-dimensional nature and identifies it as a process that is not restricted to a stakeholder view. Accordingly, managers can make appropriate decisions to ensure CSR strategies are properly implemented in their organizations and are not solely restricted to financial investments. Second, top management and policy makers can utilize the CSR implementation framework for a bird’s eye view on the potential factors that can impact CSR implementation and the possible outcomes of CSR implementation. In doing so, organizations can pay heed to contextual factors that may impede or promote implementation of CSR and its relationship with different outcomes. Third, practitioners, upon realizing the multi-level impact of CSR implementation, which goes beyond the individual and organizational levels, can reflect upon their current organizational CSR strategies and accordingly, revise or formulate better versions.

To sum, CSR implementation has come a long way in the past decade and still has a long way to go. This review paper attempts to enlighten the research community with insights on the progress of CSR implementation research and how it can be further improved to enrich our understanding of the concept of CSR implementation. With the proposition of CSR implementation dimensions that facilitate the review of literature, an integrative multi-level CSR implementation framework has been developed to assist future research on CSR implementation in getting closer to reality by portraying the interconnectivity in implementing any organizational strategic decision. With the above research contributions, this study attempted to set the stage for future research to build upon by conducting richer and deeper empirical studies that examine CSR implementation in the right light.

A table reviewing the literature on CSR implementation has been submitted as supplementary material due to paper length considerations and is also available from the authors upon request.

Aguinis, H., & Glavas, A. (2012). What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 38 (4), 932–968.

Article   Google Scholar  

Albinger, H. S., & Freeman, S. J. (2000). Corporate social performance and attractiveness as an employer to different job seeking populations. Journal of Business Ethics, 28 (3), 243–253.

Arvidsson, S. (2010). Communication of corporate social responsibility: A study of the views of management teams in large companies. Journal of Business Ethics, 96 (3), 339–354.

Axjonow, A., Ernstberger, J., & Pott, C. (2018). The impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on corporate reputation: A non-professional stakeholder perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 151 (2), 429–450.

Bansal, P., Jiang, G. F., & Jung, J. C. (2015). Managing responsibly in tough economic times: Strategic and tactical CSR during the 2008–2009 global recession. Long Range Planning, 48 (2), 69–79.

Bartikowski, B., & Berens, G. (2021). Attribute framing in CSR communication: Doing good and spreading the word – But how? Journal of Business Research, 131 , 700–708.

Baumann-Pauly, D., Wickert, C., Spence, L., & Scherer, A. (2013). Organizing corporate social responsibility in small and large firms: Size matters. Journal of Business Ethics, 115 (4), 693–705.

Beji, R., Yousfi, O., Loukil, N., & Omri, A. (2021). Board diversity and corporate social responsibility: Empirical evidence from France. Journal of Business Ethics, 173 (1), 133–155.

Bolton, S., Kim, R., & O’Gorman, K. (2011). Corporate social responsibility as a dynamic internal organizational process: A case study. Journal of Business Ethics, 101 , 61–74.

Boyd, D. E., Spekman, R. E., Kamauff, J. W., & Werhane, P. (2007). Corporate social responsibility in global supply chains: A procedural justice perspective. Long Range Planning, 40 (3), 341–356.

Brunton, M., Eweje, G., & Taskin, N. (2017). Communicating corporate social responsibility to internal stakeholders: Walking the walk or just talking the talk? Business Strategy & the Environment, 26 (1), 31–48.

Bucaro, A. C., Jackson, K. E., & Lill, J. B. (2020). The influence of corporate social responsibility measures on investors’ judgments when integrated in a financial report versus presented in a separate report. Contemporary Accounting Research, 37 (2), 665–695.

Cantrell, J., Kyriazis, E., & Noble, G. (2015). Developing CSR giving as a dynamic capability for salient stakeholder management. Journal of Business Ethics, 130 (2), 403–421.

Chu, S.-C., Chen, H.-T., & Gan, C. (2020). Consumers’ engagement with corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication in social media: Evidence from China and the United States. Journal of Business Research, 110 , 260–271.

Cowper-Smith, A., & de Grosbois, D. (2011). The adoption of corporate social responsibility practices in the airline industry. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19 (1), 59–77.

Crane, A., & Glozer, S. (2016). Researching corporate social responsibility communication: Themes, opportunities and challenges. Journal of Management Studies, 53 (7), 1223–1252.

DeTienne, K. B., & Lewis, L. W. (2005). The pragmatic and ethical barriers to corporate social responsibility disclosure: The Nike case. Journal of Business Ethics, 60 (4), 359–376.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48 (2), 147–160.

Dobele, A. R., Westberg, K., Steel, M., & Flowers, K. (2014). An examination of corporate social responsibility implementation and stakeholder engagement: A case study in the Australian mining industry. Business Strategy & the Environment, 23 (3), 145–159.

Donthu, N., & Gustafsson, A. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 on business and research. Journal of Business Research, 117 , 284–289.

Du, S., & Vieira, E. (2012). Striving for legitimacy through corporate social responsibility: Insights from oil companies. Journal of Business Ethics, 110 (4), 413–427.

Eberle, D., Berens, G., & Li, T. (2013). The impact of interactive corporate social responsibility communication on corporate reputation. Journal of Business Ethics, 118 (4), 731–746.

Elbanna, S., Andrews, R., & Pollanen, R. (2016). Strategic planning and implementation success in public service organizations: Evidence from Canada. Public Management Review , 18 (7), 1017–1042. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2015.1051576

Elbanna, S., Eid, R., & Kamel, H. (2015). Measuring hotel performance using the balanced scorecard: A theoretical construct development and its empirical validation. International Journal of Hospitality Management , 51 , 105–114.

Erdiaw-Kwasie, M. O., Alam, K., & Shahiduzzaman, M. (2017). Towards understanding stakeholder salience transition and relational approach to ‘better’ corporate social responsibility: A case for a proposed model in practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 144 (1), 85–101.

Ettinger, A., Grabner-Kräuter, S., Okazaki, S., & Terlutter, R. (2021). The desirability of CSR communication versus greenhushing in the hospitality industry: The customers’ perspective. Journal of Travel Research, 60 (3), 618–638.

