Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): The Trend By Carroll's Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the framework proposed by Carroll (1991) to provide managers with a way to evaluate their duties to the myriad groups with interests in their organizations. These groups are defined as stakeholders and include owners, customers, employees, the community, competitors, suppliers, social activist groups, the public and potentially others. According to Carroll (1991), the framework of CSR can be divided into four parts encompassing “the entire spectrum of business obligations”; these include economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. The hierarchical structure of CSR consists of a pyramid encompassing these principles with the most critical concept, economics, forming the foundation. Economic responsibilities are considered
Beyond legal responsibilities, ethics are a reflection of society’s expectations and norms and include the principles of justice, rights and utilitarianism. Ethical responsibilities can be hard to define because they are in a state of constant flux, intrinsically linked to changing social mores and the development of the legal code. However, the essential concept of ethical responsibilities is to provide a framework businesses can utilize to avoid causing harm to stakeholders. Lastly, the final step in the pyramid is the philanthropic responsibilities, or the “icing on the cake” (Carroll 1991); implying that philanthropy is not necessarily required for a corporation to be successful. In order for a firm to be considered philanthropic, it must go beyond the moral expectations of society and freely contribute to the community and human welfare. Examples of philanthropic organizations include Tom’s, the Body Shop, more examples. In contrast to the philosophy of CSR, Friedman (2007) views social responsibility as being