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The purpose of the study is to understand the evolution of the state-of-the-art of corporate social responsibility (CSR) research in the domain of marketing.

The top-ranked journals in the domain of marketing have been chosen for the purpose of this study, and the papers related to CSR concept published in those journals between 1930 and 2018 have been reviewed. A lucid framework has been used to structure the reviewing process.

The study finds that the CSR concept in marketing context has become more complex, its dimensions have evolved and increased in number, affecting diverse stakeholders leading to different outcomes.

A simple model is proposed to understand the amalgamation of CSR concept in marketing literature. The study also highlights extant gaps in the literature and suggests the directions for future research.

The notion of CSR goes beyond the economic and regulatory obligation of the firm. Hence, for it to be duly implemented, practitioners must have a holistic understanding of this multi-faceted construct. This paper examines the changing role of CSR in the context of marketing over a period of almost a century. It thereby helps marketers to understand and visualize their changing responsibility toward the society at large and thereby co-create a sustainable relationship with all the stakeholders. The study provides both tactical and strategic pointers to practitioners.

The study draws upon extant literature and documents the positive impact of CSR on marketing variables and thereby gives a compelling reason to the marketers to be socially responsible. Compilation of persuasive evidence would encourage the adoption of CSR concepts by the marketers. This would elicit a more socially responsible action which will have a positive impact on the society that the marketer serves.

This is an in-depth study depicting the journey of CSR construct in marketing literature and provides a holistic understanding of the construct in the context of marketing.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in the form of corporate philanthropy or charity, has been practiced in the United States since the late 1800's (Sethi, 1977). Today's concept of CRS originated in 1953 with the publication of Bowen's book entitled “Social responsibilities of Businessmen”. In his book Bowen asked the question: “What responsibilities to society can business people be reasonably expected to assume?” At this time, the emphasis was placed on business people's social conscience, rather than on the company itself. Further on the academics became much more precise in defining the firms’ responsibilities. Carroll (1999) divided companies’ responsibilities into economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. Lantos (2002) narrowed down CSR to ethical, altruistic, and strategic responsibility. According to Davis (1973, p. 312) CSR refers to a company's concern for “issues beyond the narrow economic, technical and legal requirements of the firm.”

This paper aims to integrate the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within the South African quantity surveying firms (SAQSF) as an approach for solving the housing problem for the poor.

A research methodology consisted of a literature review and field study designed to accomplish four objectives. Firstly, the literature review studied the housing problem in South Africa, the quantity surveying profession and the CSR concept. Secondly, the field study investigated the perception and application of the CSR concept by SAQSF. Thirdly, an innovative business improvement framework integrating the concept of CSR within SAQSF is developed. Finally, research conclusions and recommendations are summarised.

There is a severe housing problem for the poor in South Africa. Government initiatives for delivering housing for the poor have to be supported by quantity surveyors through utilising their practical knowledge and expertise in social context. SAQSF are aware of the CSR and welcome the developed framework. The CSRF is recommended to be used as an innovative tool to assist in alleviating the housing problem for the poor.

This research focused only on the quantity surveying firms in South Africa.

This research presents a practical solution to the housing problem for the poor through activating the social role of SAQSF towards supporting government initiatives.

This paper presents an innovative business improvement framework integrating the CSR concept into SAQSF towards solving the housing problem for the poor. This ideology has received scant attention in construction literature. The developed framework represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The results of this study may be of practical importance to scholars in identifying relevant foci for their future research into the CSR construct.

The aim of this paper is to set a baseline understanding of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept amongst the different stakeholders in the mining industry in Ghana and further examine their appreciation of issues of occupational health and safety. It explored the integration of issues of health and safety of employees into the broader CSR agenda through a stakeholder analysis.

The study population comprised various stakeholders operating in the mining industry of Ghana. The purposive sampling technique was used in the selection of the organisations/institutions that participated in the study. In all, 35 people were interviewed, and the interview data were analysed using thematic-content analysis.

The findings provide an insight into how the various stakeholders in the mining industry in Ghana understood the CSR concept and how they went about practising it. Appreciation of issues health and safety by the various stakeholders also received considerable attention. All the stakeholders equated CSR to community relations. In all the cases, respondents referred to the local community as their focal point when discussing the concept.

On the basis of this paper, it appears that mining companies in Ghana have looked upon the concept as a strategic challenge and not as a series of high-profile initiatives aimed at ensuring a responsible business practice. This paper adds to the literature by providing a perspective on how CSR associates with health and safety.

The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the role of business schools in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and responsible management education from the business school students’ perspective, and to develop a framework for effective CSR education that meets the Polish students’ expectations.

The chapter starts with a review of CSR concept evolution and importance, with a strong focus on Poland. Next, the review of the responsible management education state in Europe and Poland is presented. Then, an evaluation of CSR and responsible management education in Polish business schools from the students’ perspective is conducted. The evaluation is based on a survey amongst business students of a non-public Polish business school. The practical dimension of the chapter takes the form of a framework of effective CSR education in Polish business schools, presented at the end.

To sum up, the demand for CSR competencies and responsible management is on the rise, both amongst students and employers. The existing international initiatives and accreditation standards give a general idea about the shape of responsible management education, but the exact model must be developed on the regional/country level, as it must include various factors such as the economy, history, culture, academia-business relations or even the dominating teaching model.