Ettinger, A., Grabner-Kräuter, S., & Terlutter, R. (2018). Online CSR communication in the hotel industry: Evidence from small hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 68 , 94–104.

Evans, W. R., & Davis, W. (2014). Corporate citizenship and the employee: An organizational identification perspective. Human Performance, 27 (2), 129–146.

Farmaki, A. (2019). Corporate social responsibility in hotels: A stakeholder approach. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31 (6), 2297–2320.

Fassin, Y. (2008). SMEs and the fallacy of formalising CSR. Business Ethics: A European Review, 17 (4), 364–378.

Fatima, T. (2020). Impact of employees’ perceived corporate social responsibility on organizational citizenship behavior: A proposed theoretical model. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management , 11 (3), 25–38.

Fatima, T., & Elbanna, S. (2020). Balanced scorecard in the hospitality and tourism industry: Past, present and future. International Journal of Hospitality Management , 91 , 102656.

Frynas, J. G., & Yamahaki, C. (2016). Corporate social responsibility: Review and roadmap of theoretical perspectives. Business Ethics: A European Review, 25 (3), 258–285.

Ge, Q., & Li, T. (2021). Corporate social responsibility and shareholder wealth: New insights from information spillovers. Financial Review , p. 1.

George, B., Walker, R. M., & Monster, J. (2019). Does strategic planning improve organizational performance? A meta-analysis. Public Administration Review, 79 (6), 810–819.

Ginder, W., Kwon, W.-S., & Byun, S.-E. (2021). Effects of internal–external congruence-based CSR positioning: An attribution theory approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 169 (2), 355–369.

Gödker, K., & Mertins, L. (2018). CSR disclosure and investor behavior: A proposed framework and research agenda. Behavioral Research in Accounting, 30 (2), 37–53.

Graafland, J., & Smid, H. (2019). Decoupling among CSR policies, programs, and impacts: An empirical study. Business & Society, 58 (2), 231–267.

Graafland, J., & Zhang, L. (2014). Corporate social responsibility in China: Implementation and challenges. Business Ethics: A European Review, 23 (1), 34–49.

Green, T., & Peloza, J. (2015). How did the recession change the communication of corporate social responsibility activities? Long Range Planning, 48 (2), 108–122.

Groza, M., Pronschinske, M., & Walker, M. (2011). Perceived organizational motives and consumer responses to proactive and reactive CSR. Journal of Business Ethics, 102 (4), 639–652.

Hanke, T., & Stark, W. (2009). Strategy development: Conceptual framework on corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 (3), 507.

Hansen, D. S., Dunford, B. B., Alge, B. J., & Jackson, C. L. (2016). Corporate social responsibility, ethical leadership, and trust propensity: A multi-experience model of perceived ethical climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 137 (4), 649–662.

Hatch, M. J., & Cunliffe, A. L. (2013). Organization theory: Modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives . OUP.

Google Scholar  

He, H., & Harris, L. (2020). The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on corporate social responsibility and marketing philosophy. Journal of Business Research, 116 , 176–182.

Helmig, B., Spraul, K., & Ingenhoff, D. (2016). Under positive pressure: How stakeholder pressure affects corporate social responsibility implementation. Business & Society, 55 (2), 151–187.

Hockerts, K., & Moir, L. (2004). Communicating corporate responsibility to investors: The changing role of the investor relations function. Journal of Business Ethics, 52 (1), 85–98.

Hoque, Z. (2014). 20 years of studies on the balanced scorecard: Trends, accomplishments, gaps and opportunities for future research. The British Accounting Review, 46 (1), 33–59.

Hossain, M. (2018). Frugal innovation: A review and research agenda. Journal of Cleaner Production, 182 , 926–936.

Ingham, M., & Havard, C. (2017). CSR as strategic and organizational change at ‘Groupe La Poste.’ Journal of Business Ethics, 146 (3), 563–589.

Jamali, D. (2008). A stakeholder approach to corporate social responsibility: A fresh perspective into theory and practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 82 (1), 213–231.

Jiang, F., Zalan, T., Tse, H. H. M., & Shen, J. (2018). Mapping the relationship among political ideology, CSR mindset, and CSR strategy: A contingency perspective applied to Chinese managers. Journal of Business Ethics, 147 (2), 419–444.

Jong, M., & Meer, M. (2017). How does it fit? Exploring the congruence between organizations and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Journal of Business Ethics, 143 (1), 71–83.

Karaosmanoglu, E., Altinigne, N., & Isiksal, D. G. (2016). CSR motivation and customer extra-role behavior: Moderation of ethical corporate identity. Journal of Business Research, 69 (10), 4161–4167.

Khan, S. N. (2018). Making sense of the black box: An empirical analysis investigating strategic cognition of CSR strategists in a transitional market. Journal of Cleaner Production, 196 , 916–926.

Khan, Z., Lew, Y. K., & Park, B. I. (2015). Institutional legitimacy and norms-based CSR marketing practices. International Marketing Review, 32 (5), 463–491.

Kim, H.-R., Lee, M., Lee, H.-T., & Kim, N.-M. (2010). Corporate social responsibility and employee–company identification. Journal of Business Ethics, 95 (4), 557–569. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0440-2

Kim, S. (2019). The process model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication: CSR communication and its relationship with consumers’ CSR knowledge, trust, and corporate reputation perception. Journal of Business Ethics, 154 (4), 1143–1159.

Kleine, A., & Hauff, M. (2009). Sustainability-driven implementation of corporate social responsibility: Application of the integrative sustainability triangle. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 517–533.

Klettner, A., Clarke, T., & Boersma, M. (2014). The governance of corporate sustainability: Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 122 (1), 145–165.

Laguir, L., Laguir, I., & Tchemeni, E. (2019). Implementing CSR activities through management control systems: A formal and informal control perspective. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 32 (2), 531–555.

Lattemann, C., Fetscherin, M., Alon, I., Shaomin, L., & Schneider, A.-M. (2009). CSR communication intensity in Chinese and Indian multinational companies. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 17 (4), 426–442.

Lecuyer, C., Capelli, S., & Sabadie, W. (2017). Corporate social responsibility communication effects: A comparison between investor-owned banks and member-owned banks. Journal of Advertising Research, 57 (4), 436–446.

