In search of corporate social responsibility: Introduction to special issue

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue aims to contextualize and critically comment on the current trajectory of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in both scholarly inquiry and business practice. It suggests that we must place it within the milieu of the ongoing economic crisis and the failure of a number of important opportunities to make business ethical (e.g. the 2012 Rio + 20 Earth Summit). It then suggests possible future terrain for tenable CSR research (and practice), especially in the context of widespread cynicism and disbelief regarding the claims of business ethicists in industry and the academy. © The Author(s) 2013.