CSR Life-Cycle Exploration

During the last century, CSR has developed dynamically from the believe that business is responsible for what transpires in societies—in terms of factors which contribute to social, economic and environmental achievements and with regard to taking sustainable actions which reduce the external negative effects of business operational activities on the environment. Business is also deemed responsible for connecting positively business and society and consolidating relations between parties. Due to CSR’s dynamic nature as a cluster and its contextual dimension, it continues to change society in all ramifications. Since the intention of this chapter was to search for the life-cycle of CSR, it was important to look at the terms that it takes its root from. And so, some key issues in CSR development were outlined, such as corporate responsibility (CR), global sustainability, social responsibility, as well as some of the first definitions of CSR. Next, the visions of CSR as a managerial idea, academic concept and from companies’ perspective, and their features were briefly presented and discussed. Following that, the CSR life-cycle was presented from its initiation as the ideology of social responsibility released in the U.S. in the late 1800s, to the terms of stewardship and trusteeship in the 1920s, going through its turn from practice to theory and theoretical concept between the 1950s and 1960s, to its continuous change in conceptual shape in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s until the present day.