Lee, M.-D. (2011). Configuration of external influences: The combined effects of institutions and stakeholders on corporate social responsibility strategies. Journal of Business Ethics, 102 (2), 281–298.

Lim, S.-J., & Phillips, J. (2008). Embedding CSR values: The global footwear industry’s evolving governance structure. Journal of Business Ethics, 81 (1), 143–156.

Lindgreen, A., Antioco, M., Harness, D., & Sloot, R. (2009a). Purchasing and marketing of social and environmental sustainability for high-tech medical equipment. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 445–462.

Lindgreen, A., & Swaen, V. (2010). Corporate social responsibility, Editorial. International Journal of Management Reviews, 112 (1), 1–7.

Lindgreen, A., Swaen, V., Harness, D., & Hoffmann, M. (2011). The role of ‘high potentials’ in integrating and implementing corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 99 , 73–91.

Lindgreen, A., Swaen, V., & Maon, F. (2009b). Introduction: Corporate social responsibility implementation. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 251–256.

Logsdon, J. M., & Wood, D. J. (2002). Business citizenship: From domestic to global level of analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly, 12 (2), 155–187.

Lu, J., & Wang, J. (2021). Corporate governance, law, culture, environmental performance and CSR disclosure: A global perspective. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, 70 , 101264.

Luo, J. M., Huang, G. Q., & Lam, C. F. (2019). Barriers to the implementation of corporate social responsibility in gaming industry. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 20 (5), 528–551.

Luo, X. R., Wang, D., & Zhang, J. (2017). Whose call to answer: Institutional complexity and firms’ CSR reporting. Academy of Management Journal, 60 (1), 321–344.

Maignan, I., & Ferrell, O. C. (2000). Measuring corporate citizenship in two countries: The case of the United States and France. Journal of Business Ethics, 23 (3), 283–297.

Maon, F., Lindgreen, A., & Swaen, V. (2009). Designing and implementing corporate social responsibility: An integrative framework grounded in theory and practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 87 , 71–89.

Marano, V., & Kostova, T. (2016). Unpacking the institutional complexity in adoption of CSR practices in multinational enterprises. Journal of Management Studies, 53 (1), 28–54.

Matten, D., & Crane, A. (2005). Corporate citizenship: Toward an extended theoretical conceptualization. Academy of Management Review, 30 (1), 166–179.

Miska, C., Witt, M. A., & Stahl, G. K. (2016). Drivers of global CSR integration and local CSR responsiveness: Evidence from Chinese MNEs. Business Ethics Quarterly, 26 (3), 317–345.

Muller, A., & Kolk, A. (2009). CSR performance in emerging markets evidence from Mexico. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 325–337.

Muthuri, J., Chapple, W., & Moon, J. (2009). An integrated approach to implementing community participation’ in corporate community involvement: Lessons from Magadi soda company in Kenya. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 431–444.

Öberseder, M., Schlegelmilch, B., Murphy, P., & Gruber, V. (2014). Consumers’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility: Scale development and validation. Journal of Business Ethics, 124 (1), 101–115.

O’Connor, A., & Shumate, M. (2010). An economic industry and institutional level of analysis of corporate social responsibility communication. Management Communication Quarterly, 24 (4), 529–551.

Osagie, E., Wesselink, R., Blok, V., Lans, T., & Mulder, M. (2016). Individual competencies for corporate social responsibility: A literature and practice perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 135 (2), 233–252.

Park, B. I., & Ghauri, P. N. (2015). Determinants influencing CSR practices in small and medium sized MNE subsidiaries: A stakeholder perspective. Journal of World Business, 50 (1), 192–204.

Pedersen, E. R. G., Gwozdz, W., & Hvass, K. K. (2018). Exploring the relationship between business model innovation, corporate sustainability, and organisational values within the fashion industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 149 (2), 267–284.

Peloza, J., Hudson, S., & Hassay, D. (2009). The marketing of employee volunteerism. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 371–386.

Pham, H. S. T., & Tran, H. T. (2020). CSR disclosure and firm performance: The mediating role of corporate reputation and moderating role of CEO integrity. Journal of Business Research, 120 , 127–136.

Pisani, N., Kourula, A., Kolk, A., & Meijer, R. (2017). How global is international CSR research? Insights and recommendations from a systematic review. Journal of World Business, 52 (5), 591–614.

Platonova, E., Asutay, M., Dixon, R., & Mohammad, S. (2018). The impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on financial performance: Evidence from the GCC Islamic banking sector. Journal of Business Ethics, 151 (2), 451–471.

Polonsky, M., & Jevons, C. (2009). Global branding and strategic CSR: An overview of three types of complexity. International Marketing Review, 26 (3), 327–347.

Pomering, A., & Dolnicar, S. (2009). Assessing the prerequisite of successful CSR implementation: Are consumers aware of CSR initiatives? Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 285–301.

Popay, J., Roberts, H. M., Sowden, A. J., Petticrew, M., Arai, L., Rodgers, M., & Britten, N. (2006). Guidance on the conduct of narrative synthesis in systematic reviews. A product from the ESRC methods programme . Version 1.

Pope, S., & Wæraas, A. (2016). CSR-washing is rare: A conceptual framework, literature review, and critique. Journal of Business Ethics, 137 (1), 173–193.

Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. (2006). Strategy & society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 84 (12), 78–92.

Quintana-García, C., Marchante-Lara, M., & Benavides-Chicón, C. G. (2018). Social responsibility and total quality in the hospitality industry: Does gender matter? Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 26 (5), 722–739.

Rama, D., Milano, B., Salas, S., & Liu, C.-H. (2009). CSR implementation: Developing the capacity for collective action. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 463–477.

Reimer, M., Van Doorn, S., & Heyden, M. L. M. (2018). Unpacking functional experience complementarities in senior leaders’ influences on CSR strategy: A CEO-Top Management Team Approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 151 (4), 977–995.

Rhou, Y., Singal, M., & Koh, Y. (2016). CSR and financial performance: The role of CSR awareness in the restaurant industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 57 , 30–39.

Risi, D., & Wickert, C. (2017). Reconsidering the ‘symmetry’ between institutionalization and professionalization: The case of corporate social responsibility managers. Journal of Management Studies, 54 (5), 613–646.

