Corporate social responsibility, some key theoretical issues and concepts for new ways of doing business

This paper brings together some of the main scholarly sources and thinkers of the last fifty years or so, who have been influential in the corporate social responsibility discussions which have become important, once again, as we begin the 21st century. The author creates a narrative of key social, economic and political concepts and themes, which are rationalised (in ways that others might not) from what is often a very disparate, diverse and not always connected discussion on corporate social responsibility. This is not an objective history, charting the developments chronologically, but is the bringing together of some serious thinking in the field of corporate social responsibility in a way that has considerable resonance for both the development of public policy and business practice in corporate citizenship at the beginning of the 21st century.

Working and fighting for progress, for prosperity, for society : brave new business worlds before and beyond corporate citizenship

One of the things that many of us working in corporate citizenship tend to do is to assume that we are actually creating new agendas. Sometimes we do but, more often than not, other thinkers have been there before us. One such man worth revisiting in his extensive writings of over 60 years ago is Aldous Huxley, probably most famous to many for his novel Brave New World. This paper looks briefly at some of the things Huxley had to say that are relevant to our current thinking about the 'soul' of business and its relations to CSR and corporate citizenship.

Defining the domain of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in tourism organisations : a preliminary view from stakeholders in Thailand's accommodation sector

This paper aims to define the domain of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for hotel and accommodation organizations in Thailand. It seeks to integrate the diverse components of CSR as defined within the general business/management, tourism and stakeholder literatures. A review of existing literature, codes of practice and standards, identify three broad CSR components – economic issues, social/ethical issues and environmental – although each of the standards varied in terms of the definition and emphasis applied. The components were ‘aggregated’ within each of the broad management and tourism literature, these two sets of groupings were then aggregated into one overarching set of CSR issues. Semi-structured interviews were then undertaken with 38 key informants from hotel and resort businesses in Thailand to identify their views toward the applicability of these over-arching components to hotel and accommodation organisations.

The results of the aggregation of standards suggest that CRS approaches within general business tend to be more socially/ethically orientated whereas within the tourism area approaches tend to be more environmentally orientated. Key respondents’ views were generally consistent with the three broad issues of the integrated CSR domain, although some issues were identified as more salient to hotel and accommodation organisations than others. The paper suggests that there is a need to develop CSR measures and indicators applicable and reflective of the different environmental, legal, cultural and local setting.

Building a corporate socially responsible brand : an investigation of organizational complexity

Past research has suggested that developing CSR linked brands is a complex activity that needs to consider the social issues being addressed as well as multiple facets of organisational activities. This paper proposes that organisational activities need to be considered at four different levels – corporate brand, product/line brands, location/functional activities and supply chain issues. The four activities are discussed and implications for developing CSR-leveraged brands are explored.