title: Karl Popper

text: In his early years Popper was impressed by Marxism, whether of Communists or socialists. An event that happened in 1919 had a profound effect on him: During a riot, caused by the Communists, the police shot several unarmed people, including some of Popper's friends, when they tried to free party comrades from prison. The riot had, in fact, been part of a plan by which leaders of the Communist party with connections to Béla Kun tried to take power by a coup; Popper did not know about this at that time. However, he knew that the riot instigators were swayed by the Marxist doctrine that class struggle would produce vastly more dead men than the inevitable revolution brought about as quickly as possible, and so had no scruples to put the life of the rioters at risk to achieve their selfish goal of becoming the future leaders of the working class. This was the start of his later criticism of historicism. Popper began to reject Marxist historicism, which he associated with questionable means, and later socialism, which he associated with placing equality before freedom (to the possible disadvantage of equality).


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper said that he was a socialist for "several years", and maintained an interest in egalitarianism, but abandoned it as a whole because socialism was a "beautiful dream", but, just like egalitarianism, it was incompatible with individual liberty. Popper initially saw totalitarianism as exclusively right-wing in nature, although as early as 1945 in "The Open Society" he was describing Communist parties as giving a weak opposition to fascism due to shared historicism with fascism. Over time, primarily in defence of liberal democracy, Popper began to see Soviet-type communism as a form of totalitarianism, and viewed the main issue of the Cold War as not capitalism versus socialism, but democracy versus totalitarianism. In 1957, Popper would dedicate "The Poverty of Historicism" to "memory of the countless men, women and children of all creeds or nations or races who fell victims to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny."


title: Karl Popper

text: In 1947, Popper co-founded the Mont Pelerin Society, with Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and others, although he did not fully agree with the think tank's charter and ideology. Specifically, he unsuccessfully recommended that socialists should be invited to participate, and that emphasis should be put on a hierarchy of humanitarian values rather than advocacy of a free market as envisioned by classical liberalism.


title: Karl Popper

text: Although Popper was an advocate of toleration, he also warned against unlimited tolerance. In "The Open Society and Its Enemies", he argued:


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper criticized what he termed the "conspiracy theory of society," the view that powerful people or groups, godlike in their efficacy, are responsible for purposely bringing about all the ills of society. This view cannot be right, Popper argued, because "nothing ever comes off exactly as intended." According to philosopher David Coady, "Popper has often been cited by critics of conspiracy theories, and his views on the topic continue to constitute an orthodoxy in some circles." However, philosopher Charles Pigden has pointed out that Popper's argument only applies to a very extreme kind of conspiracy theory, not to conspiracy theories generally.


title: Karl Popper

text: As early as 1934, Popper wrote of the search for truth as "one of the strongest motives for scientific discovery." Still, he describes in "Objective Knowledge" (1972) early concerns about the much-criticised notion of truth as correspondence. Then came the semantic theory of truth formulated by the logician Alfred Tarski and published in 1933. Popper wrote of learning in 1935 of the consequences of Tarski's theory, to his intense joy. The theory met critical objections to truth as correspondence and thereby rehabilitated it. The theory also seemed, in Popper's eyes, to support metaphysical realism and the regulative idea of a search for truth.


title: Karl Popper

text: According to this theory, the conditions for the truth of a sentence as well as the sentences themselves are part of a metalanguage. So, for example, the sentence "Snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white. Although many philosophers have interpreted, and continue to interpret, Tarski's theory as a deflationary theory, Popper refers to it as a theory in which "is true" is replaced with "corresponds to the facts". He bases this interpretation on the fact that examples such as the one described above refer to two things: assertions and the facts to which they refer. He identifies Tarski's formulation of the truth conditions of sentences as the introduction of a "metalinguistic predicate" and distinguishes the following cases:


title: Karl Popper

text: The first case belongs to the metalanguage whereas the second is more likely to belong to the object language. Hence, "it is true that" possesses the logical status of a redundancy. "Is true", on the other hand, is a predicate necessary for making general observations such as "John was telling the truth about Phillip."


title: Karl Popper

text: Upon this basis, along with that of the logical content of assertions (where logical content is inversely proportional to probability), Popper went on to develop his important notion of verisimilitude or "truthlikeness". The intuitive idea behind verisimilitude is that the assertions or hypotheses of scientific theories can be objectively measured with respect to the amount of truth and falsity that they imply. And, in this way, one theory can be evaluated as more or less true than another on a quantitative basis which, Popper emphasises forcefully, has nothing to do with "subjective probabilities" or other merely "epistemic" considerations.


title: Karl Popper

text: The simplest mathematical formulation that Popper gives of this concept can be found in the tenth chapter of "Conjectures and Refutations". Here he defines it as:


title: Karl Popper

text: where formula_8 is the verisimilitude of "a", formula_9 is a measure of the content of the truth of "a", and formula_10 is a measure of the content of the falsity of "a".


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper's original attempt to define not just verisimilitude, but an actual measure of it, turned out to be inadequate. However, it inspired a wealth of new attempts.


title: Karl Popper

text: Knowledge, for Popper, was objective, both in the sense that it is objectively true (or truthlike), and also in the sense that knowledge has an ontological status (i.e., knowledge as object) independent of the knowing subject ("Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach", 1972). He proposed three worlds: World One, being the physical world, or physical states; World Two, being the world of mind, or mental states, ideas and perceptions; and World Three, being the body of human knowledge expressed in its manifold forms, or the products of the Second World made manifest in the materials of the First World (i.e., books, papers, paintings, symphonies, and all the products of the human mind). World Three, he argued, was the product of individual human beings in exactly the same sense that an animal's path is the product of individual animals, and thus has an existence and is evolution independent of any individually known subjects. The influence of World Three, in his view, on the individual human mind (World Two) is at least as strong as the influence of World One. In other words, the knowledge held by a given individual mind owes at least as much to the total, accumulated, wealth of human knowledge made manifest, comparably to the world of direct experience. As such, the growth of human knowledge could be said to be a function of the independent evolution of World Three. Many contemporary philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, have not embraced Popper's Three World conjecture, mostly due to its resemblance to mind–body dualism.


title: Karl Popper

text: The creation–evolution controversy in the United States raises the issue of whether creationistic ideas may be legitimately called science and whether evolution itself may be legitimately called science. In the debate, both sides and even courts in their decisions have frequently invoked Popper's criterion of falsifiability (see Daubert standard). In this context, passages written by Popper are frequently quoted in which he speaks about such issues himself. For example, he famously stated "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program—a possible framework for testable scientific theories." He continued:


title: Karl Popper

text: He also noted that theism, presented as explaining adaptation, "was worse than an open admission of failure, for it created the impression that an ultimate explanation had been reached".


title: Karl Popper

text: He explained that the difficulty of testing had led some people to describe natural selection as a tautology, and that he too had in the past described the theory as "almost tautological", and had tried to explain how the theory could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest:


title: Karl Popper

text: These frequently quoted passages are only a very small part of what Popper wrote on the issue of evolution, however, and give the wrong impression that he mainly discussed questions of its falsifiability. Popper never invented this criterion to give justifiable use of words like science. In fact, Popper stresses at the beginning of "Logic of Scientific Discovery" that "the last thing I wish to do, however, is to advocate another dogma" and that "what is to be called a 'science' and who is to be called a 'scientist' must always remain a matter of convention or decision." He quotes Menger's dictum that "Definitions are dogmas; only the conclusions drawn from them can afford us any new insight" and notes that different definitions of science can be rationally debated and compared:


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper had his own sophisticated views on evolution that go much beyond what the frequently-quoted passages say. In effect, Popper agreed with some of the points of both creationists and naturalists, but also disagreed with both views on crucial aspects. Popper understood the universe as a creative entity that invents new things, including life, but without the necessity of something like a god, especially not one who is pulling strings from behind the curtain. He said that evolution of the genotype must, as the creationists say, work in a goal-directed way but disagreed with their view that it must necessarily be the hand of god that imposes these goals onto the stage of life.


title: Karl Popper

text: Instead, he formulated the spearhead model of evolution, a version of genetic pluralism. According to this model, living organisms themselves have goals, and act according to these goals, each guided by a central control. In its most sophisticated form, this is the brain of humans, but controls also exist in much less sophisticated ways for species of lower complexity, such as the amoeba. This control organ plays a special role in evolution—it is the "spearhead of evolution". The goals bring the purpose into the world. Mutations in the genes that determine the structure of the control may then cause drastic changes in behaviour, preferences and goals, without having an impact on the organism's phenotype. Popper postulates that such purely behavioural changes are less likely to be lethal for the organism compared to drastic changes of the phenotype.