Rodríguez Bolívar, M. P., Garde Sánchez, R., & López Hernández, A. M. (2015). Managers as drivers of CSR in state-owned enterprises. Journal of Environmental Planning & Management, 58 (5), 777–801.

Russo, A., & Tencati, A. (2009). Formal vs. informal CSR strategies: Evidence from Italian micro, small, medium-sized, and large firms. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 339–353.

Saxton, G. D., Ren, C., & Guo, C. (2021). Responding to diffused stakeholders on social media: Connective power and firm reactions to CSR-related Twitter messages. Journal of Business Ethics, 172 (2), 229–252.

Schaefer, S. D., Terlutter, R., & Diehl, S. (2019). Is my company really doing good? Factors influencing employees’ evaluation of the authenticity of their company’s corporate social responsibility engagement. Journal of Business Research, 101 , 128–143.

Schoeneborn, D., Morsing, M., & Crane, A. (2020). Formative perspectives on the relation between CSR communication and CSR practices: Pathways for walking, talking, and t(w)alking. Business & Society, 59 (1), 5–33.

Seitanidi, M., & Crane, A. (2009). Implementing CSR through partnerships: Understanding the selection, design and institutionalisation of nonprofit-business partnerships. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 , 413–429.

Sendlhofer, T. (2020). Decoupling from moral responsibility for CSR: Employees’ visionary procrastination at a SME. Journal of Business Ethics, 167 (2), 361–378.

Serra-Cantallops, A., Peña-Miranda, D. D., Ramón-Cardona, J., & Martorell-Cunill, O. (2018). Progress in research on CSR and the hotel industry (2006–2015). Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 59 (1), 15–38.

Shahzad, A. M., & Sharfman, M. P. (2017). Corporate social performance and financial performance: Sample-selection issues. Business & Society, 56 (6), 889–918.

Shaukat, A., Qiu, Y., & Trojanowski, G. (2016). Board attributes, corporate social responsibility strategy, and corporate environmental and social performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 135 (3), 569–585.

Shen, J., & Benson, J. (2016). When CSR is a social norm: How socially responsible human resource management affects employee work Behavior. Journal of Management, 42 (6), 1723–1746.

Skard, S., & Thorbjørnsen, H. (2014). Is publicity always better than advertising? The role of brand reputation in communicating corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 124 (1), 149–160.

Skouloudis, A., & Evangelinos, K. (2014). Exogenously driven CSR: Insights from the consultants’ perspective. Business Ethics: A European Review, 23 (3), 258–271.

Spalding, T. L., & Murphy, G. L. (1996). Effects of background knowledge on category construction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22 (2), 525–538.

Stekelorum, R., Laguir, I., & Elbaz, J. (2019). Transmission of CSR requirements in supply chains: Investigating the multiple mediating effects of CSR activities in SMEs. Applied Economics, 51 (42), 4642–4657.

Story, J., & Neves, P. (2015). When corporate social responsibility (CSR) increases performance: Exploring the role of intrinsic and extrinsic CSR attribution. Business Ethics: A European Review, 24 (2), 111–124.

Subramaniam, N., Kansal, M., & Babu, S. (2017). Governance of mandated corporate social responsibility: Evidence from Indian government-owned firms. Journal of Business Ethics, 143 (3), 543–563.

Tan, W., Tsang, A., Wang, W., & Zhang, W. (2020). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and the choice between bank debt and public debt. Accounting Horizons, 34 (1), 151–173.

Thorne, L., Mahoney, L., Gregory, K., & Convery, S. (2017). A comparison of Canadian and U.S. CSR strategic alliances, CSR reporting, and CSR performance: Insights into implicit-explicit CSR. Journal of Business Ethics, 143 (1), 85–98.

Tourky, M., Kitchen, P., & Shaalan, A. (2020). The role of corporate identity in CSR implementation: An integrative framework. Journal of Business Research, 117 , 694–706.

Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a methodology for developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic review. British Journal of Management, 14 (3), 207–222.

Trapp, N. L. (2014). Stakeholder involvement in CSR strategy-making? Clues from sixteen Danish companies. Public Relations Review, 40 (1), 42–49.

Turker, D. (2009). Measuring corporate social responsibility: A scale development study. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 (4), 411–427.

United Nations. (2020). The sustainable development goals report 2020 . United Nations.

van Marrewijk, M. (2003). Concepts and definitions of CSR and corporate sustainability: Between agency and communion. Journal of Business Ethics, 44 (2), 95–105.

van Tulder, R., van Wijk, J., & Kolk, A. (2009). From chain liability to chain responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 85 (2), 399–412.

Verk, N., Golob, U., & Podnar, K. (2021). A dynamic review of the emergence of corporate social responsibility communication. Journal of Business Ethics, 168 (3), 491–515.

Vlachos, P. A., Tsamakos, A., Vrechopoulos, A. P., & Avramidis, P. K. (2009). Corporate social responsibility: Attributions, loyalty, and the mediating role of trust. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 37 (2), 170–180.

Walters, G., & Anagnostopoulos, C. (2012). Implementing corporate social responsibility through social partnerships. Business Ethics: A European Review, 21 (4), 417–433.

Wickert, C., Scherer, A. G., & Spence, L. J. (2016). Walking and talking corporate social responsibility: Implications of firm size and organizational cost. Journal of Management Studies, 53 (7), 1169–1196.

Wood, D. J. (1991). Corporate social performance revisited. Academy of Management Review, 16 (4), 691–718.

Yin, J., & Jamali, D. (2016). Strategic corporate social responsibility of multinational companies subsidiaries in emerging markets: Evidence from China. Long Range Planning, 49 (5), 541–558.

Zamir, F., & Saeed, A. (2020). Location matters: Impact of geographical proximity to financial centers on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in emerging economies. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 37 (1), 263–295.

Zerbini, F. (2017). CSR initiatives as market signals: A review and research agenda. Journal of Business Ethics, 146 (1), 1–23.

Zhang, L., Shan, Y. G., & Chang, M. (2021). Can CSR disclosure protect firm reputation during financial restatements? Journal of Business Ethics, 173 (1), 157–184.

