Why should firms achieve strategic CSR?

The current chapter shows that strategic corporate social responsibility (hereafter CSR) drives more pioneering socially responsible initiatives than responsive CSR based on "imitative" activities introduced to meet stakeholders' basic expectations. We conclude that strategic CSR leads to more sustainable financial performance as well as more socially and environmentally responsible innovation. We show that more diversity in top management positions could be a necessary requirement to shape more strategic CSR strategies. We present a critical survey of the literature structured in the following. First, we discuss the main features of CSR strategies and how they have evolved in the last years. Second, we shed light on the puzzled CSR-financial performance association. Then, we focus on the tools provided by strategic CSR to foster innovation potential of businesses and why we should rethink CSR to drive more sustainable innovations. Finally, the chapter discusses how hiring more diverse profiles in top positions could help to get out of the narrow CSR thinking and to go beyond stakeholders' expectations and reports' standards which could provide valuable opportunities to widen the innovation range in businesses through the implementation of more social, organizational and marketing innovations as well as the introduction of new products and processes.