ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the landscape of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Japan today and build up a typology of corporate approaches to meeting the prevailing demands for greater social responsibility. It introduces and describes a process-based CSR initiative implemented by a retailer in Japan. The chapter describes that a process-based approach to CSR, which enables the members of a corporation to integrate social needs into their business strategies and operations, is essential for the realisation of an innovative and value-creating CSR initiative. It examines the processes—the perceptions and interactions—essential for realising the innovation necessary for an active/ transformational model of CSR. Following the framework proposed by Basu and Palazzo, implementing an active/transformational approach requires: a collectivistic identity, a moral legitimacy, an ethical justification, an open posture, an internally consistent and a normative commitment. These six processes are organised into three categories of principles, processes and partners.