The chapter provides a conceptual framework for CSR and responsible management education for those business schools operating in the Polish business context.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the impact of higher education on students' and young managers' perception of companies and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The research is based on an electronic questionnaire for students and alumni of different institutions of higher education in Nantes (France). The textual analysis software ALCESTE enabled interpretion of the answers to the open‐ended questions. Concerning the closed questions, analyses by simple sort and the cross sort subject to chi2‐tests were used.

The main result of this exploratory study is the impact of the different types of academic institutions on the respondents' perception of companies and their attitude towards CSR concepts and tools.

The questionnaire should be submitted to a group of older managers and engineers in order to check whether and to what extent the impact of the academic institution is confirmed after several years of experience as managers. Furthermore, this exploratory research should be complemented by a qualitative approach to explain the link between the corporate vision and educational background.

Higher educational institutions have to integrate CSR in their culture, as this culture seems to have an impact on the perception of companies and CSR that is as important as the content of the education.

This research has been designed by a French business school and the white collar trade union CFDT‐Cadres.

Most studies on consumers and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have focused on Western contexts. Consequently, good insight is lacking into non-Western markets where consumers may respond differently. China is a case in point, despite the popularity of the CSR concept and high societal expectations of firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese consumers perceive the underlying components of CSR found in Western countries; whether their CSR expectations differ for local Chinese compared to foreign firms; and whether results differ across regions within China.

A country-wide study was done using a questionnaire to collect data in seven distinctive regional markets across China.

Findings show that the originally Western CSR construct seems generalizable to China, but consumers across all regions perceive two rather than four components: one combining economic and legal responsibilities (labelled “required CSR”) and another combining ethical and philanthropic responsibilities (“expected CSR”). Consumers expect local Chinese firms to take more responsibility than foreign firms, particularly for required CSR.

This study focused on consumer perceptions, not on actual buying behaviour, which is a potential area for further research. Follow-up investigation to see whether the findings regarding the CSR concept also hold in other emerging and developing countries would be worthwhile. This also applies to an extension of the different expectations vis-à-vis foreign and local firms.

The study gives more insight into notions of standardization and adaptation with regard to CSR, considering China compared to other countries and China’s different internal markets. This is relevant for international marketers confronted with (potential) investments and activities in China, inbound or outbound, or in need of a comparative global perspective.

While the findings show some context-specificity for CSR in and across China, they also confirm the relevance of the originally Western CSR components to an emerging-market setting. These insights may be helpful for those interested in furthering CSR across countries, and locally as well as globally.

This study responds to calls for an improved understanding of the context-specificity of the originally Western CSR construct and of the extent to which it may be generalizable to non-Western settings such as China. The authors used a sample covering all regions of China and discovered two important dimensions. The results may be helpful to guide the debate on the plethora of CSR conceptualizations into a more focused direction, with clear relevance for the marketing field.

The present paper is part of an extensive research project conducted in various fish processing companies located in the Iberian Peninsula and its purpose is to study corporate social responsibility (CSR) relating to: management's perception of the CSR concept; current practice analysis of the companies studied; and proposal formulation for a company's CSR implementation plan.

The study, done during June through October of 2009, utilized a qualitative method. The data were acquired through questionnaires, industry visits, interviews and management manuals.

The results indicate a strong inclination toward a management of quality control, food security and environment with lower priority given to social responsibility. The results also suggest that the CSR concept is not fully understood among the companies studied.

The study was conducted at five fish processing companies. Caution is required in generalizing these results to other fish companies located in other countries.

In view of the positive results in the areas of economic (quality control and food safety) and environmental management the next step would be to become socially responsible by developing its social resources (work safety, health, and a polity of human rights).

The study provides an analysis of fish processing companies that have already implemented an integrated management system which includes a well defined and ample concept of CSR. This type of study has not been done before to the best knowledge of the authors.

While fierce global competition has negative environmental and social impacts and may lead large companies to act irresponsibly, corporate social responsibility (CSR) academic literature, especially stakeholder theory, pays little attention to competition and market pressure. It only highlights the competitive advantage a CSR strategy represents for companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between CSR and competition in order to contribute to the CSR concept through analysis of the conditions for its implementation.

The paper draws upon the academic literature in economics and strategic management, on mainstream CSR papers and on the official disclosure and communication from companies listed on the “CAC 40” of the French stock market. The paper uses the definition of corporate responsibility which integrates companies' environmental and social concerns into all their activities.

The following three major findings arise. First, on a theoretical level and in terms of corporate disclosure on CSR, a large gap is noticed in how the economic view and the CSR view of competition are represented. Second, it is observed that the limits of the competitive advantage obtained by CSR strategy while the “demand for virtue” is weak even if the stakeholders' “expectations” for responsible practices are strong. In fact, a typology of CSR strategies is proposed related to competitive situations. Third, the paradox of the CSR competitive advantage is underlined: specifically, it is gained only if not imitable, i.e. if companies prevent the mimetic practices which could spread best practices for sustainable development.

The paper highlights the limits of the CSR concept within the liberal paradigm, arguing that the mainstream theoretical CSR framework based on the hypothesis of the convergence between firms' objectives and the common interest is not relevant. The framework of the neo‐institutional theory is more appropriate to analyse the mimetic behaviour in competitive markets and corporate commitments in sector‐based codes of conduct that define new norms of social quality.