Extending the Geographic Scope of Corporate Social Responsibility: Remote Work and Housing Affordability

Michael W. Obal () and Kimberly K. Merriman ()
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Michael W. Obal: University of Massachusetts Lowell
Kimberly K. Merriman: University of Massachusetts Lowell

Journal of Business Ethics, 2025, vol. 201, issue 2, No 3, 287-302

Abstract: Abstract The affordable housing crisis is a quintessential wicked social problem. Lower wage workers in particular are increasingly priced out of desired locations and essential workers such as teachers, police and healthcare providers often struggle to live within the very communities they serve. We investigate the role of remote work in this multi-faceted problem, leveraging multi-year data derived for the United States to examine a path in which remote work opportunities skew to higher wage workers who commonly use their geographic flexibility to relocate to more affordable locales. We probe how this form of residential sorting among higher wage workers creates both positive and negative externalities in relation to home prices, focusing most closely on the social cost borne by lower wage workers and the role of organizations through the lens of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Our research broadens the social role for organizations in the domain of affordable housing and, critically, specifies theoretical logic that extends CSR to the contemporary landscape of remote work and its resulting spatial interdependencies that render responsibility well beyond traditional geographic boundaries.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Wicked social problems; Spatial interdependencies; Externalities of remote work; Affordable housing crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-025-05956-4

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