Guides

Business activities create both positive and negative externalities for both society and environment. The story of business and society revolves around how businesses generate more positive externalities and minimize negative externalities. The social expectation that businesses should proactively take care of the broader society and environment has increased in the last few decades. Businesses have responded to this pressure with a set of activities given the generic name of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Business firms engage with stakeholders on a wide range of issues by means of CSR. CSR activities seemingly addressing each and every social problem were neither good for business nor good for the society. Such CSR activities were neither making any progress in alleviating social situation nor benefiting the business, as the social problems were too big to be addressed by a business and also firms didn’t have the expertise to find effective and efficient solutions for social issues. Thus firms were seen as wasting the shareholders resources. The concept of strategic CSR was a response to this criticism. Strategic CSR refer