Within the academic and business field there have been hundreds of concepts proposing and providing their viewpoints on how to conduct business in a more ethical, transparent and sustainable way. The most common concept mentioned and discussed today is the concept of CSR (Marrewijk, 2003).
According to Carroll (1999), four main themes took centre stage in the 1990s.
These themes were:
a) Corporate Social Performance
b) Business Ethics Theory
c) Corporate Citizenship
d) Stakeholder Theory
The stakeholder theory highlights the issue of companies’ responsibilities, which is of high relevance in the discussion of CSR.
a) Corporate Social Performance (CSP): CSP deals with the behaviour a company displays in regards to society’s needs. The theory distinguishes between three different behaviours. The first behaviour is social obligation which is a company responding to only economic and legal constraints. The second behaviour is social responsibility which is the company acting accordingly to prevailing social norms, values and expectations of performance. The third behaviour is social responsiveness which means that the company adopts their actions to social needs.
b) Business Ethics Theory: There has been a growing body of thought which may loosely be labelled Business Ethics Theory. The theory is a response to the neo-economic currents stating that ultimate objective of companies is to maximise market value and that this objective lead to maximal social welfare. The Business Ethics Theory claims that companies should take on a greater responsibility than focusing on market value and be ethically responsible in regards to ...