Epistemological development of corporate social responsibility: the evolution continues

Norman Cameron Croker and Lisa Robyn Barnes

Social Responsibility Journal, 2017, vol. 13, issue 2, 279-291

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social performance (CSP) in literature from its inception to 2013. Design/methodology/approach - Using a bibliometric technique, the authors examine CSR’s epistemological orientation and determine whether it is primarily composed of authors building on each other’s work (“progressive”), or comprises the development of alternative constructs (“variegational”), or whether both orientations exist side-by-side within a dynamic, multidimensional concept. Findings - The paper reviews bibliometric analysis of the epistemological evolution of the CSR concept within the management literature, from 1972 to 2002, using a dataset to that time of approximately 500 articles. Since then, the evolving CSR/CSP literature has transitioned the main CSR debate from a “whether or not to”, to a “how to” implement CSR debate, and the body of literature has grown to over 8,000 articles. The authors find that the progression of the CSR construct is both variegational and progressive. They identify that the predominant theoretical theme is based on stakeholder theory. Research limitations/implications - The results of this research, identifying that the epistemological evolution of the CSR concept within the recent management literature can be characterised as being both variegational and progressive, adds a valuable contribution to the ongoing and increasing body of knowledge relating to CSR. Originality/value - The results of this study may be of practical importance to scholars in identifying relevant foci for their future research into the CSR construct.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Bibliometric analysis; Epistemological orientation of literature; Social responsibility of business (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:srjpps:srj-02-2016-0029

DOI: 10.1108/SRJ-02-2016-0029

Access Statistics for this article

Social Responsibility Journal is currently edited by Prof David Crowther

More articles in Social Responsibility Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().