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper contrasts his views with the notion of the "hopeful monster" that has large phenotype mutations and calls it the "hopeful behavioural monster". After behaviour has changed radically, small but quick changes of the phenotype follow to make the organism fitter to its changed goals. This way it looks as if the phenotype were changing guided by some invisible hand, while it is merely natural selection working in combination with the new behaviour. For example, according to this hypothesis, the eating habits of the giraffe must have changed before its elongated neck evolved. Popper contrasted this view as "evolution from within" or "active Darwinism" (the organism actively trying to discover new ways of life and being on a quest for conquering new ecological niches), with the naturalistic "evolution from without" (which has the picture of a hostile environment only trying to kill the mostly passive organism, or perhaps segregate some of its groups).


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper was a key figure encouraging patent lawyer Günter Wächtershäuser to publish his iron–sulfur world hypothesis on abiogenesis and his criticism of "soup" theory.


title: Karl Popper

text: In his later work, however, when he had developed his own "spearhead model" and "active Darwinism" theories, Popper revised this view and found some validity in the controversy:


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper and John Eccles speculated on the problem of free will for many years, generally agreeing on an interactionist dualist theory of mind. However, although Popper was a body-mind dualist, he did not think that the mind is a substance separate from the body: he thought that mental or psychological properties or aspects of people are distinct from physical ones.


title: Karl Popper

text: When he gave the second Arthur Holly Compton Memorial Lecture in 1965, Popper revisited the idea of quantum indeterminacy as a source of human freedom. Eccles had suggested that "critically poised neurons" might be influenced by the mind to assist in a decision. Popper criticised Compton's idea of amplified quantum events affecting the decision. He wrote:


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper called not for something between chance and necessity but for a combination of randomness and control to explain freedom, though not yet explicitly in two stages with random chance before the controlled decision, saying, "freedom is not just chance but, rather, the result of a subtle interplay between something almost random or haphazard, and something like a restrictive or selective control."


title: Karl Popper

text: Then in his 1977 book with John Eccles, "The Self and its Brain", Popper finally formulates the two-stage model in a temporal sequence. And he compares free will to Darwinian evolution and natural selection:


title: Karl Popper

text: In an interview that Popper gave in 1969 with the condition that it should be kept secret until after his death, he summarised his position on God as follows: "I don't know whether God exists or ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God." He objected to organised religion, saying "it tends to use the name of God in vain", noting the danger of fanaticism because of religious conflicts: "The whole thing goes back to myths which, though they may have a kernel of truth, are untrue. Why then should the Jewish myth be true and the Indian and Egyptian myths not be true?" In a letter unrelated to the interview, he stressed his tolerant attitude: "Although I am not for religion, I do think that we should show respect for anybody who believes honestly."


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper helped to establish the philosophy of science as an autonomous discipline within philosophy, both through his own prolific and influential works and through his influence on his contemporaries and students. In 1946, Popper founded the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics (LSE) and there lectured and influenced both Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, two of the foremost philosophers of science in the next generation. (Lakatos significantly modified Popper's position, and Feyerabend repudiated it entirely, but the work of both was deeply influenced by Popper and engaged with many of the problems that Popper set.)


title: Karl Popper

text: Although there is some dispute as to the matter of influence, Popper had a longstanding and close friendship with economist Friedrich Hayek, who was also brought to LSE from Vienna. Each found support and similarities in the other's work, citing each other often, though not without qualification. In a letter to Hayek in 1944, Popper stated, "I think I have learnt more from you than from any other living thinker, except perhaps Alfred Tarski." Popper dedicated his "Conjectures and Refutations" to Hayek. For his part, Hayek dedicated a collection of papers, "Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics", to Popper, and in 1982 said, "ever since his "Logik der Forschung" first came out in 1934, I have been a complete adherent to his general theory of methodology."


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper also had long and mutually influential friendships with art historian Ernst Gombrich, biologist Peter Medawar, and neuroscientist John Carew Eccles. The German jurist Reinhold Zippelius uses Popper's method of "trial and error" in his legal philosophy. Peter Medawar called him "incomparably the greatest philosopher of science that has ever been".


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper's influence, both through his work in philosophy of science and through his political philosophy, has also extended beyond the academy. One of Popper's students at LSE was George Soros, who later became a billionaire investor and among whose philanthropic foundations is the Open Society Institute, a think-tank named in honour of Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies". Soros revised his own philosophy, differing from some of Popper's epistemological assumptions, in a lecture entitled "Open Society" given at Central European University on 28 October 2009:


title: Karl Popper

text: Most criticisms of Popper's philosophy are of the falsification, or error elimination, element in his account of problem solving. Popper presents falsifiability as both an ideal and as an important principle in a practical method of effective human problem solving; as such, the current conclusions of science are stronger than pseudo-sciences or non-sciences, insofar as they have survived this particularly vigorous selection method.


title: Karl Popper

text: He does not argue that any such conclusions are therefore true, or that this describes the actual methods of any particular scientist. Rather, it is recommended as an essential principle of methodology that, if enacted by a system or community, will lead to slow but steady progress of a sort (relative to how well the system or community enacts the method). It has been suggested that Popper's ideas are often mistaken for a hard logical account of truth because of the historical co-incidence of their appearing at the same time as logical positivism, the followers of which mistook his aims for their own.


title: Karl Popper

text: The Quine–Duhem thesis argues that it is impossible to test a single hypothesis on its own, since each one comes as part of an environment of theories. Thus we can only say that the whole package of relevant theories has been collectively falsified, but cannot conclusively say which element of the package must be replaced. An example of this is given by the discovery of the planet Neptune: when the motion of Uranus was found not to match the predictions of Newton's laws, the theory "There are seven planets in the solar system" was rejected, and not Newton's laws themselves. Popper discussed this critique of naive falsificationism in Chapters 3 and 4 of "The Logic of Scientific Discovery".


title: Karl Popper

text: The philosopher Thomas Kuhn writes in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962) that he places an emphasis on anomalous experiences similar to that which Popper places on falsification. However, he adds that anomalous experiences cannot be identified with falsification, and questions whether theories could be falsified in the manner suggested by Popper. Kuhn argues in "The Essential Tension" (1977) that while Popper was correct that psychoanalysis cannot be considered a science, there are better reasons for drawing that conclusion than those Popper provided. Popper's student Imre Lakatos attempted to reconcile Kuhn's work with falsificationism by arguing that science progresses by the falsification of "research programs" rather than the more specific universal statements of naive falsificationism.


title: Karl Popper

text: Popper claimed to have recognised already in the 1934 version of his "Logic of Discovery" a fact later stressed by Kuhn, "that scientists necessarily develop their ideas within a definite theoretical framework", and to that extent to have anticipated Kuhn's central point about "normal science". However, Popper criticised what he saw as Kuhn's relativism. Also, in his collection "Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge" (Harper & Row, 1963), Popper writes,


title: Karl Popper

text: Another objection is that it is not always possible to demonstrate falsehood definitively, especially if one is using statistical criteria to evaluate a null hypothesis. More generally it is not always clear, if evidence contradicts a hypothesis, that this is a sign of flaws in the hypothesis rather than of flaws in the evidence. However, this is a misunderstanding of what Popper's philosophy of science sets out to do. Rather than offering a set of instructions that merely need to be followed diligently to achieve science, Popper makes it clear in "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" that his belief is that the resolution of conflicts between hypotheses and observations can only be a matter of the collective judgment of scientists, in each individual case.


title: Karl Popper

text: In "Science Versus Crime", Houck writes that Popper's falsificationism can be questioned logically: it is not clear how Popper would deal with a statement like "for every metal, there is a temperature at which it will melt". The hypothesis cannot be falsified by any possible observation, for there will always be a higher temperature than tested at which the metal may in fact melt, yet it seems to be a valid scientific hypothesis. These examples were pointed out by Carl Gustav Hempel. Hempel came to acknowledge that logical positivism's verificationism was untenable, but argued that falsificationism was equally untenable on logical grounds alone. The simplest response to this is that, because Popper describes how theories attain, maintain and lose scientific status, individual consequences of currently accepted scientific theories are scientific in the sense of being part of tentative scientific knowledge, and both of Hempel's examples fall under this category. For instance, atomic theory implies that all metals melt at some temperature.


title: Karl Popper

text: An early adversary of Popper's critical rationalism, Karl-Otto Apel attempted a comprehensive refutation of Popper's philosophy. In "Transformation der Philosophie" (1973), Apel charged Popper with being guilty of, amongst other things, a pragmatic contradiction.


