Ethics and CSR in Business: A Review and Future Research

In recent years, corporations increasingly adopt socially responsible business activities, policies, and processes. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in business-related fields such as business administration, human resource development, organizational development, marketing, and so on with the general acknowledgment of its benefits to an organization’s reputation, stockholders, employees, consumers, community, environment, society, and the country at large. This paper aims to present a brief detail of CSR development, the CSR concept, and the counterargument of CSR criticism regarding its role of emphasis on firms’ reputation and redirecting the resources for stockholders. Further, it appears that CSR is generally viewed as an ethical means of business organizations’ strategies, aiming to make a great contribution to society through various kinds of socially responsible activities, initiatives, and practices. The related ethical concepts, three different approaches to CSR in business contexts, and some significant issues for business in CSR; therefore, were briefly discussed. In order to create a better understanding of the role of CSR in business operations in a systemic way, this paper also proposes the four-interrelated step conceptual framework for CSR in business. Interestingly, the ideas for future research on CSR in related topics under the concept of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) and Green Human Resource Development (GHRD), consumer behaviors, stakeholder influence, and corporate reputation were also provided.