ABSTRACT
Much has changed in the last 50 years in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) since it is largely a product of the twentieth century (Carroll, 1999). Peyró (1997) emphasised that a concern with social responsibility is not a recent phenomenon, having registered its peak in the 1970s in industrialised countries, as a consequence of the serious problems resulting from a society guided by a market economy: the petroleum crisis, a scarcity of mineral resources and acid rain, among others effects, were manifest. At an international level, some public authorities and organisations increasingly consider different aspects of CSR and promote their intent to present them as actions to be undertaken, via public documents and regulations. For example, the United Nations (UN), with Kofi Annan's Global Compact Initiative, analysed CSR in a context of globalisation; the International Labour Organisation produced the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) introduced the Principles of Corporate Governance (1999) and Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (2000); the EU, and specifically its Commission, presented the Green Paper - Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility (COM, 2001) and more recently Corporate Social Responsibility: A Business Contribution to Sustainable Development (COM, 2002). Other important documents must also be remembered such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development ana Agenda 21. All these documents, and the principles contained therein, were strongly reaffirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development of the UN held, in 2002, in Johannesburg (South Africa).