title: Karl Popper

text: The philosopher Adolf Grünbaum argues in "The Foundations of Psychoanalysis" (1984) that Popper's view that psychoanalytic theories, even in principle, cannot be falsified is incorrect. The philosopher Roger Scruton argues in "Sexual Desire" (1986) that Popper was mistaken to claim that Freudian theory implies no testable observation and therefore does not have genuine predictive power. Scruton maintains that Freudian theory has both "theoretical terms" and "empirical content". He points to the example of Freud's theory of repression, which in his view has "strong empirical content" and implies testable consequences. Nevertheless, Scruton also concluded that Freudian theory is not genuinely scientific. The philosopher Charles Taylor accuses Popper of exploiting his worldwide fame as an epistemologist to diminish the importance of philosophers of the 20th-century continental tradition. According to Taylor, Popper's criticisms are completely baseless, but they are received with an attention and respect that Popper's "intrinsic worth hardly merits".


title: Karl Popper

text: The philosopher John Gray argues that Popper's account of scientific method would have prevented the theories of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein from being accepted.


title: Karl Popper

text: The philosopher and psychologist Michel ter Hark writes in "Popper, Otto Selz and the Rise of Evolutionary Epistemology" (2004) that Popper took some of his ideas from his tutor, the German psychologist Otto Selz. Selz never published his ideas, partly because of the rise of Nazism, which forced him to quit his work in 1933 and prohibited any reference to his ideas. Popper, the historian of ideas and his scholarship, is criticised in some academic quarters for his rejection of Plato and Hegel.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethically oriented practices. While once it was possible to describe CSR as an internal organizational policy or a corporate ethic strategy, that time has passed as various national and international laws have been developed. Various organizations have used their authority to push it beyond individual or even industry-wide initiatives. In contrast, it has been considered a form of corporate self-regulation for some time, over the last decade or so it has moved considerably from voluntary decisions at the level of individual organizations to mandatory schemes at regional, national, and international levels. Moreover, scholars and firms are using the term "creating shared value", an extension of corporate social responsibility, to explain ways of doing business in a socially responsible way while making profits (see the detailed review article of Menghwar and Daood, 2021).


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Considered at the organisational level, CSR is generally understood as a strategic initiative that contributes to a brand's reputation. As such, social responsibility initiatives must coherently align with and be integrated into a business model to be successful. With some models, a firm's implementation of CSR goes beyond compliance with regulatory requirements and engages in "actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law".


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Furthermore, businesses may engage in CSR for strategic or ethical purposes. From a strategic perspective, CSR can contribute to firm profits, particularly if brands voluntarily self-report both the positive and negative outcomes of their endeavors. In part, these benefits accrue by increasing positive public relations and high ethical standards to reduce business and legal risk by taking responsibility for corporate actions. CSR strategies encourage the company to make a positive impact on the environment and stakeholders including consumers, employees, investors, communities, and others. From an ethical perspective, some businesses will adopt CSR policies and practices because of the ethical beliefs of senior management: for example, the CEO of outdoor-apparel company Patagonia, Inc. argues that harming the environment is ethically objectionable.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Proponents argue that corporations increase long-term profits by operating with a CSR perspective, while critics argue that CSR distracts from businesses' economic role. A 2000 study compared existing econometric studies of the relationship between social and financial performance, concluding that the contradictory results of previous studies reporting positive, negative, and neutral financial impact, were due to flawed empirical analysis and claimed when the study is properly specified, CSR has a neutral impact on financial outcomes. Critics questioned the "lofty" and sometimes "unrealistic expectations" in CSR. or that CSR is merely window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations. In line with this critical perspective, political and sociological institutionalists became interested in CSR in the context of theories of globalization, neoliberalism, and late capitalism.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Since the 1960s, corporate social responsibility has attracted attention from a range of businesses and stakeholders and been referred to by a number of other terms, including "corporate sustainability", "sustainable business", "corporate conscience", "corporate citizenship", "conscious capitalism", and "responsible business".


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A wide variety of definitions have been developed but with little consensus. Part of the problem with definitions has arisen because of the different interests represented. A business person may define CSR as a business strategy, an NGO activist may see it as 'greenwash' while a government official may see it as voluntary regulation. "In addition, disagreement about the definition will arise from the disciplinary approach." For example, while an economist might consider the director's discretion necessary for CSR to be implemented a risk of agency costs, a law academic may consider that discretion to be an appropriate expression of what the law demands from directors. In the 1930s, two law professors, A. A. Berle and Merrick Dodd, famously debated how directors should be made to uphold the public interest: Berle believed there had to be legally enforceable rules in favor of labor, customers and the public equal to or ahead of shareholders, while Dodd argued that powers of directors were simply held on trust.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Corporate social responsibility has been defined by Sheehy as "international private business self-regulation." Sheehy examined a range of different disciplinary approaches to defining CSR. The definitions reviewed included the economic definition of "sacrificing profits," a management definition of "beyond compliance", institutionalist views of CSR as a "socio-political movement" and the law's focus on directors' duties. Further, Sheehy considered Archie B. Carroll's description of CSR as a pyramid of responsibilities, namely, economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities. While Carroll was not defining CSR, but simply arguing for the classification of activities, Sheehy developed a definition differently following the philosophy of science—the branch of philosophy used for defining phenomena.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Carroll extended corporate social responsibility from the traditional economic and legal responsibility to ethical and philanthropic responsibility in response to the rising concerns on ethical issues in businesses. This view is reflected in the "Business Dictionary" that defines CSR as "a company's sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources."


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: – sees itself as a part of the system, not a completely individual economic actor concerned only about maximizing its own profit,


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: – recognises unsustainability (the destruction of natural environment and the increase of social injustice) as the greatest challenge of our age,


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: – accepts that businesses and enterprises have to work on solutions according to their economic weight,


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: – honestly evaluates its own weight and part in causing the problems (it is best to concentrate on 2–3 main problems),


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: – takes essential steps – systematically, progressively, and focused– towards a more sustainable world.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The five principles of the TRE are 1) minimal transport, 2) maximal fairness, 3) zero economism, 4) maximum middle size, 5) product or service falling to the most sustainable 30%.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Most consumers agree that while achieving business targets, companies should engage in CSR efforts at the same time. Most consumers believe companies doing charity work will receive a positive response. Somerville also found that consumers are loyal and willing to spend more on retailers that support charity. Consumers also believe that retailers selling local products will gain loyalty. Smith (2013) shares the belief that marketing local products will gain consumer trust. However, environmental efforts are receiving negative views given the belief that this would affect customer service. Oppewal et al. (2006) found that not all CSR activities are attractive to consumers. They recommended that retailers focus on one activity. Becker-Olsen (2006) found that if the social initiative done by the company is not aligned with other company goals it will have a negative impact. Mohr et al. (2001) and Groza et al. (2011) also emphasise the importance of reaching the consumer.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Some commentators have identified a difference between the Canadian (Montreal school of CSR), the Continental European, and the Anglo-Saxon approaches to CSR. It has been described that for Chinese consumers a socially responsible company makes safe, high-quality products; for Germans it provides secure employment; in South Africa it makes a positive contribution to social needs such as health care and education. Even within Europe, the discussion about CSR is very heterogeneous.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A more common approach to CSR is corporate philanthropy. This includes monetary donations and aid given to nonprofit organizations and communities. Donations are made in areas such as the arts, education, housing, health, social welfare, and the environment, among others, but excluding political contributions and commercial event sponsorship.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Another approach to CSR is to incorporate the CSR strategy directly into operations, such as procurement of Fair Trade tea and coffee.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Creating shared value, or CSV, is based on the idea that corporate success and social welfare are interdependent. The "Harvard Business Review" article "Strategy & Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility" provided examples of companies that have developed deep linkages between their business strategies and CSR. CSV acknowledges trade-offs between short-term profitability and social or environmental goals, but emphasizes the opportunities for competitive advantage from building a social value proposition into corporate strategy. CSV gives the impression that only two stakeholders are important – shareholders and consumers.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Many companies employ benchmarking to assess their CSR policy, implementation, and effectiveness. Benchmarking involves reviewing competitor initiatives, as well as measuring and evaluating the impact that those policies have on society and the environment, and how others perceive competitor CSR strategy.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In competitive markets, the cost-benefit analysis of CSR initiatives can be examined using a resource-based view (RBV). According to Barney (1990), "formulation of the RBV, sustainable competitive advantage requires that resources be valuable (V), rare (R), inimitable (I) and non-substitutable (S)." A firm introducing a CSR-based strategy might only sustain high returns on their investment if their CSR-based strategy could not be copied (I). However, should competitors imitate such a strategy, that might increase overall social benefits? Firms that choose CSR for strategic financial gain are also acting responsibly.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: RBV presumes that firms are bundles of heterogeneous resources and capabilities that are imperfectly mobile across firms. This imperfect mobility can produce competitive advantages for firms that acquire immobile resources. McWilliams and Siegel (2001) examined CSR activities and attributes as a differentiation strategy. They concluded that managers could determine the appropriate level of investment in CSR by conducting cost-benefit analysis in the same way that they analyze other investments. Reinhardt (1998) found that a firm engaging in a CSR-based strategy could only sustain an abnormal return if it could prevent competitors from imitating its strategy.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The relationship between corporate social responsibility and a firm's corporate financial performance is a phenomenon that is being explored in a variety of research studies that are being conducted across the world. Based on these research studies, including those conducted by Sang Jun Cho, Chune Young Chung, and Jason Young, a positive relationship exists between a firm's corporate social responsibility policies and corporate financial performance. To investigate this relationship, the researchers conducted a regression analysis and preceded the analysis with the provision of several measures that they utilized to serve as proxies for key financial performance indicators (i.e. return on assets serves as a proxy for profitability).