Zheng, Q., Luo, Y., & Maksimov, V. (2015). Achieving legitimacy through corporate social responsibility: The case of emerging economy firms. Journal of World Business, 50 (3), 389–403.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar

Tahniyath Fatima & Said Elbanna

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Said Elbanna .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 140 kb)

Rights and permissions.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Fatima, T., Elbanna, S. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Implementation: A Review and a Research Agenda Towards an Integrative Framework. J Bus Ethics 183 , 105–121 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05047-8

Download citation

Received : 25 May 2021

Accepted : 20 January 2022

Published : 02 February 2022

Issue Date : February 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05047-8

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Corporate social responsibility implementation
• CSR strategy
• CSR complexity
• CSR formulation
• CSR implementation framework
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Corporate Social Responsibility and Strategic Management

by Stefon Walters

Published on 5 Aug 2019

In the long history of business, corporate social responsibility is a relatively new concept. For a long time, companies believed their only responsibilities were to make as much money as possible and maximize value for their shareholders.

Strategic planning and corporate social responsibility is a form of management in which companies take the ethical aspects of their business operations into consideration. They incorporate these social concerns into their business strategies and are more conscious of their roles in society and their communities outside of business.

More than just obeying the law, corporate social responsibility involves a business taking proactive steps to improve the quality of life for its employees and community. Different companies will select a different social responsibility strategy from each other, but they all focus on four ethical aspects of business: economic, ethical, legal and philanthropic.

Economic Social Responsibility

An economic social responsibility strategy begins with making sure a company is sustainable, which in turn means it is profitable. Not only does a company need to make a profit to satisfy its shareholders, it also must make enough money to pay its employees a respectable wage.

It should also be the company's responsibility to make sure it addresses issues such as gender wage discrimination. Outside of its employees, economic social responsibility involves paying appropriate business taxes and meeting other financial commitments.

Likewise, corporate economic responsibility includes businesses finding inefficiencies in their operations that waste capital, and implementing processes that improve efficiencies and reduce this waste.

Ethical Social Responsibility

Values and ethics in strategic management are important. Being ethical means companies must be aware of society's values and standards and operate in a manner that is conducive to those. Inside the workplace, this could include paying a living wage, ensuring safe working conditions, abiding by all labor laws and being willing only to do business with companies with similar ethical principles – not purchasing products from a factory that uses child labor, for example.

Being an ethical business also means taking into consideration a company's environmental impact and doing its job to limit forms of waste. As environmental issues grow on a global scale, it is increasingly essential that companies are aware of how they contribute to these issues.

Companies should analyze the processes they use and proactively do what they can to reduce their environmental impact. This is especially important for companies that dispose of waste, leaving a carbon footprint.

Legal Social Responsibility

The legal segment of corporate social responsibility revolves around making sure that companies are aware of and abide by all local, state and federal laws. Companies must comply with safety and labor laws put in place by regulators. It is the duty of the company to make sure they remain knowledgeable of any changes to the laws.

Being mindful of legal obligations can protect a company's reputation and limit the amount of time and money it has to spend in potential legal fees. Part of these legal responsibilities is always making sure the company meets its tax obligations.

Philanthropic Social Responsibility

Corporate philanthropic responsibility involves using a company's time and resources to make investments in the communities where they operate.

These investments could be in the form of scholarships and other educational assistance, or other notable local causes.

Many businesses choose to solely donate money to particular causes that are aiming to bring about social change, while others will attach their name and brand to causes they strongly believe in as a company. It is common for large corporations to have in-house departments that manage and coordinate the company's philanthropic efforts.

• Business Essentials
• Leadership & Management
• Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB)
• Entrepreneurship & Innovation
• Digital Transformation
• Finance & Accounting
• Business in Society
• For Organizations
• Support Portal
• Media Coverage
• Founding Donors
• Leadership Team

• Harvard Business School →
• HBS Online →
• Business Insights →

Business Insights

Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

• Career Development
• Communication
• Decision-Making
• Earning Your MBA
• Negotiation
• News & Events
• Productivity
• Staff Spotlight
• Student Profiles
• Work-Life Balance
• AI Essentials for Business
• Alternative Investments
• Business Analytics
• Business Strategy
• Business and Climate Change
• Creating Brand Value
• Design Thinking and Innovation
• Digital Marketing Strategy
• Disruptive Strategy
• Economics for Managers
• Entrepreneurship Essentials
• Financial Accounting
• Global Business
• Launching Tech Ventures
• Leadership Principles
• Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
• Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
• Leading with Finance
• Management Essentials
• Negotiation Mastery
• Organizational Leadership
• Power and Influence for Positive Impact
• Strategy Execution
• Sustainable Business Strategy
• Sustainable Investing
• Winning with Digital Platforms

6 Examples of Corporate Social Responsibility That Were Successful

• 06 Jun 2019

Business is about more than just making a profit. Climate change, economic inequality, and other global challenges that impact communities worldwide have compelled companies to be purpose-driven and contribute to the greater good .

In a recent study by Deloitte , 93 percent of business leaders said they believe companies aren't just employers, but stewards of society. In addition, 95 percent reported they plan to take a stronger stance on large-scale issues in the coming years and devote significant resources to socially responsible initiatives. With more CEOs turning their focus to the long term, it’s important to consider what you can do in your career to make an impact .

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business model in which for-profit companies seek ways to create social and environmental benefits while pursuing organizational goals, such as revenue growth and maximizing shareholder value.

Today’s organizations are implementing extensive corporate social responsibility programs, with many companies dedicating C-level executive roles and entire departments to social and environmental initiatives. These executives are commonly referred to as chief officers of corporate social responsibility or chief sustainability officers (CSO).

There are many types of corporate social responsibility , and CSR might look different for each organization, but the end goal is always the same: Do well by doing good . Companies that embrace corporate social responsibility aim to maintain profitability while supporting a larger purpose.

Rather than simply focusing on generating profit, or the bottom line, socially responsible companies are concerned with the triple bottom line , which considers the impact that business decisions have on profit, people, and the planet.

It’s no coincidence that some of today’s most profitable organizations are also socially responsible. Here are six successful examples of corporate social responsibility you can use to drive social change at your organization.

Check out our video on corporate social responsibility below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

6 Corporate Social Responsibility Examples

1. lego’s commitment to sustainability.

As one of the most reputable companies in the world, Lego aims to not only help children develop through creative play but also foster a healthy planet.

