Corporate Social Responsibility: One Size Does Not Fit All. Collecting Evidence from Europe

Antonio Argandoña, Heidi von Weltzien Hoivik

Journal of Business Ethics · 2009 · Volume 89 · Issue 3

Abstract

This article serves as an introduction to the collection of papers in this monographic issue on “What the European tradition can teach about Corporate Social Responsibility” and presents the rationale and the main hypotheses of the project. We maintain that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an ethical concept, that the demands for socially responsible actions have been around since before the Industrial Revolution and that companies have responded to them, especially in Europe, and that the content of CSR has evolved over time, depending on historical, cultural, political, and socio-economic drivers and particular conditions in different countries and also at different points in time. Therefore, there is not – and probably cannot be – a unique, precise definition of CSR: one global standard for CSR is unlikely.

Keywords

Business ethics, corporate social responsibility, Europe, responsibility, United States, welfare state

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