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Initially, CSR emphasized the official behaviour of individual firms. Later, it expanded to include supplier behaviour, the uses to which products were put, and how articles were disposed of after they lost value. Malcolm McIntosh notes also that focussing on the identifiable behaviour of individual businesses risks not including what he calls ""unincorporated" market behaviour" within the scope of CSR - actions attributable to market processes, and also calls for other factors including "brand citizenship" and "illegitimate, informal or illegal activity" to be considered as part of a more complete picture.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The term "brand citizenship" has been put forward because the public perception of an organisation may be associated with its branding rather than its corporate identity: McIntosh uses Virgin as an example. Similarly, Anne Bahr Thompson uses the same term and observes that companies adopting socially responsible behaviours are primarilly investing in their reputations.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In the 21st century, corporate social responsibility in the supply chain has attracted attention from businesses and stakeholders. A corporations' supply chain is the process by which several organizations, including suppliers, customers, and logistics providers work together to provide a value package of products and services to the end-user, who is the customer.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Corporate social irresponsibility in the supply chain has greatly affected the reputation of companies, leading to a lot of costs to solve the problems. For instance, incidents like the 2013 Savar building collapse, which killed over 1000 people, pushed companies to consider the impacts of their operations on society and the environment. On the other hand, the horsemeat scandal of 2013 in Europe affected many food retailers, including Tesco, the largest retailer in the United Kingdom, leading to the dismissal of the supplier. Corporate social irresponsibility from both the suppliers and the retailers has greatly affected the stakeholders who lost trust in the affected business entities, and although sometimes it is not directly undertaken by the companies, they become accountable to the stakeholders. These surrounding issues have prompted supply chain management to consider the corporate social responsibility context. Wieland and Handfield (2013) suggested that companies need to include social responsibility in their reviews of component quality. They highlighted the use of technology in improving visibility across the supply chain.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: All six of the corporate initiatives are forms of corporate citizenship. However, only some of these CSR activities rise to the level of cause marketing, defined as "a type of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in which a company's promotional campaign has the dual purpose of increasing profitability while bettering society."


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Companies generally do not have a profit motive when participating in corporate philanthropy and community volunteering. On the other hand, the remaining corporate social initiatives can be examples of cause marketing, in which there is both a societal interest and profit motive.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: CSR may be based within the human resources, business development or public relations departments of an organisation, or may be a separate unit reporting to the CEO or the board of directors.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: An engagement plan can assist in reaching the desired audience. A corporate social responsibility individual or team plans the goals and objectives of the organization. As with any corporate activity, a defined budget demonstrates commitment and scales the program's relative importance.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Social accounting is the communication of social and environmental effects of a company's economic actions to particular interest groups within society and to society at large.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Social accounting emphasizes the notion of corporate accountability. Crowther defines social accounting as "an approach to reporting a firm's activities which stresses the need for the identification of socially relevant behavior, the determination of those to whom the company is accountable for its social performance and the development of appropriate measures and reporting techniques."


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Reporting guidelines and standards serve as frameworks for social accounting, auditing, and reporting:


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In nations such as France, legal requirements for social accounting, auditing and reporting exist, though international or national agreement on meaningful measurements of social and environmental performance has not been achieved. Many companies produce externally audited annual reports that cover Sustainable Development and CSR issues ("Triple Bottom Line Reports"), but the reports vary widely in format, style, and evaluation methodology (even within the same industry). Critics dismiss these reports as lip service, citing examples such as Enron's yearly "Corporate Responsibility Annual Report" and tobacco companies' social reports.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In South Africa, as of June 2010, all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) were required to produce an integrated report in place of an annual financial report and sustainability report. An integrated report reviews environmental, social, and economic performance alongside financial performance. This requirement was implemented in the absence of formal or legal standards. An Integrated Reporting Committee (IRC) was established to issue guidelines for good practice.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: One of the reputable institutions that capital markets turn to for credible sustainability reports is the Carbon Disclosure Project, or CDP.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Corporate social responsibility and its resulting reports and efforts should be verified by the consumer of the goods and services. The accounting, auditing, and reporting resources provide a foundation for consumers to verify that their products are socially sustainable. Due to an increased awareness of the need for CSR, many industries have their own verification resources. They include organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council (paper and forest products), International Cocoa Initiative, and Kimberly Process (diamonds). The United Nations Global Compact provides frameworks not only for verification, but also for reporting human rights violations in corporate supply chains.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The rise of ethics training inside corporations, some of it required by government regulation, has helped CSR to spread. Such training aims to help employees make ethical decisions when the answers are unclear. The most direct benefit is reducing the likelihood of "dirty hands", fines, and damaged reputations for breaching laws or moral norms. Organizations see increased employee loyalty and pride in the organization.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Social License to Operate can be determined as contractual grounds for the legitimacy of activities and projects a company is involved in. It refers to the level of support and approval of a company's activities by its stakeholders. Displaying commitment to CSR is one way to achieve a social license, by enhancing a company's reputation.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: As stated in "Enduring value:" the Australian minerals industry framework for sustainable development the concept of the 'social license to operate', then defined simply as obtaining and maintaining broad community support and acceptance. Unless a company earns and maintains that license social license holders may intend to block project developments; employees may leave the company for a company that is a better corporate citizen: and companies may be under ongoing legal challenge.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In research of Requisite Organization, Elliott Jaques defines Social License to Operate for the company as the social contract the company has with the social license holders (employees, trade unions, communities, government) for them to manifest positive intention to support the business short- and long-term objectives by "providing managerial leadership that nurtures the social good and also gives the foundation for sustainable growth in organizational results."


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The primary objective for the companies is to obtain and maintain the Social License to Operate. Based on the Requisite Organization to achieve this goal a company needs to:


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Although a positive relationship has been shown to exist between CSR and a firm's corporate financial performance, results from these analyses may need to be examined under different lenses for emerging and developed economies, especially since firms based in emerging economies oftentimes have weak firm-level governance.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: For companies operating in emerging markets, engaging in CSR practices enables widespread reach into a variety of outside markets, an improved reputation, and stakeholder relationships. In all cases (emerging markets vs. developed economies), implementing CSR policies into the daily activities and framework of a company has been shown to allow for a competitive advantage versus other companies, including the creation of a positive image for the company, improved stakeholder relationships, increased employee morale, and attraction of new consumers who are committed to social responsibility. Despite all of the benefits, it is important to note that several drawbacks exist, including possible accusations of hypocrisy, the difficulty of measuring the social impact of CSR policies, and oftentimes placing companies at a disadvantage against competitors when prioritizing CSR ahead of advancing a company's R&D.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A large body of literature exhorts businesses to adopt non-financial measures of success (e.g., Deming's Fourteen Points, balanced scorecards). While CSR benefits are hard to quantify, Orlitzky, Schmidt and Rynes found a correlation between social/environmental performance and financial performance.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: "Planet" refers to sustainable environmental practices. Profit is the economic value created by the organization after deducting the cost of all inputs, including the cost of the capital (unlike accounting definitions of profit).