Lego is the first, and only, toy company to be named a World Wildlife Fund Climate Savers Partner , marking its pledge to reduce its carbon impact. And its commitment to sustainability extends beyond its partnerships.

By 2030, the toymaker plans to use environmentally friendly materials to produce all of its core products and packaging—and it’s already taken key steps to achieve that goal.

Over 2013 and 2014, Lego shrunk its box sizes by 14 percent , saving approximately 7,000 tons of cardboard. Then, in 2018, the company introduced 150 botanical pieces made from sustainably sourced sugarcane —a break from the petroleum-based plastic typically used to produce the company’s signature building blocks. The company has also recently committed to removing all single-use plastic packaging from its materials by 2025, among other initiatives .

Along with these changes, the toymaker has committed to investing $164 million into its Sustainable Materials Center , where researchers are experimenting with bio-based materials that can be implemented into the production process.

Through these initiatives, Lego is well on its way to tackling pressing environmental challenges and furthering its mission to help build a more sustainable future.

Related : What Does "Sustainability" Mean in Business?

2. Salesforce’s 1-1-1 Philanthropic Model

Beyond being a leader in the technology space, cloud-based software giant Salesforce is a trailblazer in corporate philanthropy.

Since its outset, the company has championed its 1-1-1 philanthropic model , which involves giving one percent of product, one percent of equity, and one percent of employees’ time to communities and the nonprofit sector.

To date, Salesforce employees have logged more than 5 million volunteer hours . Not only that, the company has awarded upwards of $406 million in grants and donated to more than 40,000 nonprofit organizations and educational institutions.

In addition, through its work with San Francisco Unified and Oakland Unified School Districts, Salesforce has helped reduce algebra repeat rates and contributed to a high percentage of students receiving A’s or B’s in computer science classes.

As the company’s revenue grows, Salesforce stands as a prime example of the idea that profit-making and social impact initiatives don’t have to be at odds with one another.

3. Ben & Jerry’s Social Mission

At Ben & Jerry’s, positively impacting society is just as important as producing premium ice cream.

In 2012, the company became a certified B Corporation —a business that balances purpose and profit by meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability.

As part of its overarching commitment to leading with progressive values, the ice cream maker established the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation in 1985, an organization dedicated to supporting grassroots movements that drive social change.

Each year, the foundation awards approximately $2.5 million in grants to organizations in Vermont and across the United States. Grant recipients have included the United Workers Association, a human rights group striving to end poverty, and the Clean Air Coalition, an environmental health and justice organization based in New York.

The foundation’s work earned it a National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy Award in 2014, and it continues to sponsor efforts to find solutions to systemic problems at both local and national levels.

Related : How to Create Social Change: 4 Business Strategies

4. Levi Strauss’s Social Impact

In addition to being one of the most successful fashion brands in history, Levi’s is also one of the first to push for a more ethical and sustainable supply chain.

In 1991, the brand created its Terms of Engagement , which established its global code of conduct regarding its supply chain and set standards for workers’ rights, a safe work environment, and an environmentally friendly production process.

To maintain its commitment in a changing world, Levi’s regularly updates its Terms of Engagement. In 2011, on the 20th anniversary of its code of conduct, Levi’s announced its Worker Well-being initiative to implement further programs focused on the health and well-being of supply chain workers.

Since 2011, the Worker Well-being initiative has been expanded to 12 countries, benefitting more than 100,000 workers. In 2016, the brand scaled up the initiative, vowing to expand the program to more than 300,000 workers and produce more than 80 percent of its product in Worker Well-being factories by 2025.

For its continued efforts to maintain the well-being of its people and the environment, Levi’s was named one of Engage for Good’s 2020 Golden Halo Award winners , the highest honor reserved for socially responsible companies.

5. Starbucks’s Commitment to Ethical Sourcing

Starbucks launched its first corporate social responsibility report in 2002 with the goal of becoming as well-known for its CSR initiatives as for its products. One of the ways the brand has fulfilled this goal is through ethical sourcing.

In 2015, Starbucks verified that 99 percent of its coffee supply chain is ethically sourced , and it seeks to boost that figure to 100 percent through continued efforts and partnerships with local coffee farmers and organizations.

The brand bases its approach on Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) Practices , one of the coffee industry’s first set of ethical sourcing standards created in collaboration with Conservation International . CAFE assesses coffee farms against specific economic, social, and environmental standards, ensuring Starbucks can source its product while maintaining a positive social impact.

For its work, Starbucks was named one of the world’s most ethical companies in 2021 by Ethisphere.

6. New Belgium Brewing’s Sustainable Practices

New Belgium Brewing has always been a proponent of green initiatives . As early as 1999, it was one of the first breweries to use wind power to source 100 percent of its electricity, significantly reducing its operational carbon footprint.

In Harvard Business School Online’s Business and Climate Change course, Katie Wallace, New Belgium Brewing's chief environmental, social, and governance (ESG) officer, elaborates on the company’s sustainable practices.

"We have biogas here that we capture from our process water treatment plant," Wallace says in the course. "We make electricity with it. When we installed our solar panels on the Colorado packaging hall, it was the largest privately owned solar array at that time in Colorado. And today, we have many other sources of renewable electricity and have invested quite a bit in efficiencies."

New Belgium Brewing also turns outward in its sustainability practices by actively engaging with suppliers, customers, and competitors to promote broader environmental change. These efforts range from encouraging the use of renewable resources in supply chains to participating in policy-making discussions that foster industry-wide sustainability. For example, it co-founded the Glass Recycling Coalition to improve recycling nationwide after recognizing sustainability concerns in the bottling industry.

New Belgium's commitment to corporate social responsibility is an ongoing process, though. The brewery continues to set ambitious targets for reducing waste, conserving water, and supporting renewable energy projects to build a more sustainable future.

The Value of Being Socially Responsible

As these firms demonstrate , a deep and abiding commitment to corporate social responsibility can pay dividends. By learning from these initiatives and taking a values-driven approach to business, you can help your organization thrive and grow, even as it confronts global challenges.

Corporate social responsibility is critical for businesses today. It enables organizations to contribute to society while also achieving operational goals. By prioritizing social responsibility, you can build trust with your stakeholders and leave a positive impact.

Do you want to understand how to combine purpose and profit and more effectively tackle global challenges? Explore our online business in society courses , including Sustainable Business Strategy and Business and Climate Change , to learn more about how business can be a catalyst for system-level change.

