In their book, “Business and Society”, Carroll and Buchholtz give this definition of CSR that is broken down into four components, “The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary (philanthropic) expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time.”(Carroll p.36) The economic and legal types of responsibility are required of businesses by society. These areas include being profitable while obeying all laws and regulations including environmental and consumer laws. (Carroll p.39) These areas of responsibility are the minimu

CSR challenges firms to be held accountable their social and business decisions affecting the firm’s stakeholders. Traditionally stakeholders were considered as people who hold financial interests in an organization, such as shareholders. These shareholders accounted for many of the decisions that a company would make. Today stakeholders consist of anyone that can be affected by a business decision, including shareholders, employees, families, community and the environment. These CSR stakeholders not only share an interest in the businesses economic goals, but they have consciences towards today's society. They seek helping their community by making social goals a part of a firm’s overall business decision. Keith Davis and Robert Blomstrom give their definition of CSR in the Carroll and Buchholtz book. It is as follows, “Social responsibility is the obligation of decision makers to take actions which protect and improve the welfare of society as a whole along with their own interests.”(Carroll p.35) Now it is not just the shareholders of a firm that has the final say in a decision, but it’s the stakeholders as well. The increased stakeholder activism and more sophisticated stakeholder engagement have been key developments to the growth of CSR. (www.bsr.org)

In the article, “An Overview of Corporate Social Responsibility”, on the Business for Social Responsibility website (www.bsr.org) we explore some benefits to the adoption of CSR by companies. The first benefit is enhanced brand image and reputation. If consumers’ see that a firm has a great reputation with it’s public for being for example, environmentally cautious, they will be more likely to buy that product or service. This leads to increased sales and customer loyalty. While prices and quality remain an important factor in consumer spending, people also look at things like “sweatshop-free” or absence of genetically modified ingredients when deciding to buy or not to buy. (www.bsr.org) These features are not just seen by your typical consumer. Government officials are also consumers. With their approval of a product from a company that uses CSR, there could be a reduction in the amount of government interference within the company. This helps to show future clients and investors that the firm practices honest and fair values. A company benefiting from being socially res

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