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The main purpose of this paper is to offer an analysis of how firms could integrate ethical values and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives into its corporate and business strategies, especially in relation to its knowledge management (KM) strategy, technological innovation and human development.

A model for the “strategization” of ethics and CSR – i.e. their integration into a firm's strategies – is put forward in this paper. In addition, this model is evaluated through a case study of a Spanish innovative company, Indra. Data were generated based on interviews with various managers involved in the development of CSR, KM and corporate strategies.

The paper provides evidence of the efforts this company is making in order to connect CSR initiatives with competitive advantage through the development of intangible assets such as human capital and innovation capacity, for which KM is an essential tool.

The case study is limited to one company in order to go deeper into the “strategization” of CSR process. Future studies will focus on a larger and more diverse sample of firms.

Important factors of influence, which have been observed in this process, have been extracted from the case study, such as the necessity of promoting the company's ethical principles through its corporate culture, the human resources practices which encourage the access to and the transfer of knowledge, and relationships with its stakeholders that allow the creation of knowledge, innovation and human development.

The paper provides a model of integration of ethics and CSR into the company's strategy through four stages: establishment of CSR vision, diagnosis of CSR problems, development plan of CSR development, and communication. This model can provide a roadmap for managers in other firms in order to formulate and implement a CSR plan in accordance with the company's strategies and mission.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue and to point at how much in the current economic and social crisis has to do with having lost an integrative, holistic and humanistic approach to management and organizations.

Following a brief introduction of the current context, this piece summarizes the main points of the six papers selected for inclusion in this special issue. These papers were selected from among the more than 80 presented at an International Symposium on Ethics, Business and Society hosted by IESE Business School in Barcelona in May 2010.

The main contributions from the papers in this special issue include conceptual elaborations on the conditions for work, that is, meaningful, holistic management delivered through management education programs, the interface between ethical values/responsibility and firm strategy, corporate community involvement, gift and gratuity dimensions of organizational analysis, and developing trust through a dialogue between management, on the one hand, and ethics and the social sciences, on the other.

This paper points at new avenues to address the main management challenges that managers confront in today's social and economic crisis

This article aims to describe how one company has used an ethical approach to strengthen a competitive position based on knowledge management and technological innovation.

The article presents a case study of Indra, a leading Spanish technology company, showing how it has integrated corporate social responsibility within its strategic objectives.

What can you do to get and keep that competitive edge? One firm thinks it has found the answer by incorporating ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility (CSR) into every aspect of its activities. It seems that a corporate culture focused on ethical behavior can improve your standing and reputation inside and outside the company, so that employees, shareholders and communities at large see the organization as ready to do the right thing, rather than motivated exclusively by making money.

The article explains how basing competitive advantage on ethics and social responsibility can benefit stakeholders and improve long‐term profitability in a technology‐driven company. It shows how embedding ethical considerations and CSR as a basic aspect of strategy development and communicating this approach to stakeholders affects employee motivation and behavior, together with company reputation.

The article demonstrates the connections between corporate social responsibility initiatives and human resource development in an organization reliant on knowledge management as the basis of innovation.

The aim is to present a practical implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a large Spanish IT systems developer, and to link it to competitive advantage in firms based on innovation.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and recommendation.

Innovative and competitive high‐tech firms cannot ignore their human capital, but how many examples are there of companies doing just that, and suffering as a result? This case study of a high‐tech firm shows how to develop a corporate strategy that includes exploiting the human capital legitimately via CSR and ethics.

CSR has a major role in firms that want to boost their innovative relevance to customers and potential customers, through involvement of stakeholders in an integrated vision.

Business is not just about sustainable profitability: it is about shared responsibility between stakeholders and boosting the value of intangible human capital.

A unique model of CSR integrating it with intangible resources is developed so as to assess performance and develop future strategy. This could trigger similar corporate strategies in many other ambitious firms.

Innovative organizations are increasingly facing challenges in a dynamic market to address corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues; however, research on how organizational learning (OL) contributes to organizations’ social responsibility and innovation remains sparse. This study aims to bridge the gap in previous research and examines how OL and dynamic capabilities (DCs) act as drivers of CSR performance (CSRP) and innovation performance.

This study is survey-based and uses time-lagged, multisource data from 151 pharmaceutical industry-related companies in Iran. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the validity of the measurement model and hierarchical regression was used to test the key hypotheses.

DCs mediate the relationship between OL and CSRP. Moreover, CSRP significantly mediates the relationship between OL and innovation.

Drawing on the perspective of DCs, this research is among the first to offer new insights in a new context on what antecedent conditions lead to the successful implementation of organizational CSRP and how CSRP would, in turn, lead to subsequent innovation performance improvement.