The CSR Newsletters are a freely-available resource generated as a dynamic complement to the textbook, Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation.

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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Strategic CSR - Welcome back!

 
 
Welcome back to the Strategic CSR Newsletter!
The first CSR Newsletter of the Spring semester is below.
As always, your comments and ideas are welcome.
 
 
I hope you all had a good winter break.
 
As I mentioned in the autumn, I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about the core principles that underpin the concept of strategic CSR. The main stimulus for this thinking is a new book that I was invited to write for the UN PRME initiative collection (http://www.unprme.org/). The book has just been published by Business Expert Press (http://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/corporate-social-responsibility-strategic-perspective):
 
 
 
 
The title for the book is Corporate Social Responsibility: A Strategic Perspective. The book details a series of ten principles that I believe provide an intellectual foundation for strategic CSR that better fits with what we know about economic theory and human behavior. As a preview, here are the ten principles that I am arguing define strategic CSR:
  1. Business equals social progress.
  2. Shareholders do not own the firm.
  3. Identifying stakeholders is easy; prioritizing among stakeholder interests is difficult.
  4. CSR is not solely a corporate responsibility.
  5. Market-based solutions are optimal.
  6. Profit = economic value + social value.
  7. The free market is an illusion.
  8. Scale matters; only business can save the planet.
  9. Strategic CSR is not an option; it is business.
  10. Milton Friedman was right, the social responsibility of business is business.
 
In particular, I am attempting to redefine CSR as "sustainable value creation." By defining CSR in this way, I believe it moves from being something that is peripheral to strategy and operations (and, as such, something the CEO/executive team can ignore, if they so choose), to being central to the value creating function of the business (something that cannot be ignored). As a result, I think this framework has radical consequences for both business practice and business education.
 
If you have any questions about the book, please let me know.
Take care
David
 
David Chandler & Bill Werther
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation (3e)
© Sage Publications, 2014
 
Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: http://www.sagepub.com/chandler3e/
Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: http://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/
 
Posted by David Chandler at 11:15 AM