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Overall, trying to balance economic, ecological, and social goals is at the heart of the triple bottom line.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: This measure was claimed to help some companies be more conscious of their social and moral responsibilities. However, critics claim that it is selective and substitutes a company's perspective for that of the community. Another criticism is about the absence of a standard auditing procedure.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The term was coined by John Elkington in 1994 who re-evaluated it in 2018 and called for more urgent action toward sustainability


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A CSR program can be an aid to recruitment and retention, particularly within the competitive graduate student market. Potential recruits often consider a firm's CSR policy. CSR can also help improve the perception of a company among its staff, particularly when staff can become involved through payroll giving, fundraising activities, or community volunteering. CSR has been credited with encouraging customer orientation among customer-facing employees.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: CSR is known for impacting employee turnover. Several executives suggest that employees are their most valuable asset and that the ability to retain them leads to organizational success. Socially responsible activities promote fairness, which in turn generates lower employee turnover. On the other hand, if irresponsible behavior is demonstrated by a firm, employees may view this behavior as negative. Proponents argue that treating employees well with competitive pay and good benefits is seen as socially responsible behavior and therefore reduces employee turnover. Executives have a strong desire for building a positive work context that benefits CSR and the company as a whole. This interest is driven particularly by the realization that a positive work environment can result in desirable outcomes such as more favorable job attitudes and increased work performance.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed 250 business leaders worldwide in 2008. The survey showed that businesses have assimilated a much more strategic view with 68% of companies utilizing CSR as an opportunity and part of a sustainable growth strategy. Developing and implementing a CSR strategy represents a unique opportunity to benefit the company. However, only 31% of businesses surveyed engaged their employees on the company's CSR objectives and initiatives. Employee engagement on CSR initiatives can be a powerful recruitment and retention tool. Moreover, employees tend to avoid employers with a bad reputation.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Managing risk is an important executive responsibility. Reputations that take decades to build up can be ruined in hours through corruption scandals or environmental accidents. These situations draw unwanted attention from regulators, courts, governments, and the media. CSR can limit these risks.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Sustainability is key to resilience across value chains. As companies prefer working with long-lasting partners, those that have implemented CSR practices will be preferred over ones that have not in order to minimize reputational as well as other damages. High levels of CSR compliance within supply chains (including Tier 1 and beyond) will also help reduce vulnerabilities and eliminate environmental, social, and economic risks through implementing a sustainability-focused procurement strategy.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: With effective CSR policies, a company is better situated to mitigate legislative and legal risks through complying with emerging CSR-related laws and regulations, preempting costly lawsuits and non-compliance actions, and addressing sources of non-compliance by fostering corporate alignment around the relevant issues.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: CSR can enhance a brand's reputation by "inducing a desire to support and help the company that has acted to benefit consumers". In this way, CSR serves to enhance brand perceptions, which can lead to positive product evaluations, though this effect is dependent upon a variety of factors, including the degree to which consumers value close relationships or believe that the CSR initiative is self-serving, whether the CSR program may be perceived to negatively affect product quality, consumers' consumption-related goals (i.e., whether their consumption is socially versus product-motivated), or consumers' attributions toward the motives of the CSR endeavor.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Some companies use their commitment to CSR as their primary positioning tool, e.g., The Co-operative Group, The Body Shop, and American Apparel. Others use CSR methodologies as a strategic tactic to gain public support for their presence in global markets, helping them sustain a competitive advantage by using their social contributions as another form of advertising.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Companies that operate strong CSR activities tend to drive customers' attention to buy products or services regardless of the price. As a result, this increases competition among firms since customers are aware of the company's CSR practices. These initiatives serve as a potential differentiator because they not only add value to the company, but also to the products or services. Furthermore, firms under intense competition are able to leverage CSR to increase the impact of their distribution on the firm's performance. Lowering the carbon footprint of a firm's distribution network or engaging in fair trade are potential differentiators to lower costs and increase profits. In this scenario, customers can observe the company's commitment to CSR while increasing company sales.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Whole Foods' marketing and promotion of organic foods have had a positive effect on the supermarket industry. Proponents assert that Whole Foods has been able to work with its suppliers to improve animal treatment and the quality of meat offered in their stores. They also promote local agriculture in over 2,400 independent farms to maintain their line of sustainable organic produce. As a result, Whole Foods' high prices do not turn customers away from shopping. They are pleased to buy organic products that come from sustainable practices.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A "Harvard Business Review" article proposes three stages of practice in which CSR can be divided. Stage one focuses on philanthropy, which includes donations of money or equipment to non-profit organizations, engagement with communities' initiatives, and employee volunteering. This is characterized as the "soul" of a company, expressing the social and environmental priorities of the founders. The authors assert that companies engage in CSR because they are an integral part of society. The Coca-Cola Company contributes $88.1 million annually to a variety of environmental educational and humanitarian organizations. Another example is PNC Financial Services' "Grow Up Great" childhood education program. This program provides critical school readiness resources to underserved communities where PNC operates.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: On the other hand, stage two focuses on improving operational effectiveness in the workplace. The researchers assert that programs in this stage strive to deliver social or environmental benefits to support a company's operation across the value chain by improving efficiency. Some of the examples include sustainability initiatives to reduce resource use, waste, and emission that could potentially reduce costs. It also calls for investing in employee work conditions such as health care and education, which may enhance productivity and retention. Unlike philanthropic giving, which is evaluated by its social and environmental return, initiatives in the second stage are predicted to improve the corporate bottom line with social value. Bimbo, the largest bakery in Mexico, is an excellent example of this. The company strives to meet social welfare needs. It offers free educational services to help employees complete high school. Bimbo also provides supplementary medical care and financial assistance to close gaps in the government's health coverage.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Moreover, the third stage program aims to transform the business model. Basically, companies create new forms of business to address social or environmental challenges that will lead to financial returns in the long run. One example can be seen in Unilever's Project Shakti in India. The authors describe that the company hires women in villages and provides them with micro-finance loans to sell soaps, oils, detergents, and other products door-to-door. This research indicates that more than 65,000 women entrepreneurs are doubling their incomes while increasing rural access and hygiene in Indian villages. Another example is IKEA's "People and Planet" initiative to be 100% sustainable by 2020. As a consequence, the company wants to introduce a new model to collect and recycle old furniture.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Corporations are keen to avoid interference in their business through taxation or regulations. A CSR program can persuade governments and the public that a company takes health and safety, diversity, and the environment seriously, reducing the likelihood that company practices will be closely monitored.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Appropriate CSR programs can increase the attractiveness of supplier firms to potential customer corporations. For example, a fashion merchandiser may find value in an overseas manufacturer that uses CSR to establish a positive image and to reduce the risks of bad publicity from uncovered misbehavior.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A price-focused procurement strategy has limitations for companies with high CSR expectations. According to Boston Consulting Group, “businesses that are considered leaders in environmental, social and governance criteria have an 11% valuation premium over their competitors.” Such companies look for suppliers who share their social, environmental, and business ethics values, which in turn would trigger common innovations that would attract more customers and generate further value for the whole supply chain for a win-win business relationship through a series of interconnected activities implemented holistically. Furthermore, supplier relations are crucial for a company's CSR profile as 70% of businesses’ social and environmental impacts occur in their supply chain. Through the spillover effect, CSR programs encourage sustainable practices within different industries. Additionally, a CSR-focused supplier relations management improves collaboration with suppliers, increases the satisfaction of customers’ expectations and requirements, expands the market opportunities, enhances investor relations, and promotes the development of more sustainable products. Furthermore, CSR supply chain imperatives can leverage their responsible commitment to forge robust and lasting relationships with important stakeholders and positively influence the decision-making of consumers, partners, investors, and talent. Through constructing this reputational capital, companies have access to earn consumer loyalty, attract top talent, and strengthen employee morale and commitment.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: CSR strategy or behaviors related to CSR was discussed by many scholars in terms of crisis management like responses to boycott in an international context. Ang found that relationship building through providing additional services rather than price-cutting is what businesses in Asia feel more comfortable with as a strategy during an economic crisis. Regarding direct research about strategies in cross-cultural crisis management, scholars found that CSR strategies could make effects through empirical case studies involving multinational businesses in China. They found that meeting local stakeholders' social expectations can mitigate the risk of crises. The strategy utilized by Arla Foods works and has helped the company in regaining most of its lost market share among many countries in the Middle East. Arla Foods founded funding for children with cancer and they donated ambulances to refugees in Lebanon. As Arla Foods did, they tried to contribute to solving social problems of children's access to health care which were local priorities. Other researchers analyzed the case of multinational enterprise strategies under the context of conflicts between Lebanon and Israel. During the conflict, many companies stressed seeking to help the local community. In the post-conflict stage, managers highlighted their philanthropic programs and contributions, in terms of monetary in-kind donations to the refugees or businesses that were directly affected. For example, Citibank has provided monetary assistance to some local businesses affected by the war. Another activity done by a Lebanon company was a fund-raising campaign.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Milton Friedman and others argued that a corporation's purpose is to maximize returns to its shareholders and that obeying the laws of the jurisdictions within which it operates constitutes socially responsible behavior. Friedman argued each person should be free to spend their own money on social causes if they wished, but that business owners should avoid putting a "tax" on consumers as "unwitting puppets" of socialism by raising prices to support business practices with social goals unrelated to profit.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: While some CSR supporters claim that companies practicing CSR, especially in developing countries, are less likely to exploit workers and communities, critics claim that CSR itself imposes outside values on local communities with unpredictable outcomes.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Better governmental regulation and enforcement, rather than voluntary measures, are an alternative to CSR that moves decision-making and resource allocation from public to private bodies. However, critics claim that effective CSR must be voluntary as mandatory social responsibility programs regulated by the government interferes with people's plans and preferences, distorts the allocation of resources, and increases the likelihood of irresponsible decisions.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Some critics believe that CSR programs are undertaken by companies to distract the public from ethical questions posed by their core operations. They argue that the reputational benefits that CSR companies receive (cited above as a benefit to the corporation) demonstrate the hypocrisy of the approach. Moreover, some studies find that CSR programs are motivated by corporate managers' personal interests at the cost of the shareholders so they are a type of an agency problem in corporations.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Others have argued that the primary purpose of CSR is to provide legitimacy to the power of businesses. As wealth inequality is perceived to be increasing it has become increasingly necessary for businesses to justify their position of power.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Joel Bakan is one of the prominent critics of the conflict of interest between private profit and a public good characterizing corporate officials of publicly listed corporations are constrained by law to maximize the wealth of their shareholders. This argument is summarised by Haynes that "a corporate calculus exists in which costs are pushed onto both workers, consumers and the environment". CSR spending may be seen in these financial terms, whereby the higher costs of socially undesirable behaviour are offset by a CSR spending of a lower amount. Indeed, it has been argued that there is a "halo effect" in terms of CSR spending. Research has found that firms that had been convicted of bribery in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) received more lenient fines if they had been seen to be actively engaging in comprehensive CSR practices. It was found that typically either a 20% increase in corporate giving or a commitment to eradicating a significant labour issue, such as child labour, was equated to a 40% lower fine in the case of bribing foreign officials.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Aguinis and Glavas conducted a comprehensive review of CSR literature, covering 700 academic sources from numerous fields including organizational behaviour, corporate strategy, marketing, and HRM. It was found that the primary reason for firms to engage in CSR was the expected financial benefits associated with CSR, rather than being motivated by a desire to be responsible to society. Consistent with this analysis, consumers respond less favorably to CSR initiatives that they believe are tainted with self-serving motives".


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: CEOs' political ideologies are evident manifestations of their different personal views. Each CEO may exercise different powers according to their organizational outcomes. Their political ideologies are expected to influence their preferences for CSR outcomes. Proponents argue that politically liberal CEOs will envision the practice of CSR as beneficial and desirable to increase a firm's reputation. They tend to focus more on how the firm can meet the needs of society. As a consequence, they will advance with the practice of CSR while adding value to the firm. On the other hand, property rights may be more relevant to conservative CEOs. Since conservatives tend to value free markets, individualism, and the call for respect of authority, they will not likely envision this practice as often as those identifying as liberals might.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The financials of the company and the practice of CSR also have a positive relationship. Moreover, the performance of a company tends to influence conservatives more likely than liberals. While not seeing it from the financial performance point of view, liberals tend to hold a view that CSR adds to the business's triple bottom line. For example, when the company is performing well, it will most likely promote CSR. If the company is not performing as expected, they will rather tend to emphasize this practice because it will potentially envision it as a way to add value to the business. In contrast, politically conservative CEOs will tend to support the practice of CSR if they hold a view that it will provide a good return to the financials of the company. In other words, these types of executives tend to not see the outcome of CSR as a value to the company if it does not provide anything in exchange.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: There have been unsubstantiated social efforts, ethical claims, and outright greenwashing by some companies that have resulted in increasing consumer cynicism and mistrust. Sometimes companies use CSR to direct public attention away from other, harmful business practices. For example, McDonald's Corporation positioned its association with Ronald McDonald House and other children's charities as CSR while its meals have been accused of promoting poor eating habits.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Acts that may initially appear to be altruistic CSR may have ulterior motives. The funding of scientific research projects has been used as a source of misdirection by firms. Stanley B. Prusiner, who discovered the protein responsible for Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) and won the 1997 Nobel prize in Medicine, thanked the tobacco company RJ Reynolds for their crucial support. RJ Reynolds funded the research into CJD. Proctor states that "the tobacco industry was the leading funder of research into genetics, viruses, immunology, air pollution", anything which formed a distraction from the well-established research linking smoking and cancer.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Research has also found that corporate social marketing, a form of CSR promoting societal good, is being used to direct criticism away from the damaging practices of the alcohol industry. It has been shown that advertisements that supposedly encourage responsible drinking simultaneously aim to promote drinking as a social norm. Companies may engage in CSR and social marketing, in this case, to prevent more stringent government legislation on alcohol marketing.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Industries such as tobacco, alcohol, or munitions firms make products that damage their consumers or the environment. Such firms may engage in the same philanthropic activities as those in other industries. This duality complicates assessments of such firms concerning CSR.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: To fully observe the impact of corporate social responsibility practices on a firm's corporate financial performance, it is important to delve into a concrete example, such as the study conducted by researchers from the Global Conference on Business, Economics, Management, and Tourism. In this study, Mocan, Draghici, Ivascu, and Turi examined the correlation between CSR policies and value creation/financial performance in the banking industry specifically and found that various benefits include greater economic efficiency, improved company reputation, and employee loyalty, better communication streamline between the industry and individuals, and the opportunity to attract new opportunities (i.e. attract new investments, or remain competitive) and improve organizational commitment. However, before discussing these effects, the researchers preceded the analysis by stating that typically implementing CSR and other ethical principles within the framework of a financial institution such as banks make it seem as if these are marketing tools for attracting and communicating with stakeholders rather than serving as tools that afford banks and other financial institutions the opportunity to benefit the individuals that they serve. Another interesting case study is provided by Schreuder (2022) who discusses the evolution of CSR at DSM


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: One motivation for corporations to adopt CSR is to satisfy stakeholders beyond those of a corporation's shareholders.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Branco and Rodrigues (2007) describe the stakeholder perspective of CSR as the set of views of corporate responsibility held by all groups or constituents with a relationship to the firm. In their normative model, the company accepts these views as long as they do not hinder the organization. The stakeholder perspective fails to acknowledge the complexity of network interactions that can occur in cross-sector partnerships. It relegates communication to a maintenance function, similar to the exchange perspective.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The rise in popularity of ethical consumerism over the last two decades can be linked to the rise of CSR. Consumers are becoming more aware of the environmental and social implications of their day-to-day consumption decisions and in some cases make purchasing decisions related to their environmental and ethical concerns.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: One issue with the consumer's relationship with CSR is that it is much more complex than it first appears. This phenomenon could be described as the "CSR-Consumer Paradox" or mismatch that occurs where consumers report that they would only buy from companies with good social responsibility. Many consumers want to buy from responsible companies, but surveys indicate an "ethical purchases" are a small percentage of household expenditures. The discrepancy between consumer beliefs and intentions, and actual consumer behaviour, means CSR has a much lesser impact than consumers initially say it does.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: One theory for explaining this discrepancy is the "bystander apathy" or the bystander effect. This theory stems from social psychology and states that the likelihood of an individual acting in a given situation is greatly reduced if other bystanders do nothing even if that individual strongly believes in a certain course of action. It would suggest an "If they do not care then why should I?" mentality. Even if a consumer is against the use of sweatshops or wants to support green causes, they may continue to make purchases from companies that are socially irresponsible just because other consumers seem apathetic towards the issue.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Another explanation is that of reciprocal altruism. In the evolutionary psychology of human behaviour: people only do something if they can get something back in return. In the case of CSR and ethical consumerism, however, consumers get very little in return for their investment. Ethically sourced or manufactured products are typically higher in price due to greater costs. However, the reward for consumers is not much different from that of a non-ethical counterpart. Therefore, evolutionary speaking making an ethical purchase is not worth the higher cost to the individual even if they believe in supporting ethically, environmentally, and socially beneficial causes.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Shareholders and investors, through socially responsible investing (SRI), are using their capital to encourage behavior they consider responsible. However, definitions of what constitutes ethical behavior vary. For example, some religious investors in the US have withdrawn investment from companies that violate their religious views, while secular investors divest from companies that they see as imposing religious views on workers or customers.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Some national governments promote socially and environmentally responsible corporate practices. The heightened role of government in CSR has facilitated the development of numerous CSR programs and policies. Various European governments have pushed companies to develop sustainable corporate practices. CSR critics such as Robert Reich argued that governments should set the agenda for social responsibility with laws and regulations that describe how to conduct business responsibly.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Collective bargaining is a way nations promote CSR. In Germany, CSR is kept at the industry level instead of the workplace; this has been viewed as one of the strengths of the German government's push for CPR. Germany also established the German Trade Union Confederation in 1949 to further advance CSR; the confederation represents the interests of 45 million workers in Germany. Job security, wage increases with industry growth are key aspects of collective bargaining in the German labor system.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: There is a higher percentage of workers in unions in countries like Sweden and Iceland which have more Social-Democratic elements in their Nordic Model than the U.S. and the U.K.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The U.S. and the U.K are Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) and the German economy falls under Coordinated Market Economy (CMEs) which are Varieties of Capitalism. In comparison with the U.S. that covers 25.5% of its blue and white-collar workforce under collective bargaining and the U.K. that covers 29% of its workforce, Germany covers a significantly higher 57% of its workforce under collective bargaining.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Fifteen European Union countries are actively engaged in CSR regulation and public policy development. CSR efforts and policies are different among countries, responding to the complexity and diversity of governmental, corporate, and societal roles. Some studies have claimed that the role and effectiveness of these actors were case-specific. This variety among company approaches to CSR can complicate regulatory processes.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Canada adopted CSR in 2007. Prime Minister Harper encouraged Canadian mining companies to meet Canada's newly developed CSR standards.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The 'Heilbronn Declaration' is a voluntary agreement of enterprises and institutions in Germany especially of the Heilbronn-Franconia region signed on 15 September 2012. The approach of the 'Heilbronn Declaration' targets the decisive factors of success or failure, the achievements of the implementation, and best practices regarding CSR. A form of responsible entrepreneurship shall be initiated to meet the requirements of stakeholders' trust in the economy. It is an approach to make voluntary commitments more binding.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In opposition to mandated CSR regulation, researchers Armstrong and Green suggest that all regulation is "harmful", citing regulation as the cause for North Korea's low economic freedom and per capita GDP. They further claim without source that "There is no form of market failure, however egregious, which is not eventually made worse by the political interventions intended to fix it," and conclude "there is no need for further research on regulation in the name of social responsibility."


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In the 1800s, the US government could take away a firm's license if it acted irresponsibly. Corporations were viewed as "creatures of the state" under the law. In 1819, the United States Supreme Court in "Dartmouth College vs. Woodward" established a corporation as a legal person in specific contexts. This ruling allowed corporations to be protected under the Constitution and prevented states from regulating firms. Countries have included CSR policies in government agendas.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: On 16 December 2008, the Danish parliament adopted a bill making it mandatory for the 1100 largest Danish companies, investors, and state-owned companies to include CSR information in their financial reports. The reporting requirements became effective on 1 January 2009. The required information included:


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: CSR/SRI is voluntary in Denmark, but if a company has no policy on this it must state its positioning on CSR in financial reports.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: In 1995, item S50K of the Income Tax Act of Mauritius mandated that companies registered in Mauritius pay 2% of their annual book profit to contribute to the social and environmental development of the country. In 2014, India also enacted a mandatory minimum CSR spending law. Under Companies Act, 2013, any company having a net worth of 500 crore or more or a turnover of 1,000 crore or a net profit of 5 crore must spend 2% of their net profits on CSR activities. The rules came into effect on 1 April 2014.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The only mandatory CSR Act in the world thus far was passed by the Indian parliament in 2013 as Section 135 of the Companies Act. According to that bill, all firms with a net worth above 5 billion rupees (approx. $75 million), turnover over 10 billion rupees (approx. $150 million), or net profit over 50 million rupees (approx. $750,000) are required to spend at least 2% of their annual profits (averaged over three years). The Act requires that all businesses affected establish a CSR committee to oversee the spending. Before this law's passage, CSR laws applied only to public sector companies.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Unlike global definitions of CSR which are in the triple bottom line, corporate citizenship, sustainable business, business responsibility, and closed-loop realm, in India CSR is a philanthropic activity. What has changed since formalizing it in 2014 is the shift in focus from institution building (schools, hospitals, etc.) to focus on community development.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Crises have encouraged the adoption of CSR. The CERES principles were adopted following the 1989 "Exxon Valdez" incident. Other examples include the lead paint used by toymaker Mattel, which required the recall of millions of toys and caused the company to initiate new risk management and quality control processes. Magellan Metals was found responsible for lead contamination killing thousands of birds in Australia. The company ceased business immediately and had to work with independent regulatory bodies to execute a cleanup. Odwalla experienced a crisis with sales dropping 90% and its stock price dropping 34% due to cases of "E. coli". The company recalled all apple or carrot juice products and introduced a new process called "flash pasteurization", as well as maintaining lines of communication constantly open with customers.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Corporations that employ CSR behaviors do not always behave consistently in all parts of the world. Conversely, a single behavior may not be considered ethical in all jurisdictions. E.g., some jurisdictions forbid women from driving, while others require women to be treated equally in employment decisions.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The European Commission presented a green paper for the European Communities, as the EU was then called, "promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility" in 2001. In that document CSR was defined as By 2011, the Commission recognised a "strategic approach" to CSR as "increasingly important too the competitiveness of enterprises". Believing that enterprises can "significantly contribute to the European Union's treaty objectives of sustainable development and a highly competitive social market economy", therefore presented a revised strategy in October 2011, "A renewed EU strategy 2011–14 for Corporate Social Responsibility". In this document, CSR was defined more briefly as In parallel with CSR, the alternative term "responsible business conduct" (RBC) introduced by the OECD (see OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises) was also adopted. No longer treating CSR as a "voluntary" or is some sense "additional" aspect of managing an enterprise, the commission now stated that Actions planned under the 2011–2014 agenda were aimed at:


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Subsequently, the Commission published a staff working document in March 2019 which looks at progress in implementing CSR/RBC and business and human rights.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: A 2006 study found that the UK retail sector showed the greatest rate of CSR involvement. Many of the big retail companies in the UK joined the Ethical Trading Initiative, an association established to improve working conditions and worker health.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Tesco (2013) reported that their 'essentials' are 'Trading responsibility', 'Reducing our Impact on the Environment', 'Being a Great Employer' and 'Supporting Local Communities'. J Sainsbury employs the headings 'Best for food and health', 'Sourcing with integrity', 'Respect for our environment', 'Making a difference to our community', and 'A great place to work', etc. The four main issues to which UK retail companies are committed: environment, social welfare, ethical trading, and becoming an attractive workplace.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: Anselmsson and Johansson (2007) assessed three areas of CSR performance: human responsibility, product responsibility, and environmental responsibility. Martinuzzi et al. described the terms, writing that human responsibility is "the company deals with suppliers who adhere to principles of natural and good breeding and farming of animals, and also maintains fair and positive working conditions and workplace environments for their employees. Product responsibility means that all products come with a full and complete list of content, that country of origin is stated, that the company will uphold its declarations of intent and assume liability for its products. Environmental responsibility means that a company is perceived to produce environmental-friendly, ecological, and non-harmful products". Jones et al. (2005) found that environmental issues are the most commonly reported CSR programs among top retailers.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: An article published in Forbes.com in September 2017 mentioned the yearly study of Boston-based reputation management consulting company Reputation Institute (RI) which rates the top 10 US corporations in terms of corporate social responsibility. RI monitors social responsibility reputations by focusing on the perception of consumers regarding company governance, positive impact on the community and society, and treatment of the workforce. It rates each criterion with the firm's proprietary RepTrak Pulse platform. Forbes identified companies like Lego, Microsoft, Google, Walt Disney Company, BMW Group, Intel, Robert Bosch, Cisco Systems, Rolls-Royce Aerospace, and Colgate-Palmolive.


