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The Other CSR: Consumer Social Responsibility
May 2006
Authors:
Timothy M. Devinney, AGSM - Contact Author
Pat Auger, Melbourne Business School
Giana Eckhardt, AGSM
Thomas Birtchnell, University of Sydney
What is interesting about the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and the discussions around the nature of civil society, is the extent to which it skirts almost completely the role played by the everyday individual as a worker, consumer, or simply interested or uninterested bystander. Like many political debates it is very easy to lose site of the common man and woman, except as they appear periodically as statistics in a poll or as stereotypical self-interested consumers or downtrodden third world sneaker factory workers. It is our contention that it requires far more for a society to become “civil” or a corporation to become “socially responsible” than for its political or economic leaders to espouse a viewpoint, however noble and high minded and no matter what the source. Corporations and societies become responsible in large part because the average individual understands and acquiesces to the position reflected by social and corporate leaders and will engage in behavior consistent with that belief.
Full report
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