This post was updated on May 30, 2024. It was originally published on June 6, 2019.

About the Author

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Types, Benefits & More

In global business, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) stands as a pivotal strategy not merely for ethical governance but as a pathway to sustainable development and long-term success. 

CSR, often referred to as corporate citizenship, is the self-regulating business model wherein organizations commit to creating a positive impact through conscientious behavior with regard to the environment, society and the economy. CSR is exemplified not only through direct actions such as adopting sustainable practices, but also by preventing harmful activities such as the unauthorized disposal of pollutants.

There are many different types of CSR, which can be implemented in various ways.

Done right, CSR can significantly enhance a company’s reputation and even boost sales and customer loyalty.

This guide to CSR outlines types of corporate social responsibility and highlights their benefits. You’ll also find tips for implementing CSR strategies plus a real example of CSR strategies in action.

• What is corporate social responsibility and what are the types of CSR initiatives?

The multi-dimensional benefits of corporate social responsibility

Implementing csr strategies, csr case study: starbucks & healthcare, incorporate csr into your business model today, what is corporate social responsibility.

Corporate social responsibility refers to the commitments a company makes to create a positive impact on people, the planet, and society. CSR is a self-regulating business model, meaning businesses are responsible for implementing and overseeing their own CSR. There isn’t an external regulatory body that mandates CSR.

Types of CSR initiatives

There’s no single organization that issues ESG scores. Companies seeking ESG analysis can choose from multiple ESG rating agencies that analyze organizations’ ESG performance. 

Environmental responsibility

Environmental responsibility focuses on protecting the planet. This CSR pillar may be realized through steps like:

• Reducing pollution. For example, a restaurant may source produce locally, reducing the carbon emissions that come with far-away imports.
• Promoting sustainable practices among customers. For example, some coffee shops give customers a discount for bringing their own reusable to-go cup.
• Localized sourcing. As demonstrated by brands like Lush , which source materials locally, mitigating carbon footprints.
• Offsetting negative environmental impacts . For example, a company that cuts down trees may practice good environmental stewardship by planting more.
• Creating product lines that are environmentally friendly. For example, a car company, like Tesla , creating new electric-powered vehicles instead of gas-powered. 
• Preserving natural resources . For instance, employing renewable power.
• Minimizing waste. For example, by promoting recycling.

Social impact & human rights

Social responsibility broadly focuses on benefitting society and the people who live in it. This could include components such as:

• Supporting local communities. For example, a company may contribute to charities or participate in volunteer work that benefits locals, such as Wegmans .
• Engaging in philanthropy. For instance, donating a portion of proceeds to charities, as soon with Whole Foods , or hosting fundraising events for not-for-profit causes. 
• Bolstering positive social causes. For example, working exclusively with vendors, suppliers, and business partners who likewise exhibit positive CSR. 
• Encouraging employee philanthropic responsibility. For instance, a company could match donations employees make to charitable causes — as seen with Bank of America .
• Engaging in socially conscious business practices . For instance, by not doing business with vendors known to use child labor.

Economic responsibility & ethical business practices

Ethical responsibility covers a broad range of moral issues, from labor to financial practices. Here’s how ethical responsibility, including economic responsibility, can look:

• Non-discriminatory treatment. As seen in inclusion and equitable treatment of all stakeholders (including employees and customers) regardless of factors such as age, race, or sexual orientation.
• Positive treatment of workers. For example, by offering fair pay and benefits beyond the legally required bare minimum.
• Support of diversity efforts both inside and outside the business. Internally, a company might promote DEI and diverse hiring. Externally, they might use vendors and suppliers from different backgrounds, such as minority business owners.
• Taking a triple bottom line approach. The three P’s of the triple bottom line are profit, people, and planet. Companies can use this approach in decision-making and committing to measuring social and environmental impact, not just financial performance.  
• Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing . In this strategy, a company only devotes funds to initiatives that promote good CSR. This can also encompass oversight measures needed to promote self-regulation, such as audits. Think of a company like Fidelity . 

CSR isn’t obligatory — but most companies engage in some form of CSR because they recognize the positive impact it has. Here are some of the ways corporate social responsibility benefits not only companies but the world at large:

• Protect the environment. The environmental pillar of CSR has many positive impacts, from reducing carbon emissions to preserving natural resources. To maximize impact, companies can use sustainability reports with set metrics, like energy usage.
• Enhanced brand perception. Modern consumers are increasingly interested in supporting brands that support their values , so emulating positive ideals — like environmentalism or diversity — through CSR can nurture consumer loyalty.
• Employee satisfaction and retention. Like consumers, employees are likewise increasingly concerned with values. Modern workers want to work for companies that align with their own values. Engaging employees in CSR can boost wellbeing and potentially improve retention.
• Create a strong community. When people like investors and employers rally around a company, this creates a bond. Good CSR can further this community building through positive partnerships, for example with other CSR-conscious companies, to further boost brand image.
• Attract investors. Good CSR can also appeal to investors, assuring them that a company is serious about making a difference. Similar to consumers and employees, investors are increasingly interested in a company’s values and have become increasingly influential in CSR matters.
• Enhance financial performance. Sustained backing from customers, investors, and employees invariably fortifies an organization’s financial baseline. A discernible alignment between organizational values and stakeholder expectations not only galvanizes customer and investor spending but also elevates employee productivity. In the big picture, this can improve the company’s bottom line and resilience.

From first-time entrepreneurs to established corporations, any company can enjoy the benefits of CSR. The question is how to go about implementing CSR strategies in a meaningful way. Try these steps:

• Clearly define CSR programs . Start by figuring out what initiatives you want your CSR to encompass. Consider the categories of CSR above for inspiration. Then, break down each category into concrete objectives. For example, if you run a delivery business, try reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Determine steps to integrate CSR into your daily operations. Your business model can’t just say it’s going to include CSR. Tangible steps need to be taken to integrate your objectives into your operations. For example, if you want to reduce carbon emissions for your delivery business, switch to e-vehicles.
• Look beyond the immediate business. Consider who you do business with and aim to find partners who align with your values. For example, if your delivery business is focused on cutting carbon emissions, consider ethical sourcing from local providers. A shorter supply chain means less driving and a smaller carbon footprint.
• Get stakeholders on board. Successful CSR relies on getting buy-in from all relevant stakeholders. This could include employees, investors, and customers alike. For example, say you want to drive employee engagement in your delivery company’s efforts to cut carbon emissions. You might encourage people to engage in energy-friendly practices, like cutting the lights.
• Remain accountable. Make sure you’re keeping up with your CSR commitments by creating a framework for accountability. This could include internal and external audits as well as annual reporting.