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: According to the CSR Journal, the millennial generation worldwide helps propel brands toward social responsibility. Many millennials want to conduct business with companies and trademarks that employ pro-social themes, sustainable manufacturing processes, and ethical business practices. Nielsen Holdings published its Annual Global Corporate Sustainability Report in 2017 concentrating on global responsibility as well as sustainability. Nielsen's 2015 report showed that 66 percent of consumers will spend more on products that come from sustainable brands. Another 81 percent expect their preferred corporate institutions to reveal in public their statements about corporate citizenship


title: Corporate social responsibility

text: The National Association on the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) through its chief executive officer Derrick Johnson shared the organization's insights on how American corporations can help in the realization of social justice. According to the article from Yahoo News, the NAACP has been engaged in a crusade for racial justice and economic opportunities during the last 109 years. This organization believes all citizens in the United States must be held liable in ensuring democracy works for all people.


title: Maple syrup

text: Maple syrup is a syrup made from the sap of maple trees. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring. Maple trees are tapped by drilling holes into their trunks and collecting the sap, which is processed by heating to evaporate much of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup.


title: Maple syrup

text: Maple syrup was first made by the Indigenous peoples of North America. The practice was adopted by European settlers, who gradually changed production methods. Technological improvements in the 1970s further refined syrup processing. Virtually all of the world's maple syrup is produced in Canada and the United States. The Canadian province of Quebec is the largest producer, responsible for 70 percent of the world's output; Canadian exports of maple syrup in 2016 were C$487 million (about US$360 million), with Quebec accounting for some 90 percent of this total.


title: Maple syrup

text: Maple syrup is graded based on its colour and taste. Sucrose is the most prevalent sugar in maple syrup. In Canada, syrups must be made exclusively from maple sap to qualify as maple syrup and must also be at least 66 percent sugar. In the United States, a syrup must be made almost entirely from maple sap to be labelled as "maple", though states such as Vermont and New York have more restrictive definitions.


title: Maple syrup

text: Maple syrup is often used as a condiment for pancakes, waffles, French toast, oatmeal, or porridge. It is also used as an ingredient in baking and as a sweetener or flavouring agent. Culinary experts have praised its unique flavour, although the chemistry responsible is not fully understood.


title: Maple syrup

text: Three species of maple ("Acer") trees are predominantly used to produce maple syrup: the sugar maple ("Acer saccharum"), the black maple ("A. nigrum"), and the red maple ("A. rubrum"), because of the high sugar content (roughly two to five percent) in the sap of these species. The black maple is included as a subspecies or variety in a more broadly viewed concept of "A. saccharum", the sugar maple, by some botanists. Of these, the red maple has a shorter season because it buds earlier than sugar and black maples, which alters the flavour of the sap.


title: Maple syrup

text: A few other species of maple are also sometimes used as sources of sap for producing maple syrup, including the box elder or Manitoba maple ("Acer negundo"), the silver maple ("A. saccharinum"), and the bigleaf maple ("A. macrophyllum"). In the Southeastern United States, Florida sugar maple ("Acer floridanum") is occasionally used for maple syrup production.


title: Maple syrup

text: Indigenous peoples living in northeastern North America were the first groups known to have produced maple syrup and maple sugar. According to Indigenous oral traditions, as well as archaeological evidence, maple tree sap was being processed into syrup long before Europeans arrived in the region. There are no authenticated accounts of how maple syrup production and consumption began, but various legends exist; one of the most popular involves maple sap being used in place of water to cook venison served to a chief. Indigenous tribes developed rituals around sugar-making, celebrating the Sugar Moon (the first full moon of spring) with a Maple Dance. Many aboriginal dishes replaced the salt traditional in European cuisine with maple sugar or syrup.


title: Maple syrup

text: The Algonquians recognized maple sap as a source of energy and nutrition. At the beginning of the spring thaw, they made V-shaped incisions in tree trunks; they then inserted reeds or concave pieces of bark to run the sap into clay buckets or tightly woven birch-bark baskets. The maple sap was concentrated first by leaving it exposed to the cold temperatures overnight and disposing of the layer of ice that formed on top. Following that, the sap was transported by sled to large fires where it was boiled in clay pots to produce maple syrup. Often, multiple pots were used in conjunction, with the liquid being transferred between them as it grew more concentrated. Contrary to popular belief, syrup was not produced by dropping heated stones into wooden bowls.


title: Maple syrup

text: In the early stages of European colonization in northeastern North America, local Indigenous peoples showed the arriving colonists how to tap the trunks of certain types of maples during the spring thaw to harvest the sap. André Thevet, the "Royal Cosmographer of France", wrote about Jacques Cartier drinking maple sap during his Canadian voyages. By 1680, European settlers and fur traders were involved in harvesting maple products. However, rather than making incisions in the bark, the Europeans used the method of drilling tapholes in the trunks with augers. Prior to the 19th century, processed maple sap was used primarily as a source of concentrated sugar, in both liquid and crystallized-solid form, as cane sugar had to be imported from the West Indies.


title: Maple syrup

text: Maple sugaring parties typically began to operate at the start of the spring thaw in regions of woodland with sufficiently large numbers of maples. Syrup makers first bored holes in the trunks, usually more than one hole per large tree; they then inserted wooden spouts into the holes and hung a wooden bucket from the protruding end of each spout to collect the sap. The buckets were commonly made by cutting cylindrical segments from a large tree trunk and then hollowing out each segment's core from one end of the cylinder, creating a seamless, watertight container. Sap filled the buckets, and was then either transferred to larger holding vessels (barrels, large pots, or hollowed-out wooden logs), often mounted on sledges or wagons pulled by draft animals, or carried in buckets or other convenient containers. The sap-collection buckets were returned to the spouts mounted on the trees, and the process was repeated for as long as the flow of sap remained "sweet". The specific weather conditions of the thaw period were, and still are, critical in determining the length of the sugaring season. As the weather continues to warm, a maple tree's normal early spring biological process eventually alters the taste of the sap, making it unpalatable, perhaps due to an increase in amino acids.


title: Maple syrup

text: The boiling process was very time-consuming. The harvested sap was transported back to the party's base camp, where it was then poured into large vessels (usually made from metal) and boiled to achieve the desired consistency. The sap was usually transported using large barrels pulled by horses or oxen to a central collection point, where it was processed either over a fire built out in the open or inside a shelter built for that purpose (the "sugar shack").


title: Maple syrup

text: Around the time of the American Civil War (1861–1865), syrup makers started using large, flat sheet metal pans as they were more efficient for boiling than heavy, rounded iron kettles, because of a greater surface area for evaporation. Around this time, cane sugar replaced maple sugar as the dominant sweetener in the US; as a result, producers focused marketing efforts on maple syrup. The first evaporator, used to heat and concentrate sap, was patented in 1858. In 1872, an evaporator was developed that featured two pans and a metal arch or firebox, which greatly decreased boiling time. Around 1900, producers bent the tin that formed the bottom of a pan into a series of flues, which increased the heated surface area of the pan and again decreased boiling time. Some producers also added a finishing pan, a separate batch evaporator, as a final stage in the evaporation process.


title: Maple syrup

text: Buckets began to be replaced with plastic bags, which allowed people to see at a distance how much sap had been collected. Syrup producers also began using tractors to haul vats of sap from the trees being tapped (the sugarbush) to the evaporator. Some producers adopted motor-powered tappers and metal tubing systems to convey sap from the tree to a central collection container, but these techniques were not widely used. Heating methods also diversified: modern producers use wood, oil, natural gas, propane, or steam to evaporate sap. Modern filtration methods were perfected to prevent contamination of the syrup.


title: Maple syrup

text: A large number of technological changes took place during the 1970s. Plastic tubing systems that had been experimental since the early part of the century were perfected, and the sap came directly from the tree to the evaporator house. Vacuum pumps were added to the tubing systems, and preheaters were developed to recycle heat lost in the steam. Producers developed reverse-osmosis machines to take a portion of water out of the sap before it was boiled, increasing processing efficiency.


title: Maple syrup

text: Improvements in tubing and vacuum pumps, new filtering techniques, "supercharged" preheaters, and better storage containers have since been developed. Research continues on pest control and improved woodlot management. In 2009, researchers at the University of Vermont unveiled a new type of tap that prevents backflow of sap into the tree, reducing bacterial contamination and preventing the tree from attempting to heal the bore hole. Experiments show that it may be possible to use saplings in a plantation instead of mature trees, dramatically boosting productivity per acre. As a result of the smaller tree diameter, milder diurnal temperature swings are needed for the tree to freeze and thaw, which enables sap production in milder climatic conditions outside of northeastern North America.


title: Maple syrup

text: Open pan evaporation methods have been streamlined since colonial days, but remain basically unchanged. Sap must first be collected and boiled down to obtain syrup. Maple syrup is made by boiling between 20 and 50 volumes of sap (depending on its concentration) over an open fire until 1 volume of syrup is obtained, usually at a temperature over the boiling point of water. As the boiling point of water varies with changes in air pressure the correct value for pure water is determined at the place where the syrup is being produced, each time evaporation is begun and periodically throughout the day. Syrup can be boiled entirely over one heat source or can be drawn off into smaller batches and boiled at a more controlled temperature. Defoamers are often added during boiling.


title: Maple syrup

text: Boiling the syrup is a tightly controlled process, which ensures appropriate sugar content. Syrup boiled too long will eventually crystallize, whereas under-boiled syrup will be watery, and will quickly spoil. The finished syrup has a density of 66° on the Brix scale (a hydrometric scale used to measure sugar solutions). The syrup is then filtered to remove precipitated "sugar sand", crystals made up largely of sugar and calcium malate. These crystals are not toxic, but create a "gritty" texture in the syrup if not filtered out.