ABSTRACT
Faced with the failure of many development projects and the relatively small size of aid budgets, many development practitioners have started to hope that businesses can do almost everything. This chapter outlines the emerging developmental criticisms of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It emphasizes that businesses cannot do everything in development and that CSR will do little to change that. Jedrzej George Frynas goes on to acknowledge some other good work done by Shell and other oil companies. Jenkins acknowledges the emerging CSR debate about transparency, governance and how taxes are spent, but laments the lack of emphasis on how companies avoid them in the first place. Development advocates are right to point out that businesses cannot do everything in development and that CSR will do little to change that fact. Companies in developed countries usually take for granted the critical role that 'soft' infrastructure plays in the execution of their business models in their home markets.