Starbucks is well known for their CSR pillars, which they articulate on their website . Their social responsibility covers points like a commitment to anti-bribery measures, while their workplace standards uphold equal employment. Starbucks is also known for providing its employees with healthcare coverage well beyond the minimum, with perks like dental, vision, and mental health services.

The coffee giant is further dedicated to ethical sourcing and addresses everything from deforestation to animal welfare practices. They also have a zero tolerance policy for child labor and prison labor.

The company’s commitment to CSR doesn’t stop there. Starbucks also has multiple initiatives to support strong communities. For example, the Starbucks Foundation supports nonprofits, while the company’s anti-hunger initiatives donate meals through FoodShare.

Finally, Starbucks maintains their commitment by ensuring their CSR efforts are well-monitored and documented. Anyone can access their global environmental and social impact reports on their website. They also subject themselves to external audits.

A commitment to corporate social responsibility is an impactful way for companies to help the planet and people while also gaining support from customers, employees, and investors — and even boosting the bottom line. If you aren’t yet implementing CSR in your day-to-day business operations, now is the time to get started.

At IMD, we believe in action over rhetoric. Our approach to sustainability is rooted in offering real-world, actionable learning experiences. With programs like Driving Sustainability and degree programs like the Master of Science in Sustainable Management and Technology , we ensure you can seamlessly integrate your learning into your immediate context. Whether you’re just beginning your journey or seeking to elevate your understanding, IMD’s pragmatic approach ensures you’re equipped to make a meaningful impact. Discover the IMD difference and become a catalyst for change. 

Subscribe for more great sustainability content 💌

Subscribe now for exclusive content from imd.

Discover how ESG practices drive sustainable finance strategies, reshape business operations, and influence investment decisions.

Learn about economic sustainability and how to implement it in your organization for long-term business success and societal well-being

Learn sustainable investing strategies, ESG criteria, and their impact on financial returns. Align your investments with your values.

Business ethics, the application of moral principles in a business setting, plays a pivotal role in shaping a company’s reputation and success. It entails adhering to values and standards that promote transparency, fairness, and honesty in business interactions. A solid reputation, built through ethical practices, is invaluable for a company. It attracts and retains customers, […]

More From Forbes

Addressing ethical challenges: social responsibility versus profitability in business.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Demee Koch is the CEO and founder of the brand DE MOI® , which is silently disrupting the beauty industry under a no-nonsense philosophy.

Corporate social responsibility has served as a compass for the management of companies in a variety of industry sectors, regardless of the type of goods or services they offer. This strategy goes beyond merely adhering to regulatory requirements and has been willingly adopted by businesses of all sizes, from huge organizations to smaller endeavors.

In my experience, ethical issues become more prominent for businesses whose operations are inextricably linked to environmental concerns and the pursuit of sustainable development. As a result, this relationship extends to the broader realms of human well-being and health. In such cases, I believe the ethical landscape requires greater scrutiny and a more deliberate approach to decision-making, as the consequences of actions extend far beyond immediate profit margins, encompassing broader societal and ecological implications. By taking this approach, businesses can not only improve their standing in the marketplace but also significantly contribute to the well-being of society as a whole.

As an advocate for conscious entrepreneurship, I believe we need to not only satisfy the requests of direct customers but also respond to the requests of all other stakeholders and maintain relationships based on trust. The responsibility of a company is no longer just economic but also becomes social. There are objectives to be pursued that go beyond company profitability but which, in the same way, create economic value.

I have found that the projects implemented by socially responsible companies are typically based on voluntary actions, not expressly required by specific laws, and are considered very important by the relevant public. This emphasizes that companies whose work is directly connected to the environment, sustainable development and, consequently, the well-being and health of people are more likely to face ethical issues. Such businesses often confront moral dilemmas and difficult decisions regarding how to balance the pursuit of profit with responsibility towards the environment and human health.

Based on my own experiences, there are several ways leaders can address these ethical challenges.

1. Conscious Entrepreneurship

Carefully consider the effect of your company's activities on the environment. As a conscious entrepreneur, it's important that you determine how to balance economic benefits with environmental damage and greenhouse gas emissions. In my own industry, for example, there is a growing demand for natural ingredients, sustainable or recyclable packaging and focusing on the entire production chain. Finding and addressing which ethical concerns are relevant in your industry can help you address them before they become larger issues that could damage your company's reputation and productivity.

2. Sustainable Practices

Businesses must grapple with the dilemma of how to pursue short-term profits without compromising the ability of our current and future communities to meet their own needs. This may require investing in sustainable practices, such as the use of renewable energy sources or responsible management of natural resources. If your company produces goods or services that can directly impact people's health, ensure that those products are both safe and effective. This often involves attending to strict regulatory compliance and the adoption of high-quality standards.

3. Common Good

Companies are being expected more and more to play an active role in promoting the common good. This can include initiatives like charity work, corporate volunteering and reducing environmental impact. But when you engage in significant environmental and sustainable development initiatives, I recommend going above and beyond simply adhering to the law. Behaving proactively in ways that are consistent with moral principles can help demonstrate your genuine commitment to doing business ethically.

4. Transparent Communication

Consumers are increasingly attentive to other factors mainly linked to social and ethical aspects; among these are environmental sustainability, employee rights, company transparency and the quality of production processes. When communicating with both your employees and your customers, be sure you are open and honest about your practices, policies and impacts. This is crucial for gaining the trust of consumers and stakeholders alike.

The theme of social responsibility is spreading. Public opinion has been increasingly attentive to aspects of what they purchase that go beyond simple satisfaction of a need. Because of this, companies operating in sectors closely linked to the environment and sustainable development face a unique set of ethical issues. More than ever, it is important to adopt a responsible mindset and make decisions that balance your company's economic interests with those of the environment and humanity.

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions