Corporate Social Responsibility: A Stakeholder and Process Approach

This paper proposes an integrative perspective on corporate social responsibility by using a stakeholder approach and a process approach. We summarize the previous discussion of corporate social responsibility, categorize them into two versions (i.e., normative corporate social responsibility and instrumental corporate social responsibility), and introduce the stakeholder approach and the process approach. The stakeholder approach suggests that managers should take into account their responsibilities to the stakeholders with which they interact (not just shareholders) when making business decisions, and the process approach claims that corporate decisions should be evaluated by relevant processes as well as outcomes. These approaches can integrate the normative and instrumental concepts of corporate social responsibility.