ABSTRACT
As we have seen, the social responsibility of organisations – commonly known as corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate responsibility – has become an important issue in contemporary international debates. In recent years, it has become more widespread and recognised as being more central to the activity of corporations all over the world. Central to CSR is a concern for sustainability (see Aras and Crowther 2007a) for all aspects of sustainability as we have considered in this book, as this is crucial for long-term success and even survival – even in the financial terms by which firms normally judge their success. Indeed many corporate reports which used to be designated as environmental reports and subsequently as CSR reports, have now been repackaged as sustainability reports. CSR, however, is more problematic as it is often perceived that there is a dichotomy between CSR activity and financial performance with one being deleterious to the other and corporations having an imperative to pursue shareholder value. Moreover, there is no agreed upon definition of exactly what constitutes CSR (Ortiz Martinez and Crowther 2005) and, therefore, no agreed upon basis for measuring that activity and relating it to the various dimensions of corporate performance. Consequently, much of the previous research regarding CSR deals with this issue and the problems in development of standards for definition and reporting for such indeterminate activity (see Crowther 2006).
